Then they brought their culinary finds to nearby St. Mark’s Anglican Church, partnering in the initiative by donating the use of the church hall. Everyone arranged the feast as a buffet on a long table. Some of the dishes are already popular among many Canadians — sushi, pork and shrimp dumplings, General Tso chicken, but many others were entirely new to most participants, such as unagi (marinated eel), thinly sliced pork tongue, and seaweed salad.

The Rev. John Holgate from St. Helen’s is trained as a facilitator and made the bold choice to bring a plate of “five cold appetizers” that were not labelled with any other information. 

The Rev. Chung Yan Lam, the co-ordinator for Community Conversations, immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong as a child and graciously served as a cultural guide, explaining some of the customs and special dishes for the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations. Many of the packages of food were labelled with the word for blessing in Chinese characters, but she noted that often the word will be turned upside down because people wish for the blessings to be poured out. She also explained what some of the unfamiliar foods were. (The cold appetizers included mushrooms, a different type of fungi, as well as marinated chicken’s feet and spicy duck gizzard.)

After a prayer of blessing, everyone filled their plates with varying degrees of daring and sat down in smaller table groups to enjoy the food and talk about what they were sampling.

As the meal progressed to the desserts, Lam offered a bit of food for thought, encouraging some deeper discussions at each table.  “Did you notice any stereotypes that you came in with before you went to T&T?” she asked, offering some examples of things she has heard or been asked as an Asian Canadian: “’Do you eat cats? Am I going to find a dog in there? Am I going to find bugs like what I saw when I Googled Chinese food… Is it really clean because they just came out of COVID and we all know where COVID came from,” she said. “There are certain things that you might come with. I want to let you know it’s not wrong or right, it’s just what we come with.”  The aim is to encounter what is unfamiliar, break down barriers, be able to ask those questions in a safe space and see from a new perspective. The trip to the market gave everyone a first-hand view: there were no cats. “It’s just roast pork and ducks,” she said.

The encounter may also help people to “imagine what is the experience on the other side,” said Lam. She mentioned that during the pandemic when Asian Canadians faced increased racism, she found that T&T was the only grocery store where she felt comfortable letting her two kids roam around without worrying that they would get a hostile look from people.

In an interview prior to the event, Lam told Crosstalk that Community Conversations is intended to be an ongoing series because anti-racism work and education is always ongoing. “We found that relationship building is the most important, and that’s why it’s called Community Conversations,” she explained.  This first part uses food as a way to connect with other cultures, but the hope is to follow with other series based on music and film as ways to start conversations. 

“Our own sense of familiarity and unfamiliarity comes from our own assumptions and presumptions of the other,” she said.

“Food and Culture will be a series of cultural encounters, where all of us will take the risk to go somewhere we haven’t been to…. The only criteria is to be willing to try. You can certainly spit it out if you like, but to take a risk with the community is safer than by yourself,” she said. “I’m hoping to do this once a month on the last Friday of every month.  The next one may be to the Mid-East market on St Laurent. 

Organizers hope to involve nearby churches as a location for the meal and also a way to encourage engagement from those parishes. “That naturally creates an opportunity for a partnership and if they want to participate, if they’re curious enough, they don’t have to go to someone else’s church,” said Lam.

She encouraged those who attended this dinner to bring their family and friends next time. “They don’t have to be Anglican,” she said. All are welcome.

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