Culinaria

U of T historian retraces the history – and tensions – behind Scarborough's Chinatown

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 12 Jul 2019 19:46:52 +0000

U of T historian retraces the history – and tensions – behind Scarborough's Chinatown

geoff.vendeville Fri, 07/12/2019 - 15:46

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The Dragon Centre, a former roller skating rink in Scarborough, was converted into a Chinese shopping mall in 1984, sparking a backlash from some of the area's residents (photo by Don Campbell)

Don Campbell

Topic

City & Culture

Alumni

Cities

Culinaria

History

U of T Scarborough

Agincourt is renowned as one of Toronto’s Asian culinary hotspots. But its history – including opposition to a wave of immigrants in the early 1980s – is less well known.

“Many have this idealized version of food in Scarborough being a triumph of multiculturalism,” says Camille Bégin, a food historian and lecturer at the University of Toronto Scarborough’s Culinaria Research Centre. “But when you look at the details, it’s not the way it happened.

“We don’t have the memory, or we’ve collectively forgotten, about the racial tensions that existed around the strip malls where these businesses are located.”

For her post-doctoral research, Bégin worked on a pilot project called “Mapping Scarborough Chinatown,” which digitally documents the eastern suburban neighbourhood’s transformation into a culinary hub. Her research has been rolled into Tasting the Global City, a larger digital project by the Culinaria Research Centre that traces Toronto’s food history.

Scarborough’s status as an “ethnoburb" began in the early 1980s, Bégin says. The term describes what takes place in suburban neighbourhoods of large cities when immigrants – either newly arrived or second generation – move outside of downtown to create clusters of ethnic residential, business and cultural institutions.

Food plays a critical role in all of this, Bégin says. Food businesses are relatively easy to set up since immigrants don’t have to re-train or get their credentials re-certified, and they offer something a community craves: a taste of home.

“When people arrived from Hong Kong and later from the mainland of China, food becomes an important part of the economic and social fabric of Agincourt,” says Bégin, who is also a public historian for Heritage Toronto.

A key moment in Agincourt’s evolution came in 1984, when brothers Henry and Daniel Hung bought a former roller-skating rink in an existing strip mall and converted it into a shopping centre called the Dragon Centre.

“The role the Dragon Centre played was instrumental,” says Howard Tam, a U of T alumnus and urban planner, who grew up in Agincourt and also runs food tours throughout Scarborough.

When it opened there was only a smattering of Chinese-owned businesses in local strip malls, but by 1987 there were more than a dozen Chinese malls in Agincourt. That growth continued to expand northward into Markham throughout the 1990s, explains Tam.

Howard Tam is a U of T alumnus and urban planner who grew up in Agincourt and also runs food tours throughout Scarborough (photo by Don Campbell)

Bégin, who along with Associate Professor Jayeeta Sharma co-authored a study exploring the history of Scarborough as an ethnic food hub, found a unique characteristic of these malls: Between 25 per cent to 50 per cent of the surface area was taken up by restaurants and grocery stores. Since Agincourt is close to Highway 401, the ingredients were in place to make it an important regional food hub. But its new popularity led to tensions.

When the Dragon Centre was converted, it had too few parking spots to meet demand, explains Tam. Moreover, cars spilled onto local streets and crowded the once-quiet neighbourhood.

Though he was a child, Tam remembers the racist hate literature that circulated in the neighbourhood and at community meetings where local, mostly white residents raged against the changes.

“I went to some of those meetings as a kid with my mom and I remember many people going up to the mic and saying really vile things like, ‘Learn English we’re in Canada,’ or ‘We don’t want Hong Kong here,’ and other attacks against the Chinese community,” he says.

“I remember my mom getting really upset and after coming home from the meeting saying that people will never understand or accept us in Canada.”

The mayor even convened a task force on multicultural and race relations in response to the episode.

While the success of the Dragon Centre – the “first Chinese-themed mall in North America,” according to Arlene Chan's The Chinese Community in Toronto: Then and Now – showed it was a viable business plan, the resistance from local residents didn’t end. Tam says subsequent more ambitious development plans by Chinese businesses were heavily modified due to protests from local residents.

“A lot of the development resistance pushed these projects to move north of Steeles into Markham, which is one reason you see larger malls there,” he says.

Tam says while there is more choice than there was 20 years ago when it comes to different ethnic food hubs in the GTA, Agincourt remains a culinary hotspot.

Meanwhile, the mall that started it all – Agincourt’s Dragon Centre – is undergoing plans for redevelopment. Tam is looking at ways to document the site’s historical significance. He is currently working on a project to document the history of the mall and the stories that connect to it.

