Location Outdoor Rotunda, St Paul's African House
54 Poplar Avenue
Shepparton, VIC 3630
Cost $10
Type
Food Culture Experience
Afghan culture is all about hospitality and generosity - food is the currency of kindness, love, collaboration and unity.
In Afghanistan, meals are a ritual combining family, friends and culture. Food is eaten together and given the amount of work taken to create an Afghan feast, cooking is also done communally.
Join Shakilla Naveed in her makeshift outdoor kitchen to share in creating and eating delicious, healthy homestyle Afghan dishes like aash and biryani- made with love!
“A healthy food culture includes a large mix of different cultures and traditions…and foods that are created with love and shared with others” – Agoness Kuol
Food is about so much more than what we eat. Food is at the heart of culture, family and community. Food tells stories of our ancestors, of who we are now, and through sharing food together, we connect across cultures and generations.
Celebrating two years of working together, the women of the Shepparton Culture Kitchen offer this special opportunity for community to share in a diversity of flavours, stories and food cultures over two days at St. Paul’s African House on 13 and 14 May 2022.
Drawing on their own stories, cultures, traditions and contemporary influences, the women including Ane Fotu, Ree Peric, Shakilla Naveed, Eman Alabbassi, Yusniza Yusoff, Leaisa Pele and Agoness Kuol, have collaborated with artist Jamie Lewis, to explore and exchange food cultures and to develop this special program of participatory cooking, eating, storytelling and food culture experiences.
Try your hand at making a delicious Malaysian curry puff with Yusniza; gather in the makeshift outdoor Afghan kitchen for a communal cooking session with Shakilla; dress up for an intimate dinner, song and dance experience that traces Ane’s culinary journey from Tonga to Shepparton; learn the art of relaxing and slow, social sipping with Agoness’s traditional East African Coffee Ceremony; be inspired by stories of Ree’s transglobal upbringing as she performs a Fijian kava ceremony and serves up a meal of hearty, traditional dishes from her childhood home of Uganda; and more.
Produced by MAV, Greater Shepparton City Council and Point of Difference Studio, Shepparton Culture Kitchen is one of 4 initiatives supported through VicHealth’s Art of Good Health program. Drawing on Shepparton’s identity as Victoria’s ‘food bowl’ and most culturally diverse regional town, Shepparton Culture Kitchen is a significant arts program that centres the voices of diverse local women living in diaspora, to reimagine a future in which our communities are connected through empowering, healthy and sustainable food cultures.