Yesterday, students from Chippewa’s travel and tourism class embarked on a walking cultural food tour of downtown North Bay. Their mission was to explore culture through the food served at several North Bay establishments that specialize in bringing international culinary offerings to the city.
To make this trip possible, Chippewa students, with inspiration from Arugula Restaurant, were able to collect and donate 36 pounds of non-perishable foods to the North Bay Food Bank.
After the food bank, the students visited Arugula, The North Bay Farmer’s Market, Dave’s Green Papaya, and the Community Garden. Over the course of the day, they walked throughout the city and learned about the cultural background of many of the foods they were served, including common ways of cooking and preparing food in each culture, eating traditions and customs practiced in each culture, and the influence of geography on food.
"Their first stop was Arugula Restaurant, where students tasted three kinds of authentic Italian pizza," said Mike Brisson, Chippewa's Canadian and World Studies teacher. "They were also told about the importance assigned to quality ingredients in Italian cooking, as well as the fascinating story behind their pizza oven and why it was important to fly in a pizza-oven-builder straight from Italy."
Next, students completed a scavenger hunt through the North Bay Farmer’s Market where they asked questions of the vendors so that they could explain the benefits of buying local, identify the locations of several vendors in the community, and learn about new fruits, vegetables, or other products they’d not seen before.
For their third stop, they were given a tour around the North Bay Community Garden and were told about the important function of the garden as well as opportunities for student involvement at the garden.
Finally, the students stopped at Dave’s Green Papaya, where they were served many uniquely Asian foods including spring rolls, General Tao chicken, and pad Thai with rice noodles. Here they smelled and tasted fragrant Asian herbs, and they also tried their best to use chopsticks while enjoying their cultural experience.
“The best way to explore a culture is through its food,” believes Brisson. “And we’d like to thank all the establishments that our students visited today for offering them a chance to try new and wonderful flavours, to learn about different cultures, and to become involved in our diverse cultural community.”