“Just think of all the people who shopped there over the years, got their first pair of glasses or shared meals with their family. It’s important to document this social history before it fades away.”

Christmas dinner in the 19th century: U of T food historians consider what traditions remain the same

noreen.rasbach — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 19:36:13 +0000

Christmas dinner in the 19th century: U of T food historians consider what traditions remain the same

noreen.rasbach Tue, 12/18/2018 - 14:36

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Toronto's St. Lawrence Market in 1888 (photo by Frank William Micklethwaite via Toronto Archives)

Topic

Research & Innovation

U of T Scarborough

What was Christmas dinner like in the 19^th century? A holiday feast in Victorian Toronto would look different than one today, but many traditions were similar.

“If you were sitting at a typical dinner table during Christmas in Victorian Toronto, you would be struck at how remarkably British everything looked,” says University of Toronto food historian Jeffrey Pilcher.

“Toronto was a heavily Anglo town and the food culture would have reflected that. Most of the sources from the time that we have, like cookbooks, are very British.”

Much of the story of Toronto’s multicultural food history is currently being unpacked by Pilcher and researchers in the Culinaria Research Centre at U of T Scarborough as part of the Tasting the Global City project that involves, among other things, a digital map of Toronto’s food system during different historical periods.

The 1831 edition of The Cook Not Mad – which would become the first cookbook ever published in Canada – reflects the traditional British diet.

The Cook Not Mad was the first cookbook published in Canada.

One recipe for plum pudding, a popular British Christmas tradition, calls for eggs, flour, salt, sugar, milk, plums and beef suet, served with a “sweet sauce” on the side. While most ingredients could be sourced locally, Pilcher notes some, like plums, would have to be imported.

He says plum pudding, along with maybe a fruitcake, sugar cookies, mincemeat tarts, ham or a big game bird like goose, duck or turkey sourced from farms surrounding Toronto, would be fairly common at a Victorian Christmas meal.

Torontonians could buy their holiday food from one of three public markets by the middle of the 19^th century, including St. Lawrence, which opened in 1803 and is still in operation today at Front and Jarvis Streets, as well as St. Patrick (1836) and St. Andrew (1850).

While the influence of Jewish-owned butcher shops and Italian-owned fruit and vegetable stands wouldn’t really take hold until the early 20^th century, by the closing decades of the Victorian period it wouldn’t be uncommon to see some of those businesses popping up around town.

“By the 1880s you’ve got a small number of merchants involved in the fruit trade, and many of them are coming from Sicily and the hinterlands around Genoa,” says Pilcher, adding there were a lot of fruit shops along Queen Street West, many of which were Italian-owned.

Most of the meats served over the holidays could be bought at the markets or at local butcher shops. Many of the Jewish-owned butcher shops that would come to define the kosher trade in Toronto were a late Victorian (post-1880s) development, but some existed earlier in the century.

“The big slaughterhouses that are going to characterize Toronto’s reputation as Hogtown were really only starting to grow in the late 19^th century, so most meat would be slaughtered at the local butchers,” says Professor Daniel Bender, who teaches food history courses at U of T Scarborough.

Smoked meats like ham and bacon would have been popular in the Victorian diet, so too would be tea, maybe with a teaspoon of sugar. Bender says that sugar had traditionally been used as a spice, but as it became more affordable throughout the 19^th century it became increasingly common in most people’s diets.

“Virtually everyone in the city at the time would likely have had a cup of tea at some point over Christmas,” he says. “In fact, calories from sugar would become an increasing part of everyday life, and sugar combined with tea is really the essence of the Victorian diet.”

Bender says that holiday foods tend to be the most heavily spiced, and this would be true for the Victorians. Christmas, after all, would be one of the most important days on the calendar for most living in Protestant Toronto.

“Spices like nutmeg, which hardly get used any other time of the year, end up in Christmas foods,” says Bender. “These foods also tend to be our most traditional and as a result the ones that tend to change the least over time.”

Some of the foods we often associate with the holidays were also being imported from parts of the world that would seem very exotic to most living in Victorian Toronto, says Pilcher. Oranges, which eventually became heavily associated with the holidays, were mostly imported from Spain and were a special treat that could be afforded by the wealthy. Nuts and dried fruit like prunes were also being imported from the Balkans.

“Canada, and Toronto in particular, was just beginning to become connected to this larger food system that we all know well and nowadays really take for granted,” says Pilcher.

“It really wasn’t until the very end of the Victorian period and beginning of the 20^thcentury that the influence from Jewish, Italian and Chinese migrants on Toronto’s tastes really take place."

