Ethnic cooking Classes 101: Learning to cook cross-culturally

I recently started taking a local cooking class about 10 minutes away. It is quite the experience. As far as the actual cooking is concerned the difficulty level is fairly easy. Even though I have now lived in this culture for almost 4 years, I only know a handful of local dishes I can make. Having a whole bunch of new ideas and understanding of how to make them is definitely helpful for me.

A cooking class here is not what you would expect if you took a class in N. America. There are so many layers to the culture here and this exposes another side that I have not gotten to see much. Food safety is not very high on the list. Everyone washes their hands but in terms of food storage and preparation there is no discussion. If we need to cool a cake or a chicken quickly it simply gets set outside the window for a few minutes with or without a cover.

The class begins with greetings and mandatory kisses (one on each cheek) and then we write out the recipes for the food we are to prepare that day before moving into the kitchen area to begin the cooking. All of the students are women and most of them covered. In a gendered society such as this, cooking is a women’s world. Most of the students are wives and mothers and they certainly already know how to cook as many of them have been cooking for their families since a young age.

               Cooking together as a group of women here is mostly a social event. It is a time when women can come together and be themselves without the ears and eyes of the men looking in. It is time when they can come together over something as simple as needing dough, peeling potatoes, and cooking large pots of rice. It breaks up the monotony of the daily chores of life and adds some fun. It has been a great way for me to practice my language skills as well as my dough rolling, and grape leaf wrapping abilities -something which they are kind enough to teach me over and over again as I don’t quite do it right.

  While I consider myself to be a fairly decent cook, the cooking they do here is far different. Everything is measured using soup spoons, dessert spoons or tea spoons and by water glasses, tea cups and coffee cups and by handfuls (literally- a handful of parsley or pouring salt or olive oil into your palm to measure). It’s more about knowing ratios and tasting as you go.

                Sometimes while we work, the teacher reads a book aloud from the corner and other times we chat about life and our kids. Usually this causes gasps of amazement and bewilderment that I am now pregnant with our 4^th child. Comments of “that must be so difficult” to how blessed I am to have 3 children with a 4^th on the way are quite common. I also get told that now I have enough children so I must stop after this one. This always leads to needing to show pictures of my children and have them marveled at for their fair skin and blonde hair.

At the end of our cooking class we all sit down together and share the food we have prepared over hot cups of tea. Tea is a must with almost every meal, especially if it is in a social setting. Since I am the only member of the class who is pregnant I am continually given extra food and made to sample things before they are ready to be eaten so that I don’t fall over from starvation and I get enough food to nourish the baby. Not finishing my plate usually gets me some disapproving looks.

I love the ability to be able to connect with these women in a more natural environment. Where we do something together and they can teach me something that I genuinely want to learn. I am going 2 mornings a week right now and really enjoying this new way of connecting and building relationships with women I would normally not have the ability to connect with. If you want to learn a traditional dish, let me know and I can try to write out a recipe of one of the dishes I have learned.

If you ever come visit us and you are female, I will take you along and you can experience for yourself the fun and challenge of cooking locally with a language barrier. It really is fun and relaxed at these classes most of the time.