Students share culture through food at International Food Festival

What better way to kick off the start of the Parade of Nations weeklong celebration than the International Food Festival, a lively and vibrant celebration of cuisines from the numerous cultures that make up the Tufts community.

The event, headed by the International Club(I-Club) at Tufts, strives to provide an opportunity for students of a diverse range of backgrounds to share their culture. And what better way to introduce others to your culture than through trendy and mouth-watering dishes. 

“The main objective is for students, whether they are from a culture house or whether they are from a recognized culture group or not, to make food and share it with the community, talk about what it is, where it comes from and what types of ingredients you used,” Sara Torres Raisbeck, the president of I-Club, said.

Raisbeck has been involved with the club since transferring to Tufts in her sophomore year. 

“One of the reasons why I wanted to come to Tufts was because of the international community here," Raisbeck, a senior, said. “It was so much more diverse than where I was at before, and I wanted to meet people from all around the world.”

I-Club is an active organization on campus, dedicated to creating a stronger sense of community for students through events like the International Gala and the Parade of Nations Week. It strives to provide platforms for students to showcase their cultures in ways they feel is more representative of themselves and who they are, Raisbeck said. 

“Our main objective on campus had originally been to be a space for international students and the international community,” Raisbeck said. “But in the past few years we have definitely tried to widen this space and be a lot more inclusive of students who aren't necessarily international because we think that there are people from many different cultures who should have a space to share their cultures.”

This year marks the 36th year that I-Club has hosted the Parade of Nations event on campus.

“I hope this event definitely also has a similar impact on others as it did for me, showing students that there is a very diverse community of backgrounds, cultures [and] interests, and that everyone is a part of it. If you want, you can also be a part of it and engage with it and learn from it,” Raisbeck said. 

Despite the many years of hosting the Parade of Nations event, this is only the second year I-Club has organized the International Food Festival. 

Arjun Padalkar, I-Club’s treasurer, was part of the small group of students who helped launch the idea of a food festival for the Parade of Nations week last year. The event grew to be even greater than Padalkar, a junior, expected. 

“Last year we had regular TCU student groups, but the real interesting part was that we also had student groups that really weren’t student groups per se,” Padalkar said. “They were just a bunch of friends in a dorm that got together and cooked. We had the Peruvian Students Association, which [wasn’t] an official culture group, but they were just three friends that reached out to us saying they have Peruvian food that they wanted to share with people.” 

In the first year, about seven groups volunteered to cook food. This year, that number increased to fifteen groups, including organizations both recognized by TCU and not. The groups included the African Students Organization, Bengali Student Association, European Students Association (ESA), Filipinx Student Union (FSU), French House, German House, Hawai'i Culture Club, Korean Students Association (KSA), Persian Students Association, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia Student Association (SIMSA), Students of Turkey (SOFT), Taiwanese Association of Students at Tufts (TAST), Thai Students Association (TSA), Tufts Association of South Asians (TASA) and the Tufts Eritrean-Ethiopian Students Association (EESA). 

The spread of savory dishes and flavorful finger foods drew in a large stream of students, all eager to get a sample from each table. Each station, manned by a different organization or group, was colorfully embellished with the flag of its respective country or culture. 

While the event showcased the unique dishes of various nations, there were also unifying threads between countries. Both ESA and TSA brought their own variations of an egg-based dish. 

ESA’s dish, Tortilla de Patata, included potato and an option with onions, while TSA added a special ingredient to strengthen the taste of their dish, Kai Jiew.

“If you were to ask Thai people what their favorite comfort food is, it would either be this or phat kaphrao. Everyone has a different take on it. Our take is to put fish sauce to add the flavor and the color, and we also topped it with some scallions and some milk to it to make it more fluffy,” junior Deena Bhanarai, a member of TSA, said. 

One of the student favorites was the spam musubi made by the Hawai’i Culture Club. 

“It's kind of like the iconic Hawaii local snack, because back in World War II when Hawai’i and Pearl Harbor all happened, spam was the rations that were given out, so people had to kind of figure out different ways to eat it,” sophomore Jonah Apo, a member of the club, said. 

Members of the club all came together prior to the event to make the dish themselves within one of their dorms, Apo added.

While some clubs brought one or two culturally significant dishes, SOFT went the extra mile and prepared three notable treats to share with visitors: baba ghanoush, kibe (kibbeh) and hummus.

“All these three dishes exist in Turkey and are very popular, but they are also food from the Mediterranean and the Middle Eastern region in general," senior Ezgi Yazici, club co-president, said.

The German House brought Kartoffelpuffer, a German-style potato pancake, accompanied by sweet and savory options for toppings, like sour cream and applesauce. 

When asked about the origins of this dish, sophomore Temple Miller-Hodgkin gave a brief history lesson.

“In the [18th century], Frederick the Great instituted this program where potatoes, which were brought over from the New World, were planted in mostly Eastern Germany. So potatoes became a staple diet for Germans. They're also known as latkes which are a traditional German-Jewish dish,” Miller-Hodgkin said. 

First-year Angelica Cheng helped to operate the FSU's station, which prepared a notable and popular treat: turon. 

“It is one of my favorite desserts, and it’s basically a spring roll with banana in it” Cheng said. 

The students from FSU made an enormous batch of the turon together prior to the festival.

“Usually you're supposed to use plantains, like a special kind of southeast Asian plantain, but we couldn't find it here so we had to get regular bananas. Plantains and bananas are such an important food staple in the Philippines, like it's pretty common in a lot of desserts,” Cheng said. 

SIMSA also shared two of their favorite dishes: chicken satay and Indomie.

“Indomie is very very famous, not only in Asia, but around the world. It originated from Indonesia, hence the name,” sophomore Shawn Tjahaja, logistics head of SIMSA, said. 

Tjahaja added the significance of having chicken satay as well.

“We also have chicken satay because we feel like chicken satay is a national dish in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, so it encompasses all our different nationalities and is very delicious as well,” Tjahaja said. 

Neighboring SIMSA’s station was the KSA, who brought two dishes to share: kimchi fried rice and Korean sweet pancakes. 

“We chose these dishes because they have a lot of cultural and historical background for each of them,” Jacob Choi, a first-year member of the KSA executive board, said. “Like for example, the Korean sweet pancakes originated from the Chinese merchants, which is something not a lot of people know about.”

Maureen Kamanu, a senior, stood as the representative for the Tufts African Student Organization at the food fair. Kamanu shared how the dish they brought, Mandazi, held a lot of cultural significance.

“Mandazis are typically an East African food ... Basically it's just a little bit of wheat, dough, and some sugar ... then you put it in a fryer,” Kamanu said. 

Kamanu added that food is a big part of any culture experience.

“You know, food is culture, so it brings us all together, and we just hope that everyone else can experience what we get to experience” Kamanu said. 

The International Food Festival was the leading event commencing the Parade of Nations week, which will culminate in the Parade of Nations day on Friday. 

Raisbeck emphasized the Parade of Nations week as a way to create community on campus.

“This is a way of building community and showing students in the audience the different nations that are represented in the Tufts community,” Raisbeck said.