U of T PhD candidate explores the drinking culture of China’s last imperial dynasty

noreen.rasbach — Fri, 25 May 2018 17:43:22 +0000

U of T PhD candidate explores the drinking culture of China’s last imperial dynasty

noreen.rasbach Fri, 05/25/2018 - 13:43

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Jackson Yue Bin Guo's research focuses on the interplay between popular and elite cultures in late imperial Chinese history (photo by Ken Jones)

Topic

Research & Innovation

U of T Scarborough

Long before the Communist Party rose to power during the late 1940s, China was ruled by a series of dynastic empires stretching back thousands of years.

The last of those dynasties was the Qing (1644–1912), which ruled across four centuries and at its height represented one of the largest empires in world history. The Qing dynasty witnessed many problems, particularly political upheaval and bureaucratic corruption, but it was also a time when trade and culture flourished across the empire, especially when it came to alcohol.

Jackson Yue Bin Guo is a PhD candidate in the department of history at U of T Scarborough who studies late imperial Chinese history and whose research focuses on the interplay between popular and elite cultures. His work specifically looks at how alcohol shook the distinctive features of social class, ethnicity, and other constructed boundaries during the Qing dynasty.

He spoke to reporter Don Campbell about who was drinking what in China’s last imperial dynasty, and why the empire even tried its hand at prohibition.

What got you interested in doing research on wine and drinking culture during the Qing Dynasty?

I mostly focus on wine and liquor, and one of the big questions I look at is why the production and consumption of alcohol really became popular during the Qing dynasty. It was so popular that the Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799) tried to ban liquor in the empire during his reign.

Liquor and wine production has a long history in China, dating back thousands of years. Chinese wine was fermented from cereal grains and fruit and not exclusively grapes, which makes it different from the European use of the term wine. There’s archeological evidence of wine and alcohol near the Yellow River dating back to 7000 BCE. Many luxurious bronze drinking vessels from the Shang dynasty (1600-1046 BCE) have also been discovered. Most historians argue that the Chinese properly mastered liquor production between the Southern Song and Yuan dynasties, so roughly between the 12^th and 14^thcenturies.

What fascinates me a lot about the Qing dynasty is that the empire was massive, so there was a flourishing of trade and a lot going on culturally that was so influential to the drinking culture. You also see the rise of a powerful merchant elite, especially in Shanxi province, who really controlled a large chunk of the wine and liquor industry.

This Tang dynasty painting, called A Palace Concert, depicts a banquet with the maids serving in the imperial palace. The painting is from the National Palace Museum of Taipei.

You say the Qianlong Emperor tried to ban alcohol. Was it an effort at prohibition that didn’t work out?

In 1737 the Qianlong Emperor, who was the fourth emperor of the Qing dynasty, launched a wide-scale prohibition on liquor in northern China, and then extended it to other parts of the empire, before including a prohibition on wine. It didn’t go over well with many, particularly soldiers along the northern border with Mongolia who lived in remote bases and would drink liquor to drive away the cold and boredom. Farmers in the north also weren’t happy because they grew a lot of sorghum, which wasn’t high quality but could be used for liquor, and they needed the extra income.

The policy was not very successful at all. There was an attempt by the emperor to compromise, so in years of famine liquor production would stop, that way people would have grain in storage and would have something to eat. But in 1794, two years before the emperor’s death, there was a severe drought in a few provinces near Beijing. From the records there’s no evidence that anyone obeyed the prohibition and that liquor production went on as usual. What’s interesting is that this attempt at prohibition preceded most of the state-led prohibition movements in the west by more than 100 years. There was an attempt to restrict and ban the trade of gin in London during the 1730s and ’40s, but the cultural contexts were obviously different.

Was there a distinction between what elites and commoners were drinking during this period?

There were a lot of different alcoholic drinks being consumed. Generally speaking, you could find grape wine, rice wine, yellow wine and different liquors of higher quality among the elites and in the Qing imperial court. For peasants or those in the lower classes, they were drinking relatively poor quality alcohol, usually liquor but also wine made from cereal grains and ripe fruits, something that could be brought to market where it would be sold for cheap.

Yellow wine was the most orthodox drink among educated elites. Many felt that liquors were too strong and that, in their opinion, were poisonous to drink. In southeast China especially there were very professional winemakers who argued in favour of making quality yellow wine. So they would mostly only use high quality glutinous rice and felt they were maintaining the traditional way of making Chinese wine. This was supported by elites.

But a big part of my research going forward is looking at the different ways drinking habits of the elites were influenced by commoners. We’re talking about 300 million people around that time, so it’s very likely that elites were influenced by what was going on among commoners.

