Chapter 1: The Archives
IN THIS LESSON
Ever wondered how you could build your own community cookbook collection or workshop?
I would like to preface that many of us come from various positionalities. So, the beginning of building a culinary collection or workshop looks different for everyone.
In order to start collecting narratives of food— especially ones from the past— one may first consider their own oral histories, passed down by their mother or grandmother as a primary source. Others may rather seek the archives to further learn whether records could provide insight on how our loved ones were once influenced to develop or adapt these recipes.
Some of us may instead, end up facing barriers of cultural erasure, displacement, and secrets that prevent us from having the ability to explore our identities through the archives. Hence, this module encourages us to expand on our tastes; to see how the archive of us has evolved or how we can move beyond it— what do we cook and consume after we’ve moved away from your mother(land)s?
I encourage you to read the following list of questions to ponder upon before we get started with the process of creating our community and to help you understand how this allows us to establish our collection/workshop praxis:
Who are We?
Who or what are we inspired by?
What do we want to preserve?
Where do we come from?
Where have we been?
When did we get here?
Why are we here?
