Kitchen Traditions: Broadening Food Horizons
Vaughan Public Libraries
Innovation Synopsis
Kitchen Traditions: Broadening Food Horizons is a program series facilitated by the Culinary Literacy Specialist in the VSES Teaching Kitchen at VMC Library in Vaughan, Ontario. Seniors from within the community work with the Culinary Literacy Specialist to develop a menu, recipes, and a program through which they share their culinary heritage with other community members. Each Kitchen Traditions program is offered to the community free of charge. The library supplies ingredients and any equipment necessary to create the dishes for both the senior presenting and all attendees. Attendees work together at tables to cook along with the senior presenting their culinary heritage. Kitchen Traditions is made possible through the New Horizons for Seniors grant program from the Government of Canada.
Challenge/Opportunity
Kitchen Traditions provides an opportunity for older adults of diverse ethnicities in Vaughan to share their culinary knowledge and expertise, by providing them an opportunity to lead engaging programs in the new VSES Teaching Kitchen at the VMC Library. Program participants have been varied in age – parents with young children, older adults, families with older or even adult children, and teens – and from diverse cultural backgrounds. People enjoy learning about food customs from unfamiliar cultures, and others enjoy coming in for a long-missed taste and smell of home. Kitchen Traditions promotes volunteerism, senior engagement through mentoring, social participation and inclusion, healthy ageing, and the celebration of diversity.
Key Elements of Innovation
Kitchen Traditions brought the diversity within the Vaughan community into the spotlight. Featured cuisines included: Spanish, Hungarian Kosher, Chilean, Jamaican/Caribbean, South Indian, Polish and Russian Jewish, Iraqi/Assyrian, Italian, Chinese, Pakistani, Moroccan, Mexican, Ghanaian, Ukrainian, Portuguese, Venezuelan, Russian/Uzbek, Peruvian, Brazilian Jewish, and South Indian. Future sessions will feature Cantonese, Filipino, Iranian, and Sri Lankan cuisines. Every individual offering their culinary heritage to the community was at least 55 years old, while attendees ranged from school-age children to seniors. The knowledge shared extended far beyond just recipes and the preparation of food. The community learned about each other’s experiences, the richness of culture that everyone brings with them to Canada.
Achieved Outcomes
21 seniors shared their heritage in 20 different cuisines over 21 program sessions, which were attended by 353 members of the Vaughan community. The program sessions are routinely booked to capacity, and there is a waiting list. Feedback from participants (seniors presenting and attendees both) has been overwhelmingly positive. The community appreciates the opportunity to share their experiences, get to know their neighbors, and try new and delicious foods prepared under the guidance of an expert.