Where did you get your primary sources for this research?

I went to four of the larger archives in China and Taiwan. I spent a month in the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing where most of the Qing records are kept. It took a long time because I had to manually copy everything by hand because there are so many restrictions on copying material.

I also spent time at the Sichuan archives that contained a bunch of legal cases that were very interesting. I came across one case of a man who sued his wife in local court for drinking too much. It gives a lot of detail about how she came home drunk nearly every day and attacked him. There’s all this rich detail that you can’t get anywhere else.

It also helps answer questions about whether women were involved drinking alcohol during this time period. According to tradition, women were supposed to be kept away from alcohol, but clearly from the records this flies in the face of reality.

New York Times, U of T team up to talk about Toronto's emerging Syrian food scene

Romi Levine — Mon, 15 Jan 2018 17:24:04 +0000

New York Times, U of T team up to talk about Toronto's emerging Syrian food scene

Romi Levine Mon, 01/15/2018 - 12:24

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Jala Alsoufi, a U of T alumna, opened Soufi's in 2017 – a Syrian street food restaurant on Queen Street West (all photos by Romi Levine)

Topic

Torontonians are obsessed with food. They stand in lines the length of city blocks to try Japanese tarts, share their meals religiously on Instagram and are on the constant lookout for the city’s hidden culinary gems.

It’s something Jala Alsoufi noticed as soon as she arrived in Canada from Saudi Arabia in 2012.

“It was definitely pleasantly surprising when I moved here to find that there were so many cuisines and cuisines I would have never imagined trying back home,” she says.

Alsoufi, who was born in Damascus, Syria, moved to Toronto to attend the University of Toronto where she studied architecture and psychology, graduating in 2016. The rest of her family immigrated a few years later.

Noticing a lack of Syrian food available at the time, Alsoufi and her family decided to open a restaurant on a trendy stretch of Queen Street West called Soufi’s.

Two years after Syrian refugees began arriving in Toronto, a Syrian food scene is slowly starting to emerge with a handful of restaurants, cafés and caterers – a trend that has attracted the attention of the New York Times.

Alsoufi joined fellow Syrian restaurateurs as well as the New York Times’ food editor Sam Sifton and reporter David Sax for an event on Jan. 15 organized by U of T and the Times.

A Toronto Tasting With the Times explored the emergence of Syrian cuisine in Toronto, following an article written by Sax on the topic – the first of a series of stories about Canadian food.

“The emergence of Syrian cooking illuminates an immigrant community’s integration into the broader population, and the bridge that food can build to a new life,” writes Sax in the Times’ article.

Considering half of Torontonians were born outside of Canada, the city's food scene is as diverse as its population.

“There's no question that delicious food does a better job of greasing the skids of acceptance of immigrant groups than anything else I can think of,” Sifton says. “You see this in Toronto; we've seen it over waves of immigration in the States as well.”

While Alsoufi has enjoyed introducing Syrian cuisine to Toronto foodies, Syrian immigrants are also a big customer base for Soufi’s, arriving in big groups from Scarborough and Vaughan to eat the restaurant’s street food-style fare, she says.

“It's so nice to see and so nice to hear positive feedback from them because they know what they're talking about,” she says.

Most of Alsoufi’s staff are Syrian newcomers too, some of whom arrived in Canada as recently as six months ago.

Restaurants like Soufi’s serve as an important part of the city’s broader cultural identity.

“A lot of the vibrancy of the city, the social vitality of the city, the economic viability of the city revolves around food but more specifically, around the integration of immigration and food,” says Kenneth MacDonald, an associate professor of human geography at U of T Scarborough who spoke at Monday’s event.

MacDonald is also part of the faculty at the Culinaria Research Centre at U of T Scarborough, which studies the intersection of food and culture.

While reporting can reach a wide audience, the academic study of food is crucial to the way we understand the role of food in a city, says Sifton.

“The fact of the matter is that if left to their own devices, cities would simply consume the food and move on and never really think about how it arrived, why it's important, and what role it plays in the larger understanding of a city's fabric,” he says. “It's my job to eat some food and ask some questions, but the academics help explain what the ultimate effect of this over time is on the rise or indeed the fall of a city.

“I’m tremendously grateful to academics who do that.”

