 Plaza Sushi in St. Thomas Food tells us stories. Your favourite family recipe tells the story of your ancestors, passed down from generation to generation, perhaps brought from country to country, with each family member tweaking it a bit to suit their tastes and the accessible ingredients. Food also tells us stories on a broader, community level. The types of food available—the restaurants, the options in grocery stores, the crops grown in nearby fields—all tell a story about the people who live here and where they came from.
In the month of February, the community of will be invited to take part in Global Flavours: International Taste Experience of St. Thomas and Elgin and celebrate the diversity of food available in our region. This event encourages people to check out participating restaurants, who serve cultural food and/or are immigrant-owned, and potentially win some great prizes. Community participants can pick up a paper passport to get stamped each time they visit participating restaurants, or they can use the GooseChase app. If you visit at least two restaurants (or the same one twice), you will be eligible for the prize draw. More information, including the list of participating restaurants, will be available on Railway City Tourism’s website (www.railwaycitytourism.com) and the St. Thomas-Elgin Local Immigration Partnership’s website (www.stelip.ca). If you choose to participate in Global Flavours this year, keep in mind the stories that the different participating restaurants tell about our region. Some restaurants are owned by second or third generation Canadians, who serve cultural food that has been passed down and preserved by their families. Others are first-generation, bringing the tastes they grew up with to our community. Some strive to preserve the flavours they know, serving dishes authentic to their roots. Others have combined dishes from different cuisines, creating new flavours from the intersections of different cultural dishes, much the same way many immigrants adopt customs from their new homes while preserving their unique cultural identity.
Reflect on the different types of cuisines represented in this year’s Global Flavours. They represent some of the major immigration histories in our community—Low German Speaking Mennonites, who have been coming to settle here since the 1950s via Mexico and South America; Dutch immigrants, many of whom came to this area after the Second World War; Jamaican and Indian immigrants, who make up two of the most common origin countries for our community’s recent immigrants, to name only a few. Also take notice of the breadth of cuisines represented—our community is made up of people with heritage from around the world. Global Flavours is a chance to not only try some tasty food, but to acknowledge and celebrate the diversity that exists in our community. AuthorFIONA MURRAY
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