Hungry for some culture? The annual International Student Organization (ISO) Food Bazaar is happening this Sunday, 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Harris. Students, many of whom are international, will cook a variety of dishes and share them with those lucky enough to get a ticket.
Tickets are being sold in front of the Dining Hall, $5 for students and children and $10 for adults. Forty-four different dishes will be featured at the Bazaar, representing a variety of countries. The ISO committee went to Des Moines last Saturday to buy ingredients.
“There is some stuff that we can get in Grinnell, but there are a lot more that we cannot get here, like authentic Asian seasoning, Mexican chili pepper and so on,” said Christa Lee ’12, Social Coordinator of ISO. “So we went to Des Moines and did a big shopping trip.”
Most of the funding for the event comes from ticket sales and SGA. So many ingredients are bought that the event usually ends in debt, but ISO hopes to make a profit this year.
“…If we get a profit, we would like to give part of it to charity, and use another part of it to buy cooking utensils for ISO because one of the biggest impediments for participating is that you have to provide your own cooking supplies,” said ISO President Natalie Richardson Gentil ’14.
Apart from providing exotic food, the Food Bazaar also serves to bring the Grinnell community together. There are even a few faculty member chefs. This year, Houston Dougharty, Vice President for Student Affairs, is cooking with his host daughter. Nnenna Akotaobi, from the Athletics Department, is also cooking with Arrion Dennis, CaNaDa RLC.
“This year, we got quite a few American students attending. Houston [Dougharty], with his host daughter is actually cooking a recipe from Texas,” Richardson Gentil said. “Most of the dishes are international recipes, but a lot of the cooking assistants are Americans.”
This diversity in chefs allows for a simple sweep of the room to involve more than just sampling, but also socializing.
“As international students coming to Grinnell College, we learn the American culture, and this event could be a good opportunity to show our very own culture to American students and also among international students, because a lot of times international students stick to those whom they always hang out with,” Lee said.
Look out for a variety of foods, ranging from appetizers to dessert and everything in between. Traditional foods from many different countries and regions of the world will be present.
“For Korea, there is more than one chef who is making basically the same dish, but one will make the more Americanized, sweeter dish, and the other will try to make hardcore, authentic Korean food,” Lee said.
While the event will stick to its past culinary successes, there are also a few innovations that are new this year.
“This year, we are trying to do ‘Chef’s Awards,’ so we will hopefully have judges. … We’ll have the top 15 dishes compiled into a recipe book, and the best recipe gets passed on to the Dining Services.” Richardson Gentil said. “We are working on those, but right now, the goal for Sunday is for everybody to have a good time [and for] the food to be good.”