Chinese Food Everywhere: U of T event featured lunch inspired by a collection of Chinese restaurant menus

rasbachn — Thu, 09 Nov 2017 16:40:15 +0000

Chinese Food Everywhere: U of T event featured lunch inspired by a collection of Chinese restaurant menus

rasbachn Thu, 11/09/2017 - 11:40

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Toronto chef Nick Liu, of restaurant DaiLo, recreates a meal using highlights from an 1898 menu that is part of a collection of Chinese restaurant menus donated to U of T Scarborough from Harley Spiller (photo by Don Campbell)

Topic

Harley Spiller’s collection of Chinese restaurant menus numbers about 10,000, but one of his favourites is from 1898 – a beautiful page with drawings of boats, lanterns and menu items written in calligraphy.

“It was probably the second menu I bought, and the only one I ever framed,” he told Toronto Life magazine. “I was at the New York Antique show. They wanted $55 for it. I thought that was ridiculous. But I had $67 in my pocket, enough for dinner and the menu.”

In 2014, Spiller donated the entire collection – considered the largest assortment of Chinese menus in the world – to University of Toronto Scarborough. Last month, he was a guest speaker at Chinese Food Everywhere, a two-day symposium that explored the cuisine’s history in North America at U of T Scarborough and at Hart House on the downtown Toronto campus.

Read the Toronto Life article

A dish prepared by chef Nick Liu for the Oct. 26-27 event, playing off a menu from 1898 (photo by Don Campbell)

The 1898 menu – with what Toronto Life calls its “inscrutable menu descriptions like ‘nut fruit,’ ‘water nut,’ ‘white plant’ and ‘rice bird’” – was a highlight of the symposium because it was the basis of a lunch that chef Nick Liu, of restaurant DaiLo, was preparing.

“This wasn’t supposed to be a recreation of those dishes,” Liu told Toronto Life. “The first draft was based on that menu, but it was so vague.”

But to Spiller, who the magazine said spent hours earlier in the day showing the variety of menus to the assembled professors and graduate students, the lunch was a thrill. “For a collector like Spiller, the joy of the meal begins and ends with his toys finally coming to life,” the magazine said.

Harley Spiller (right) donated his collection of Chinese restaurant menus to U of T Scarborough (photo by Don Campbell)

Other than the menus of the Spiller collection, Chinese Food Everywhere featured an installation by artist Karen Tam at Hart House’s Barnicke Gallery that recreates vintage Chinese restaurants, and an exhibit that looked at how Chinese markets have been captured by photographers, featuring works by Rick Halpern, professor of history at U of T Scarborough and co-organizer of the symposium, and Mississauga-based artist Morris Lum.

“What makes this symposium a little bit different is that in addition to standard academic, scholarly panels there are some unorthodox sessions," said Halpern.

The event also gave participants the opportunity to be involved in a hands-on session with a Canadian selection of menus that have been catalogued from the collection.

U of T Scarborough explores how urban agriculture intersects with social justice

ullahnor — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 21:24:56 +0000

U of T Scarborough explores how urban agriculture intersects with social justice

ullahnor Tue, 03/21/2017 - 17:24

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A summit hosted at U of T Scarborough this month looked at urban agriculture and the role of community gardens in Toronto (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Author legacy

Don Campbell

Topic

As Toronto continues to grow, urban agriculture may play a more significant role for people seeking alternative sources of nutritious and affordable food, U of T researcher Colleen Hammelman says.

Hammelman has examined urban agriculture in such cities as Medellín, Colombia, and Washington, D.C. She explored the role of urban agriculture in the GTA and social justice at a one-day conference organized at U of T Scarborough this month.

“Urban agriculture brings a lot of value to a city, especially in terms of sustainability, but a key element is how social justice also fits into the conversation,” says Hammelman.

While urban agriculture is widely practiced in many respects, it’s also misunderstood, particularly the important role it plays in migrant communities both culturally and nutritionally, notes Hammelman, who is a post-doc researcher at U of T Scarborough's Culinaria Research Centre.

From her experience, urban agriculture not only supplements food budgets by giving access to fresh food many can’t afford, but it also provides “spaces of community resilience” where residents can come together for a common purpose.

“Community gardens also provide important avenues of support for new Canadians,” she adds.

The conference featured a variety of speakers including Kristin Reynolds, author of Beyond the Kale, and Toronto Councillor Mary Fragedakis, along with members of various community organizations like Black Creek Community Farm, Toronto Urban Growers and AccessPoint Alliance. Undergraduate and graduate geography students also had a chance to meet with participants to talk about how social justice fits into the conversation around the urban agriculture movement.

There are about 200 spaces ranging in size that are designated for community gardens across Toronto where people can grow food.

“It’s an active and growing movement in the city, but there are challenges in trying to expand,” says Hammelman, pointing to resources needed for starting up a garden and finding adequate spaces and clean soil, which is no easy feat given Toronto’s industrial past.

