local elder demonstrating with child translating

what are the real basics?

farmer's market demo booth

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Families comprise 75% of the Tenderloin population. While families often travel to seek out healthy ingredients in neighborhoods with more grocery access, they still have minimal access to food preparation spaces and equipment. Much food skill and knowledge resides in elder members of the community who may have learned to cook in very differently equipped contexts. This knowledge is underused. Yet it indicates that the basic skills to prepare healthy tasty meals exist within Tenderloin families if food memories and old recipes can be unlocked and adapted.

We propose a multi-step approach to revive these healthy, pre-packaged-food-era traditions:

1. Recruit children from local schools to bring their parents or grandparents to share their food memories and recipes. Children can also act as translators between elders and researchers.
2. Engage a cultural/culinary expert to interview elders and/or observe their culinary practices; this person (or team) must have the skills to translate recipes and descriptions from traditional cooking contexts to a low-power, electric-only cooking environment.
3. Distribute these adapted traditional recipes via flyers and demos. There's also potential to reach a wider audience for these cultural traditions by taping via YouTube, websites, etc.
4. Partner with the Heart of the City Farmers' Market (civic center farmer's market) to offer space for demos and donate free produce to elders who demonstrate their recipes to the community. Alternate venues for cooking demos would be near food distribution lines or in the lobby/communal areas of SROs.
5. Identify the bare minimum "kit" required to prepare fresh produce: knife, cutting board, bowl, heat source. Make sure that the adapted traditional recipes can be prepared using this minimal kit.
6. Partner with major corporations or non-profits to sponsor and distribute the minimal kit free of charge to families and homes in the Tenderloin.
The rest is gravy, hopefully delicious.