East Scarborough Storefront

UTSC looks at why we grow, process, cook, consume, sell and share the food we do – and the impact that has on everything from culture and art to political economy and climate change

Scarborough, Ontario. That’s where to go if you’re interested in food, experts say.

“Scarborough is one of the most interesting, multicultural communities in the world – not just in Canada, and not just in North America,” Rick Halpern, dean of the University of Toronto Scarborough, said recently on CBC Radio’s Metro Morning.

“When you combine that kind of diversity with that kind of population density and various kinds of diasporic streams and pretty low commercial real estate, you have extraordinary entrepreneurs who turn to their culture and their communities and yes, there's an extraordinary richness of food offerings.”

Halpern was on Metro Morning to discuss the tasting tour he recently gave American economist and writer Tyler Cowen through Scarborough – a tour that resulted in a blog post from Cowen asking whether Scarborough might be the dining capital of the world. That reaction, coming from the author of An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies, caught the attention of food-lovers from Reddit to The Toronto Star.

“In a given evening you can only make so many stops so we started with Filipino and moved on to South Asian,” Halpern said. “From there we went to regional Chinese. What we wanted to do was give him and some of our other guests a sense of the cultural richness of Scarborough.

“Most of these establishments are located in strip malls or some of the really great finds are in what we call back of mall – not facing Sheppard or Finch but in the back of the mall and these are establishments that are catering to their own communities. They don't particularly make an effort to attract outsiders.”

Research into nutrition and health has long played an important role at U of T, from the invention of Pablum or Dr. Stanley Zlotkin’s micronutrient sprinkles to the salt content in restaurant meals. Studies by University Professor David Jenkins, creator of the low glycemic index, are closely followed around the world and U of T experts in global health and entrepreneurship are working to develop cleaner cooking technology for developing countries.

But food studies is a relatively new field. So UTSC is teaming up with institutions and experts in four other diverse cities around the world – Delhi, New York, Sydney and Singapore – to explore the discipline. At the centre of UTSC’s efforts is Culinaria, a multidisciplinary project that blends research with community engagement and student (graduate and undergraduate) research experience.

Through Culinaria, UTSC is co-organizing a fall workshop at New York University, including a roundtable on street food with representatives from India and Singapore. And, here at home, faculty and students are working closely with people in the Scarborough community in tracing local food stories, including oral histories and videos of chefs, restaurateurs and home cooks talking about their lives (including as guests in UTSC’s own kitchen).

It’s a diverse initiative that has forged partnerships with Malvern Action for Neighbourhood Change and its urban farm project, as well as the East Scarborough Storefront. Scholars are already mapping Chinese restaurants in Agincourt malls based on an archive of 1980s photos and there are plans to digitize and analyze a trove of 10,000 Chinese restaurant menus acquired from a U.S. collector.

More than 20 faculty members across the three campuses of U of T do work that intersects with the study of food – among them UTSC’s Jeffrey Pilcher (pictured at right), a professor of food history, who has explored how European beer has traveled the world over the last 200 years. And, earlier this year, Canadian food writer, ethnographer and photographer Naomi Duguid joined Culinaria as food writer in residence.

“Really my job is to make people comfortable,” said Duguid. “People feel terrible pressure in the kitchen to get things right. We need a little reassurance.”

The co-author of six cookbooks and author of Burma: Rivers of Flavor, Duguid has hosted a panel on food writing and hopes to help students who want to get better at making their own meals. She has planned a shopping assignment called Strategies for Eating Well on a Student Budget.

Students will go out in pairs to buy one assigned ingredient and one that interests them. The students will gather in the kitchen and talk about ways to use the ingredients.

“This is how people actually cook in villages. They’ve figured it out there,” she says, adding. “I hope to help people have eyes to see everyday things. We can fall into patterns and not see things. But food is a way we can talk about things like social justice and culture.”

Daniel Bender, Canada Research Chair in Global Culture, says having a writer-in-residence focused on food is unique in higher education. This year, the program is paid through research funds, though he hopes to make it a regular part of Culinaria’s offerings.

“Naomi is an organic intellectual. We are lucky to have a writer of her calibre,” says Bender. “She has a keen interest in people and communities, and her work here will help generate the kinds of conversations that help connect communities with the university.”

Some of Duguid’s programming will be held in Culinaria’s kitchen lab, which Bender points to as something else that’s unique to UTSC and its scholarly work in food studies.

“I can’t think of any other place that has one,” he says. “People are starting to realize how groundbreaking that space is.”

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Four to watch: Convocation 2014's community builders

sgupta — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 16:01:48 +0000

Four to watch: Convocation 2014's community builders sgupta Wed, 06/11/2014 - 12:01

Jelena Damjanovic

Author legacy

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Our Community

East Scarborough Storefront

Students

Convocation

Community

Community partnership serves Scarborough neighbours

sgupta — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 07:56:49 +0000

Community partnership serves Scarborough neighbours sgupta Mon, 11/25/2013 - 02:56

Cutline

This is the type of partnership the city needs to know about," says CBC Radio host Matt Galloway

Topic

Our Community

East Scarborough Storefront

The goal: to help communities build stronger, healthier neighbourhoods. The event: the third annual Community Connections Leadership Forum.

