What Bonds Us Is Food And Culture
The Saturday Huddle is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region. Mark Leger is the editor of Huddle and the Director of News Content for Acadia Broadcasting.
I still remember the first meal I had that would make me a life-long fan of Indian food. It was the fall of 1991 and I had only been in India for a few weeks. Like a lot of first-time travellers, I was having trouble adjusting to the food and water and I had been ill for a few days.
Living amidst tea plantations in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, I began to feel better one day on a slow, bumpy trip by jeep to a remote village in a lush hill region. By the time we arrived, my appetite had returned, and we sat down to eat lunch with the villagers. Cross-legged on a bare wood floor, they fed me egg curry, served on a freshly cut banana leaf, as was the custom.
I still savour the taste, texture and aroma 30 years later.
When I returned from India in February 1992, the college-aged kid accustomed to diner and pub food now sought out Indian restaurants instead.
Over the years, I’ve judged my hometown’s food culture complete or not based on whether it had Indian restaurants. In the late 90s, when I settled back in Saint John after a period of travelling and living away, it had a couple of good ones—one that was a fusion of Chinese and Indian cuisine from the northern region near the border of both countries.
Those places are both gone now and for a while there was nothing. But the city now has Indian restaurants, a mall kiosk, and meal delivery options through the online food marketplace, Sankara.
These memories and reflections came to mind earlier this week as I read Mary Allan’s Huddle story on Caribbean Flavas, which opened in Fredericton in 2004.
Related: Caribbean Flavas Fuse Food, Community And Culture
At the time, Naz Ali was studying at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton and he pitched the idea of the restaurant as part of a course project.
“I thought, there’s no diversity, no ethnicity [in the restaurant scene],” says Ali, now Head Chef and co-owner. “I told my professors that I wanted to start an ethnic restaurant in a predominately white market.”
He says the professors told him the business case wasn’t there. But he really believed it would work, so left school and opened Caribbean Flavas with his parents and sisters. The restaurant is now a culinary and cultural hub in the city’s downtown.
“I always tell people here that we teach culture, I just happen to serve food,” says Ali. “What bonds us is that food and culture.”
In small towns and cities in the Maritimes, there have been varying degrees of cultural diversity in the restaurant scenes, with Mediterranean, Lebanese, Chinese, and Indian restaurants in my city, for example, going back decades. The same would be true in Fredericton, Moncton, and Halifax.
But Ali is right. The options were limited back then, and it was risky, though worthwhile, starting a restaurant like his at a time when the population was less diverse than it is now (though we still have a long way to go) and less open to the introduction of new food options in the market.
Times have certainly changed. Though difficult to quantify, we all recognize that there is a much more diverse range of food options in our communities. In my own neighbourhood, I’m within walking distance of great Thai, Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Lebanese, Italian, and vegetarian restaurants.
And through Sankara’s online ordering service, and others like it, people in Saint John, Moncton, Fredericton, and Halifax can get delivery of meal boxes prepared by local chefs that come from countries on all continents.
Podcast: Sankara Brings Food Of The World To Your Doorstep
The region is also lucky to have immigrants with decades of experience in the food and hospitality industry launching new businesses in a competitive environment made more challenging by the pandemic.
Last month, Huddle reporter Tyler Maclean wrote a story on Fredericton-based Rôticana Coffee opening a retail location in Saint John. Mohamed Khirallah comes from an Egyptian family that has been in the coffee business for more than 70 years.
Khirallah, who has been drinking coffee since he was a kid, was born in Egypt and lived in Dubai for 15 years. But he’s now committed to building a life and business here in New Brunswick.
“People always told me, ‘You are much too talkative,’” he says. “I said, ‘Yes because I have been drinking coffee since I was three.’”
Related: Rôticana Coffee Expands To Saint John
I’ve travelled a lot since my early 20s and my diet has been greatly influenced by the various places I’ve visited. I love curries because of my time in India and Thailand. When I was still eating meat, pork seasoned with cumin was a favourite because of my trips to Cuba in the late-1990s.
One of my favourites for a while was a dish called “red red,” a black-eyed pea stew cooked in palm oil, served with rice or plantains. That was my staple dish when I lived in Ghana in 2007.
A Ghanaian restaurant is a gap in the Saint John market that needs to be filled. Luckily, there is now one Halifax, as I discovered in a Huddle article written by Derek Montague earlier this week.
Mary Nkrumah, who runs Mary’s African Cuisine in downtown Halifax, grew up in an entrepreneurial family that had a bakery business. As a teenager, she set up a rice stand. In her adult years, she would open her own restaurant in Ghana.
“If I move to Canada, I want to have my restaurant there,” she told Derek.
And now she does, and I see a road trip in my near future. I’m not sure if “red red” is on her menu, but I hope she’ll make me some anyway.
Tell me about the best restaurants in your town or city? E-mail: [email protected]