She pointed to work being done by Malvern Action for Neighbourhood Change in supporting three community gardens and collaborating with other organizations for a project that will establish market farms in Hydro corridors as microenterprises. The work being done there in creating community gardens focuses a lot on addressing some of the food security issues in Malvern.

Hammelman sees the university playing a role in working together with community partners to help navigate some of the challenges involved in establishing opportunities for urban agriculture.

“There’s work to be done on making sure people growing food in community gardens can be adequately compensated for their labour, but also ensuring that the food being grown is still affordable for those who need it,” she says.

The edible midterm: U of T history students serve curry for their final history grade

ullahnor — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 21:52:30 +0000

The edible midterm: U of T history students serve curry for their final history grade

ullahnor Fri, 03/03/2017 - 16:52

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Students enrolled in Edible History: History of Global Foodways at U of T Scarborough cook curry for Professor Dan Bender (second from right) for their midterm (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Author legacy

Don Campbell

Topic

Undergraduate Education

Dan Bender

Culinaria

It’s not every day that you walk into a classroom for a midterm and are handed a wok and colourful ingredients.

But that’s exactly what happened to students enrolled in Edible History: History of Global Foodways at U of T Scarborough. Instead of sitting down to write an essay, they faced a “pop-up” kitchen where they cooked curry recipes, spanning 400 years into the past.

“Curry is one of those remarkable foods that has really travelled the globe,” says History Professor Dan Bender, director of the Culinaria Research Centre and the course instructor.

“It’s also somewhat ambiguous – are we talking about the curry leaf, a powder, or a type of food? Curry has different meanings depending where you are, but it also gives you a sense of the different types of food exchanges that have taken place and continue to take place around the world.”

Read about another food-based midterm at U of T

In addition to preparing one of 15 different curry dishes dating all the way back to the 1600s – the earliest being Akbar’s Dopiaza from Mughal India – students were also expected to serve the food and offer a mini lesson to diners. The diners in this case were staff, faculty and students from across campus invited to sample the dishes and hear about what makes them unique.

“I can lecture about different cooking techniques and ingredients or get students to read examples of culinary exchanges and encounters. But until they get to experience it firsthand, there’s no substitute for that type of learning experience,” says Bender.

A prime example of how curry is such a global dish is the Japanese Battleship Curry from 1877. Around that time the British were consulting with newly industrialized Japan to build a navy and brought with them a taste for curry from India. But in this case, the recipe relied on flour, an ingredient used in many European-style sauces.

“The Japanese first encountered curry not in South Asia but in their relationship with the British navy. Even today, Friday night is curry night in the Japanese navy,” adds Bender.

Read about other culinary activities like the Iron Chef Competition

Edible History has been offered at U of T Scarborough for more than a decade now but only recently has a minor in food studies been offered. Bender adds it’s the only program of its kind in Canada featuring the only industrial kitchen on a university campus used for teaching purposes.

Pirouz Salari, a fourth-year history student, says he enjoys how the course allows him to take theoretical lessons and apply them in tutorials. Much like the pop-up kitchen midterm, the weekly tutorials involve cooking with ingredients they’ve learned about in class.

“What I find most interesting about curry is that it incorporates so many different flavours, especially when Indigenous ingredients are added to the mix. There’s nothing restrictive about it,” he says.

Salari was responsible for cooking chicken for Akbar’s Dopiaza recipe, which he explains is an Indo-Pakistani curry with some Middle Eastern influences. He said despite being the earliest example of curry on the midterm, it still shows signs of different influences, all traits that epitomize the global dish.

“It’s a very unique experience, but more importantly it’s engaging and educational,” says Megann Davidson, a second-year human biology and biochemistry student who took the course as part of her degree requirement.

Davidson helped serve A Dainty Shrimp Curry dish that originated in 1890s New York. She says the unique ingredient in the curry is Maggi Sauce, a seasoning that originated in Switzerland, of all places. The idea of a shrimp curry being prepared by Asian immigrants living in New York using an ingredient of Swiss origin highlights the intricate historical and cultural roots of many popular foods.

“It’s important to think about and appreciate where our food comes from. This course really allows you to do that.”

We're calling it: Scarborough, food capital of the world

vzaretski — Wed, 02 Nov 2016 18:35:14 +0000

We're calling it: Scarborough, food capital of the world

vzaretski Wed, 11/02/2016 - 14:35

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The Taste of Lawrence draws food lovers from across the region. It's Scarborough's largest street festival (photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Donna Paris

Author legacy

Donna Paris

Topic

When American author and economist Tyler Cowen came to town, three University of Toronto historians knew exactly where to take him for dinner: Scarborough.

