On Sunday, the 17.09.23, two of our long term volunteers held a cooking masterclass for the village. Each volunteer showed how to cook dishes from their countries.
Report from Shai, from Israel:
Francesca and I planned the cooking class, as a way to express our cultures to the village through food. In Israeli culture, we have many foods that may be difficult to find in other countries, especially outside of the Middle East. During my time volunteering here, I found myself missing the food from home the most. Our cooking class became a way for me to feel closer to home, and to share this feeling with others.
We hadn’t expected as big a turnout as we got: many women from the village arrived to join us. They made tiramisu along with Francesca. While the women were more involved in the preparation of the tiramisu, most preferred to watch while I made my eggplant spread and tahini. When the dips were finished, everyone got to eat from them, along with flatbread that I had baked earlier.
I was very proud to see others enjoying my food, and showing interest in the cooking process. I hadn’t expected so much interest in my Israeli recipes, as they may be less interesting than the more intricate process of making tiramisu. Yet I was asked many questions about the recipes, and I truly felt that there was an interest.
I feel that in addition to the participants learning from us, we learned from them. As women with more cooking experience than us, they had many tips to offer. I was shown different techniques and tools, which were more efficient for achieving the results I had tried to create. I greatly appreciate everyone who showed up.
Report from Francesca, from Italy:
On Sunday 17th of September Greece and Italy had been connected for a couple of hours. During the afternoon at polykentro I had the opportunity to share what most belongs to our culture: the love for food. I have always seen cooking as a moment of union between people and I decided to recreate it to feel home again. I started explaining the story of TIRAMISÙ, what it actually means in Italian and the reason why there are different recipes in our area. Fortunately the language was not a problem, I had a good translator who supported me in communicating with everyone so that no one felt excluded.
Then we started preparing the cream, adding ingredients and mixing them, where the help of the women was essential in order to reach our cooking goal. With their experience and suggestions, co-working made the preparation easier and funnier because everyone was involved in what we were doing.
When my cooking class finished, Shai started with the Israeli one. With her eggplant spread she was able to capture the attention of all the people in the room who were not used to seeing this kind of recipe. I believe that our two classes were different in realization but with a similar aim: on one hand when I was preparing tiramisu lot of women were helping me because they probably had already done it at home, on the other hand, Shai had all eyes fixed on her, interested in knowing more about a culture they are not that close to.
I am really grateful for the opportunity I had and the time I could share with everyone.