A small group of people, mostly NSCAD students, sit elbow to
elbow around a small table, sharing the remains of a dinner in an
otherwise empty hall attached to St. Matthew’s Church on Barrington.
They are celebrating the success of the first Recipe Exchange
Project event, an art experiment designed to teach cooking to the
community.
Artist Jesse Walker, who made gingery smoothies for the occasion,
serves a large portion of a vegetarian enchilada onto a small plate for
his father, Peter, who is a well-known artist and NSCAD faculty member.
Peter makes wicked tortillas, which were used in this hot dish.
“That’s a spicy quesadilla. Holy crap!” Jesse reaches over a plate
of salad rolls for his smoothie glass.
“I warned you guys,” laughs Jaimie Hale, a student at Acadia. “I
forgot to mention in my recipe that I usually put yogurt or sour cream
on it.”
The Recipe Exchange Project started as an independent study
for NSCAD University student Karen Hawes, under the tutelage of
professor Jan Peacock. “Food as a medium is just as relevant as
anything else. And making food is very performative,” Hawes says. “I
think how we socialize around food and interact around food is very
artful. And recipes have a lot of potential.”
Initially, Hawes wanted to collect other people’s recipes to explore
the language of instruction, but realized that she would learn more by
observing people actually make food. Another layer of complexity was
added when Peacock pointed out to her that “a lack of skills and
experience are significant factors in food security. In these economic
times, eating nutritiously is increasingly difficult for low-income
individuals and nearly impossible for many families.”
So Hawes expanded her idea to have more of a skill-sharing and
community-service mandate. Along with fellow NSCAD student Gina
Anderson, she began soliciting personal recipes through gorgeous
posters and through therecipeexchangeproject.info.
There were conditions: recipes should be related to meals shared with
family or friends; donors must be willing to teach their recipe to
others, and the recipes should be handwritten. Six out of 40 were
chosen out of the first batch of recipes received—based on
nutritional value, compatibility, deliciousness and cost—for this St.
Matt’s meal. Ingredients were donated from Atlantic Superstore,
Sobey’s, Hawes’ parents and some farmers’ market vendors, and she
enlisted help from the Halifax North Library Women’s Group. She then
arranged for a group of 10 youth from Phoenix House to come to the
church and learn how to make this meal for themselves. When only two
showed up, Hawes recruited a bunch of teenagers hanging out in front of
the Spring Garden library.
Although the make-up of the group changed and the library crew split
quickly after one of their cellphones went off, Hawes considers the
event a success. Working together in the church’s comfortable kitchen,
attendees shared knowledge and tips, like how to test avocados for
ripeness, or how to make an overly salty guacamole right again (answer:
add sugar to neutralize the taste).
Hawes plans to create a monthly event—she’s applied for funds from
the Halifax Peninsula Community Health Board—that would rotate the
project/recipes through community groups and locations across the city.
It’s also been a learning experience for the young artist, researching
what food-related services are already available and to “understand
local issues around poverty.” Hawes is still looking for new recipes,
so pull out your old favourites and start cooking.
To submit a recipe for a future event, go to therecipeexchangeproject.info for a list of suggestions and drop-off locations.
Correction: In the sub-headline for last week’s Food &
Drink story, the Recipe Exchange Project should have been attributed to
artist Karen Hawes.
This article appears in May 14-20, 2009.