{"id":25183,"date":"2017-07-14T03:48:14","date_gmt":"2017-07-14T10:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=25183"},"modified":"2017-07-11T22:18:13","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T05:18:13","slug":"telling-our-stories-with-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/07\/14\/telling-our-stories-with-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Telling our stories with food"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Schwartz, director of community engagement at the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, speaks to guests at a Chosen Food Supper Club gathering. (photo from JMABC)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This spring, the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia began airing the podcast The Kitchen Stories<\/em>. The series, which is focused on Jewish food, is the brainchild of Michael Schwartz, the museum\u2019s director of community engagement.<\/p>\n

\u201cA podcast is not so different from a museum exhibit,\u201d said Schwartz in an interview with the Independent<\/em>. \u201cIt is a way to present a story\u2026. It doesn\u2019t have a visual component but, unlike a museum exhibit, people can take a podcast with them, listen to it whenever they have the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

While podcasts have evolved on and from the internet, Schwartz considers the format a renaissance of a much older type of media \u2013 the radio talk show. \u201cLike radio, a podcast is an audio presentation, but on a different technological level. In the past couple of years, there have been some creative and innovative podcasts, and we\u2019re trying to add to their number.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of a food-related podcast came to him after he experimented with a couple of other topics. \u201cMy role at the museum is to make people, both Jews and non-Jews, more aware of our museum. I tried several different themes \u2013 architecture, photography \u2013 but food seems to be universal. Everyone is interested in food, especially in Vancouver. We are a foodie city, so it seemed appropriate to ride that momentum, to let people tell their stories about food. That\u2019s what a museum does: it lets people tell their stories. Ideally, the museum staff should be invisible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kitchen Stories<\/em> concept, as well as the museum\u2019s Chosen Food Supper Club \u2013 a dinner series where people meet each other, learn about and enjoy the food being served \u2013 crystallized for Schwartz simultaneously. \u201cWe started the podcasts a bit earlier, in March, and the supper club in April\u2026. Lots of storytelling happens during the club meetings,\u201d he explained. \u201cLike the podcasts, each club meeting has a theme. Sometimes, it is geographical: food from different parts of the globe. Sometimes, thematic, like holiday food.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Chef Lior Ben-Yehuda puts the finishing touches on a salad as Erika Balcombe, left, and JMABC archivist Alysa Routtenberg look on. (photo from JMABC)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A similar variety of themes characterizes the podcasts. To date, shows have examined food links to family dynamics and worldwide migrations, climate and gender roles, cultural customs and regional culinary quirks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe brainstormed the possible themes as we listened to other podcasts, read books on culinary history. We tried to pinpoint what is missing and use those points as our guidelines. One of the underlying themes in our podcasts is the tension between traditional and modern. How people adapt to the local food sources when they move, how the familiar recipes change with times and places. How those recipes diverge when members of one family move to different countries, or continents, and the usual ingredients become unavailable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwartz believes that the museum has to be open to the stories of all Jews, regardless of their religiosity, affiliation or geographic roots. \u201cThe museum\u2019s role is not to provide answers but to discuss a question, to open a forum for conversation. In The Kitchen Stories<\/em>, food is a medium of telling stories. We explore healthy food choices and how they change with generations: what our grandmothers thought healthy and what we think healthy could be different. We talk about kosher food and organic food. And, of course, when people talk about food, everyone has an opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The topics are approached often from an historical perspective. \u201cFood is a way to keep history alive,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cWhen a kid asks his parents or grandparents why do you cook this way, stories emerge. We wanted to showcase those stories. Food is also a way towards peace and harmony. When we share food with friends, we talk and try to understand each other. Food is a means of communication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwartz doesn\u2019t create the podcasts alone. Co-producer April Thompson has been working for the museum for the past year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do research on the theme we select, I conduct the interviews,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cSometimes we interview people in their homes or their businesses. Other times, they come here to the museum; we use a quiet room for the interviews. The museum has had an oral history program for decades, so we use the existing museum equipment for recording. Then I do the editing, choose the music. After I\u2019m done, Michael listens to my material. He records the narration, inserts special terminology sometimes, or we move the pieces around to structure the story better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cApril is very important to the series,\u201d said Schwartz. \u201cShe is not Jewish, and that fact has given her an interesting angle on the project. She brings necessary curiosity to some things those of us within the Jewish community take for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Thompson agreed. \u201cI\u2019m like a child. I ask: why do you do this, because I don\u2019t know. I want to know. I\u2019m now working on a podcast about [dealing with] grief through food, about the Jewish shivah custom. It\u2019s different from many other cultures.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of the podcasts can be found at jewishmuseum.ca\/the-kitchen-stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Olga Livshin<\/strong> is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Schwartz, director of community engagement at the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia, speaks to guests at a Chosen Food Supper Club gathering. (photo from JMABC) This spring, the Jewish Museum and Archives of British Columbia began airing the podcast The Kitchen Stories. The series, which is focused on Jewish food, is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5780,6073,6684,130,1671,6875],"class_list":["post-25183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-culture","tag-food","tag-jewish-museum","tag-jmabc","tag-michael-schwartz","tag-podcasts"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}