At the International Affairs and Humanities Scholars Community meeting we had a special guest speaker, Harry Kashdan. Mr.Kashdan is a researcher on the Global Mediterranean in the Department of French and Italian. During his time with us he presented his work on his latest project on The Quarantine Cookbook: Documenting Migrant Food Networks Under COVID-19.
I found his presentation to be very intriguing because I had never given much thought to the role of food in our current pandemic. The Quarantine Cookbook is a collection of recipes and their stories during our current pandemic. All of the recipes and writing pieces come from a multitude of different people with different jobs and cultural back rounds. Some of the people mentioned in his presentation who will contributing are writers, chefs, restaurant owners, artists, cooks and local families in Columbus, Ohio, and around the country.
My favorite story Kashdan shared was of a how a father during the pandemic started sharing the family recipes to his son and it brought back memories of when his mother taught him the recipes. He also mentioned how the father noticed that each generation made the recipes a little bit different. I loved this story because it reminds me of when my mother taught me family recipes when I was little. A heartwarming story of cultural preservation through food during the pandemic is a great addition to the cookbook. This cookbook is a brilliant way to document the current crisis through food, people, and culture.