Food Relations participants celebrate the end of the course by presenting the Fusion Menu

A total of 10 women of seven different nationalities prepared dishes from each of their countries

The participants of the European project Food Relations have celebrated the end of the course presenting the Fusion Menu at the Mercat de Sants. Hassna, Laila, Yassmina, Maria, Rashida, Davinder, Pilar, Sokhna, Aische and Simona, the 10 women who have joined the program, have prepared a set of dishes from their seven countries: Morocco, Pakistan, India, Colombia, Senegal, Albania and Romania. They have all been part of this three-month culinary adventure where they have learned about the gastronomy of other cultures, have worked as a team and have received training to encourage their social and labor activation by Bienestar y Desarrollo Association (ABD in Spanish) and Fundació Espigoladors.

Food Relations is a European initiative born in 2018 aimed at fostering community cohesion that arises from promoting socio-labor activation among women from different cultural heritages who are unemployed and in a situation of vulnerability, through a community itinerary based on the creation and marketing of a healthy, profitable, low-cost and socially, economically and environmentally responsible Intercultural Fusion Menu.

An intercultural and healthy menu

This Tuesday, Hassna, Laila and Yassmina prepared a typical Moroccan dish: fish birwat, which according to Yassmina “is a meal that rich people usually eat”. Maria and Rashida, from Pakistan, and Davinder, from India, cooked a dish from both countries: Halwa Suji, a dessert served at any family celebration, said Maria.

With a very visible enthusiasm and pleasure, Aische made a very refreshing Albanian salad for these unusually hot weather. On the other hand, the Colombian dish chosen by Pilar was the aborrajados de plátano maduro, while the sarmale was the one chosen by Simona. 

In addition to the cultural and culinary exchange, the participants highlight the good atmosphere that has been generated in these three months in the workshop that has taken place in the neighborhood of Marina del Port in the district of Sants. I have learned a lot in this course about other cultures, and I have also had very friendly friends. I’m lucky to have such a great teachers,” celebrated Maria.

On the other hand, they also value very positively the fact of being able to have better access to the labor market through this training, since one of the main functions of this program is to create spaces for social participation, intercultural and inclusion of migrant women through food. In fact, Yassmina has insisted that she hopes to be able to work in a hotel or restaurant because she likes cooking very much, although from the course she has also highlighted having discovered gastronomies such as African or Colombian.