Students and faculty from the University of Toronto Scarborough joined local residents and representatives of community organizations recently for the forum, co-hosted by partner organization East Scarborough Storefront — a local hub that provides services and programs. The event showcased the collaborative research, educational and community-building programs in the Kingston Galloway/Orton Park (KGO) and Mornelle Court neighbourhoods. Students and faculty volunteer through the Storefront, acting as mentors and running camps and athletic events at UTSC facilities for local kids.

Keynote speaker Matt Galloway, host of Metro Morning on CBC Radio, reflected on community development and praised the partnership as a model example for Toronto.

“This is the type of partnership the city needs to know about because it’s a story about the potential for positive change,” says Galloway. “It’s also a true example of a partnership because those involved are genuinely interested in each other and have equal opportunity to participate.”

Susannah Bunce, a professor in the Department of Human Geography’s City Studies Program and Malcolm Campbell, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and UTSC’s vice-principal, research, say the goal is to strengthen the KGO neighbourhood, improve residents’ quality of life and create a sense of belonging in the community.

“We want people to see KGO as home, not just a transient space,” says Bunce.

Support from the United Way and the Galin Foundation has spurred a number of progressive initiatives for KGO community members, including several educational and recreational programs. Through hands-on learning and volunteer work with local charities and service agencies, UTSC students gain a nuanced view of everyday realities in underserved neighbourhoods. The resulting engagement and compassion informs their research on issues of importance to community residents and organizations, including housing, public transit and green space.

“This is about more than giving back. It’s about understanding communities,” says Bunce, who has studied housing and newcomer settlement issues within KGO.

It’s not just the local community that benefits from the myriad programs, activities and research initiatives of the UTSC-ESS partnership,says Campbell. Lessons learned locally can be applied in future partnerships with other communities across the city, country and world.

“Collaborating hand-in-hand with our neighbourhood partners,we conduct the research and create the social innovations that positively transform communities,” says Campbell.

Last November, UTSC and East Scarborough Storefront undertook a year-long study to examine their partnership’s business model and the reasons for its success. Key findings were presented at the forum in the hope that it will help other communities develop similar successful models.

“We’ve worked hard together to develop a values-based relationship that honours the needs of the university and the community,” says Anne Gloger, director of the East Scarborough Storefront.

“The plan now is to deepen our relationship but also share with others what we’ve learned through this partnership in order to better help other communities.”

The partnership's successful projects includes a homework club that helps Military Trail Public School students. UTSC volunteers have shared their knowledge on water conservation with 200 community residents and the partnership offered residents an introductory environmental issues and research course. Local children are learning athletic and leadership skills in lacrosse, basketball, tennis and soccer camps.

“This event really highlights the partnership that has developed and the potential that exists for future growth,” says Kim Tull, manager of community engagement and development at UTSC. “I’m really proud of everything we’ve achieved so far.”

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Working with Scarborough community to tell its stories

sgupta — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:31:43 +0000

Working with Scarborough community to tell its stories sgupta Mon, 04/15/2013 - 06:31

Cutline

Daniel Scott Tysdal conducts a storytelling workshop with community members (photo by Ken Jones)

Andrew Westoll

Author legacy

Andrew Westoll

East Scarborough Storefront

Faculty of Arts & Science

UTSC

Local

Features

Subheadline

UTSC workshop series supports local residents

A good story can be incredibly powerful, capable of educating, enlightening and inspiring an audience. A well-told story can even change a life.

That’s why the University of Toronto Scarborough's English faculty partnered with the East Scarborough Storefront to conduct a community storytelling workshop series.

"There is such a great energy in the room," says Daniel Scott Tysdal, a poet and lecturer in creative writing at UTSC who spearheaded the new program. "I thought it might take a while for people to get comfortable, but right away they were into the exercises, listening to one another and sharing their stories.

"It's been a really fun and rewarding experience for us all."

The weekly six-part series, 'Telling Our Stories,' combines mini-lectures, writing exercises, class discussions and readings, introducing participants to the varied tools available to the storyteller. Students learn about the importance of sensory details, believable plots, character motivation and other aspects of narrative. They also discuss the all-important question, "What does it mean to tell your story?"

The goal is to inspire local residents to see their own stories as vital, and to give them the tools to begin expressing them.

Tysdal says the concept for the series was inspired by a quote from the writer James Baldwin:

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world," wrote Baldwin, "but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”

As with any good story, inspiration for the neighbourhood workshops came from multiple places.

"It speaks to our belief that the so-called 'ivory tower' doesn't actually exist," says Tysdal. "When I look at my colleagues across the university, I see so many of us giving public lectures, organizing public events, participating in outreach and sustaining a practice of getting involved in our local community."

The workshop series is free and open to anyone who wants to learn about the practice of storytelling and try their hand at the art form. Tysdal is joined in teaching the series by colleagues from the English department: Claudia Hoffman, Neil Dolan, Sonja Nikkila and Anne Milne. More than 20 local residents ranging in age from 25 to over 70 are participating in this first series.

And while the benefits for the aspiring storyteller are clear, Tysdal and his colleagues also reap great rewards from the program.

"Whenever I'm teaching I'm also learning, and I've learned things from the participants in this class that I haven't learned anywhere else. I see story in a different way now thanks to my students."

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