The food was such a hit that it prompted Cowen to give Scarborough top praise in a subsequent blog post.

Scarborough, Cowen wrote, is the best ethnic food suburb he has ever visited. In his life. Ever. Then he wondered if it could even be the “the dining capital of the world.” Seriously. The world.

That’s a big deal when it comes from the author of An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies. But Scarborough is more than just a place to get some of the best pho, roti, lamb kabobs, shawarma, veggie curries, lahmajoun and dim sum on the planet. It is home to many thousands of immigrants who have put down new roots and created one of the world’s most diverse cultural urban regions.

“A large proportion of the population in Scarborough is newcomers and their children and grandchildren,” says Donna Gabaccia, professor of history at U of T Scarborough. “Cultural difference always expresses itself in food. New groups are adapting to new foodways, and they’re trying to maintain the foodways of their original culture.”

Food isn’t just sustenance, then. It’s a connector too and a tangible way for first and succeeding generations in Canada to hold on to their cultural identity.

“We learn which food tastes good, even before we speak,” says Daniel Bender, professor of history at U of T Scarborough and Canada Research Chair in Cultural History and Analysis. “And we never lose the emotion. Every immigrant group tries to replicate its culture from the homeland.”

Professor Daniel Bender leads a class at the Culinaria Research Centre at U of T Scarborough (photo by Ken Jones)

Bender, who directs the Culinaria Research Centre, adds that “food is the one activity external to the body that you have to do. You have to eat and you have to drink. Everything else – getting out of bed, finding a job, sex – is optional.”

People who don’t live in Scarborough may not realize how much the area has been shaped by immigrants in just the past few decades.

“The diversity of the immigrants who have come to Scarborough since the 1950s has made it one of the leading immigrant recipients in North America,” says Jeffrey Pilcher, a professor of food history.

“New immigrants set up food businesses,” says Pilcher. “It’s a source of entrepreneurship for people starting in the economy.”

They may not have some of the opportunities they had at home, he adds. So the food business may be all immigrants can do – and it’s a step into the economy.

Bender says this is a good thing for immigrants.

“Food is a key source of employment for people who have left behind families and have degrees that may not be recognized here.”

He goes further, emphasizing that Ontario is one of the world’s largest food hubs with Scarborough as one of the hub’s epicentres.

“There are more jobs in the food and food processing centres here than in New York City.” He says only Los Angeles has more.

It is no surprise that such a diverse population would create a dynamic and varied food industry.

“It only takes a little drive to see the restaurants and supermarkets,” says Bender. “But behind that it is even more expansive.” He describes a vast infrastructure of food buyers, processors and vendors supporting independent import markets.

Professor Jeffrey Pilcher teaches food history at U of T Scarborough (photo by Ken Jones)

Gabaccia adds that you can get just about any type of cuisine or the ingredients you need to make it at home. “There are East Asian, South Asian and Pan Asian grocery stores, many started by Asian entrepreneurs with limited capital,” she says.

“Think of the packaged sauces you can buy from Indonesia, or canned ackee or saltfish in Guyanese supermarkets,” says Bender. “You can probably buy six or seven varieties in Scarborough.” And think of the food we take for granted today from beer to German-style hot dogs, which can be traced back to immigrant businesses.

“Those little businesses starting up in Scarborough now are selling things that will be on everybody’s shopping list in five to 10 years,” Bender adds.

That’s already noticeable.

“Large Canadian food chains are competing and adapting. Look at halal and other specialty food aisles,” says Gabaccia. “In Toronto, even older Canadians are eating Greek and Italian food now from earlier migrations of the ’50s and ’60s.”

What’s more, she adds, is that in the ’80s food started to become a cosmopolitan symbol of foodies and the middle class.

“As a result of global travel, this interest in food came about for longtime Canadians interested in experiencing immigrant foods,” she says.

People have many reasons for choosing particular foods, not the least of which is location.

“If you live downtown, there is a real problem going to eat in Scarborough. It’s a lot of work,” says Pilcher. “But if you’re already living in the suburbs, it’s not a big leap.”

And nestled in this unique part of the world is U of T Scarborough with a committed connection to the community. Moreover, part of the university’s strategic plan is to focus on the strengths of its location within one of the most culturally diverse communities in the world. Witness the popularity of initiatives such as U of T Scarborough's farmers’ market. It is organized by students and faculty with local vendors selling everything from maple syrup and chutneys to fresh produce and baked goods.

