Since leaving home in 2018 to study in Canada, I have tried to recreate the food I grew up with. Sometimes I cook dishes specific to my hometown, Nanjing, in Southeast China, like roasted duck or pot stickers; other times I try to mimic recipes associated with a person or memory.
During my time in Toronto, I heard many stories of how food intertwined with the journeys of new immigrants. Sometimes it was to express a sense of longing and nostalgia, and sometimes to pass down a tradition or a sense of identity. I realized that these food memories connect personal history to shared emotions, and I started to collect these stories intentionally.
In 2023, I worked as a program coordinator for Heritage Toronto and created an oral history project “North York Recipes for Healing” that documents the food memories of the East Asian communities in North York, Toronto. The...
University of California Press