Our lives can get so busy that something as essential as the food we consume can become an afterthought to be optimised for the sake of convenience alone. However, food is much more than just fuel for survival. Food, cooking, and other practices related to its preparation and consumption, are repositories of historical and ancestral knowledge which bring vibrancy and nourishment to our daily lives. They weave a tapestry of cultural wisdom derived from lived experience, rooting us in the learnings of the past and giving us the tools to build a healthy and fulfilling future. 

It was this spirit of the transformative and healing power of food which animated Roots & Recipes: a community-led program organised by Rites of Passage. Rites of Passage,  hosted by WoodGreen Community Services, guides youth from the African diaspora in Toronto through the transition of adolescence to adulthood. Rites provides youth mentorship from community elders, which builds a strong sense of community responsibility and fosters a strong connection to pan-African cultural teachings and practices. The programming offered by Rites provides rich opportunities for youth to engage in active reflection on their identities and on their life’s purpose, to develop skills, and to contribute to a community which encourages growth and intergenerational connection. Graduates from the program often return and contribute to the development of new cohorts of youth, building resilient cycles of community building and knowledge transmission. The full scope of programming offered by Roots is beyond the scope of this article, but I would highly encourage the reader to look into the amazing work that they do. 

 In this vein of intergenerational cultural wisdom and community building, Roots & Recipes was an event in which participating youth were taught African recipes by Naza Hasebeneb, an Eritrea-born vegan chef who runs Chic Peas Veg: a Toronto plant-based company that specialises in catering, cooking classes, among other culinary experiences. Under her guidance, the group cooked an “East-meets-West” menu: a hearty split pea soup with ginger, turmeric, jalapeno, bell pepper, onions, and kale; East African spiced quinoa; and a Senegalese-inspired kukupaka coconut curry with butternut squash, potatoes, and plantains. Many of the ingredients were sourced locally by urban farmers in the Greater Toronto Area, who were also members of the African diaspora. 

Photos taken on 35mm film by Anu for The Decom Post

The kitchen was alive with a swirl of colours and conversation, as participants prepared the various ingredients under Naza’s good-humoured guidance. Participants learned directly by jumping straight in. They sliced and diced vegetables, stirred pots, and learned as they carried on. It showed right away that everyone has some capacity for cooking, and that faithful engagement in the activity can be enough to unlock this potential. The group cooked in layers, relishing in the aromas and colours of each stage, as new flavours were added to the mix and made their mark. If they needed help with technique, Naza would draw the group’s attention and draw from her extensive lived experience to share tips and tricks to connect strongly to the process of cooking, and to do things as ergonomically as possible. For example, I learned that I can avoid the eye-watering that often comes with cutting onions, by leaving the “butt” of the onion on as I cut.   

Naza would pass the ingredients around to encourage participants to familiarise with their colours, smells, tastes, and their functions. We learned that turmeric is great against inflammation, and about the digestive properties of anise seed. Naza explained that food is energy, and that the energy that you put into cooking is also consumed by those that sit at your table. As such, never cook for others when you feel angry. However, if you are angry and cooking for yourself, it can be a way for you to release that energy and heal. In this way, food has been a medium for the expression of love across generations, and remains a vessel for the love of our ancestors to be carried into our present lives. These energetic layers of love and joy were equally vital to the deliciousness of the dishes. If food is indeed energy, then the rich laughter present in the kitchen was as rich and flavourful as the abundance of spices used. As an elder to the youth playfully preparing split pea soup in a rental kitchen in Toronto’s East York neighbourhood, Naza’s culinary wisdom and channelling of African ancestral wisdom cultivated a relationality with her students that infused love and joy into the room, the cooking, and ultimately the food itself. Every bite held the weight of this rich and abundant inheritance.