Sharing food memories

Objectives

The activity will bring back memories that -hopefully – are happy ones for the participants. The fact that people are listening to these memories and are interested in the dishes and memories will boost participants’ self- esteem. Food and recipes are known for being good conversation triggers. They will experience that by doing this activity, which will / might help participants to trespass their shyness to talk in the new language, also outside the classroom.

If this activity is followed by a meal for which people from outside the group will be invited, it offers the participants a great opportunity to meet other people and become more familiar with and integrated in their new society.

This activity is beneficial not only for language learning, but also for getting to know each other better and gaining insights into the significance of food in different cultures.

The activity:

• Invites participants to share a personal story by stirring their memories of food and the eating of food with people in their native country.
• Makes them aware of the importance of listening by asking them to recount the story that has been shared with them (without letting them know that this is what you are going to ask them to do beforehand).
• Helps them get to know more about each other
• Makse them feel seen and heard

Preparation

Prepare a story about your favorite food of your youth.

Instructions

This activity challenges participants to create a short story about their past around the food they liked then and to (digitally) find out if they would be able to prepare that same dish in their new country. It is not really suited for participants with low language skills.

Steps:

1. Ask each participant to think of their favourite dish when they were young and still in the country they grew up in.
2. Split the group in pairs
3. Ask each participant to ask their partner the following questions;
4. What was the dish you liked best when you were young
5. Who prepared it (usually)
6. Do you remember one time in particular eating that dish and what made it special (think of the company you were in, your surroundings, the weather; anything that made it special for you).
7. You can clarify the task by talking about your special dish, who usually made it for you and that one time that was special because of ….
8. Each participant gets 5 minutes (max) to answer the questions and talk about the special time. After 5 minutes you ask them to swap roles.
9. Ask everyone to come back to the group again.
10. Ask each participant per pair what their partner has shared with them. (Make this swapping of roles come as a surprise!)
11. Ask the participant who originally has shared his/her story if s.he is happy with the retelling, if some information is missing or wrong.
12. After all have retold the information given by their partner:
13. Form new pairs, or small groups if there are not enough devices for internet searches.
14. Ask each pair or group to check if it would be possible to prepare the same dish in their new country. They can use the internet / search machines to find out if ingredients are available or, if not, could be replaced by others and where to find the ingredients. (30 minutes). Ask them to take notes of the information they have found.
15. If you notice groups are struggling with this task, offer your help.
16. Ask all to group together again to share their findings. Offer them space to react to each other. Maybe someone has tips for others…

Variant

• The information gathered during this activity might come in handy when you close your training sessions with a meal together for which you ask them to all make the dish they have talked about, including yourself.
• For this, you could go visiting food stores together, dividing tasks and preparing recipes together.
• You and the participants could invite people (family, friends and – important – ‘original’ inhabitants of the new country) to the dinner party, which will broaden the participants’ network.
• You could ask a cook from the new country of residence to prepare a traditional, typical meal with the participants.
• You / you and the group could make a cookbook with stories, recipes and cultural insights.