Pupils share some good food stories

A TASTY multicultural cookbook project is testing some of the recipes it has gathered with children across the Geelong region.

Good Food Stories, created and run by Ocean Grove woman Adie McDermott, celebrates diversity, culture and food.

Recipes and stories have been collected from culturally diverse individuals from across Geelong and are being shared to schoolchildren through activities such as art and cooking this year, with the aim to eventually create a recipe book that shares stories, recipes and culture.

The recipe book will be professionally designed, printed and published next year, and will be available to buy to generate money for other projects within the schools and community groups involved.

This week, pupils from Torquay College tried their hand at making tabbouleh, fried haloumi, tzatziki, melitzanosalata (smoked eggplant dip), kueh dadar (green coconut crepes), stir fried rice noodles and pita bread.

Ms McDermott said Good Food Stories had 15 people involved, with recipes from Malaysia, Vietnam, Greece, Turkey, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Germany, Poland and Thailand.

“I’m really passionate about food and the sharing of food and also the sharing of culture, so I brought everything together into this idea where we could bring people into schools and share their food and their stories at the same time,” Ms McDermott said.

“They’re not hard recipes – it is something a child could cook.”

Torquay College’s Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden coordinator Terri Mintram said the pupils had been taught multicultural recipes, such as Indian or Thai dishes.

“But I think having the support of people from Malaysia and Vietnam who have cooked this food regularly; it’ll be great for the kids to appreciate that.

“Some of these recipes are using different ingredients that maybe I wouldn’t have got hold of,
like pandan leaves.”