Witness also the Culinaria Research Centre, bringing students and faculty together in partnership with community organizations and other institutions.

“In a way, Culinaria was possible at this location for a reason,” says Pilcher. “Many times, innovative work gets done in less central locations.”

Read about the world's largest collection of Chinese menus at U of T Scarborough

Pilcher adds that foods also start to migrate between cultures. “In the U.S., one of the trends now is Korean taco trucks serving up Korean barbecued short ribs in a taco. It’s a way for them to Americanize their food.”

Gabaccia says curiosity about other foods is culturally positive. But it doesn’t always transfer to other areas. “We do have crossover multicultural eating, but that doesn’t mean the battle is won and that we all accept each other,” she explains. “Accepting an immigrant’s food is not the same as accepting an immigrant.”

However, she adds, “Scarborough is a good start because that willingness to try other foods is there. This is hopefully the first step toward a social and economic acceptance that develops over time.”

Donna Paris is a writer with UTSC Commons

Read the full UTSC Commons feature

Are you going to Scarborough Fare? U of T hosts international food conference

lanthierj — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 15:01:51 +0000

Are you going to Scarborough Fare? U of T hosts international food conference lanthierj Thu, 06/23/2016 - 11:01

Don Campbell

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Don Campell

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“It’s a tremendous opportunity to meet and talk about research with the top food scholars in the world”

More than 500 international food scholars and participants hungry for knowledge about global and local food issues are gathering at the University of Toronto Scarborough for a four-day conference.

Hosted by U of T Scarborough and the Culinaria Research Centre, the conference explores the changing nature of food production, distribution and consumption by focusing on how people, foods as well as culinary and agricultural knowledge move across cultural and national borders.

“We are located in one of the most diverse communities in the world and that diversity is reflected in the wide array of restaurants, food shops, cafes, take-out eateries, urban farms and businesses,” says Professor Dan Bender, director of Culinaria.

A key theme of the conference is the development of cities and their food marketplaces where new and old migrant communities, entrepreneurs and an emerging migrant-origin middle class have settled in suburbs like Scarborough rather than older downtown districts.

“There’s a real focus on the influence of migrant communities on local food throughout the conference says Professor Jeffrey Pilcher (pictured below), who helped organized the conference. “And Scarborough’s diverse communities have much to teach us.”

The conference includes local food tours, art exhibitions in the Doris McCarthy Gallery, local field trips, panel discussions, lectures, exhibitions and even live cooking sessions in the Culinaria test kitchen.

The local food tours will feature four distinct culinary zones in Scarborough and highlight the unique character of each area’s ethnic cuisine. One zone, located in the Milliken neighbourhood of Scarborough is near the Silver Star Plaza, which is home to the largest concentration of Chinese restaurants in North America. But, as Bender notes, the four zones represent a wide cross-section of distinct cultural and fusion styles of cuisine.

“Many of these restaurants are in strip malls and small plazas. The owners often live nearby and cook for regulars who are intimately familiar with the menus rather than ‘culinary adventurers’ or ‘foodies,’” he says.

“Eating in Scarborough is a cultural experience that is rooted in the history and heritage of all the communities who migrated here. It’s quite unique.”

The conference is truly international; all continents with the exception of Antarctica will be represented by participants, notes Pilcher.

Culinaria also launched a mobile app called SALT (Scarborough, A Little Taste) to coincide with the opening of the conference. The app, which was created in collaboration with U of T Scarborough’s entrepreneurship centre, The Hub, offers an introduction to notable cuisines in Scarborough by focusing on small, vibrant restaurants that offer authentic dishes from around the world.

U of T Scarborough students have also prepared a recipe book Scarborough Fare: Our Many Marvelous Kitchens to commemorate the conference. The cookbook captures the students own unique familial, migratory and cultural stories through a variety of dishes.

Katie Konstantopoulos, a fourth-year sociology, English and history student, is one of more than 30 U of T undergraduates who helped with planning and organizing the conference. In addition to helping prepare the first draft of the recipe book and her work on developing SALT, she will help with one of the food tours and also present her research on labour in diasporic kitchens.

“It’s a tremendous opportunity to meet and talk about research with the top food scholars in the world,” she says.

“As a student with a passion for food studies, the most rewarding part is that fellow undergraduates have an opportunity to get involved through volunteering and presentations.”

Scarborough Fare takes place June 22 to June 25.

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Read about the world's largest collection of Chinese menus at U of T Scarborough

Read the full UTSC Commons feature

Are you going to Scarborough Fare? U of T hosts international food conference

See more information about Scarborough Fare