Immigration & Food + Toronto &

Multiculturalism
FNU 100 F 23– Week 10

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How are you today?
Menu
Course Issues

➢ Essays
Deadline for submitting essays was extended
to Friday, Nov. 17 at 11:59 ish.

➢ Final Exam
Date: Wednesday, December 6 to 9 am (2
hours max)
Format: Multiple choice, Short answers – Final
format TBD
Content: Readings, classes and discussion
board activities
 What’s next:

Week 11 - Thursday, November 23 – Cookbooks

• Discussion board: Cookbooks & recipes
• Readings:
• Guest Speaker: Ann Ludbrook - Ann Ludbrook
• Copyright and Scholarly Engagement Librarian at
TMU
• Bonus points for questions!

Photo by Andrea Moraes

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Recap from last class: The Multicultural
Revolution
What would you call the cuisine
of racialized Canadians?

https://canadianvisa.org/blog/news/new-canadian-immigration-program-agri-food
 1 – Immigration & Food:
The Canadian Creole (Newman, 2017)
 YOUR THOUGHTS

• In small groups – share your

thoughts about the the Ted
Talk from Jennifer 8 Lee.
• What ideas stayed with you?

• https://www.ted.com/talks/jenni
fer_8_lee_looks_for_general_tso
 The Canadian
Creole

• Chinese Canadian restaurants

(end of 19th century) -
Beginning of multicultural
element in Canada
• Ethnic cookbooks: pierogis,
curry, chop suey
• Long history of discrimination
(1885 Chinese Im. Act).
• Prejudice: banned from
certain occupations
Chinese Canadian
Cuisine
• Pushed by limitations of
original ingredients
• Wiliness to amend the cuisine
to suit local conditions
• Mixing local ingredients with
Chinese techniques
• 1931 – 1/5 of Can. Restaurants
were run by Chinese,
Chinatowns flourished
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Book Recommendation
 ▪ Starting in the 70’s,
80’s…
▪ Vancouver
Multicultural Revolution ▪ Chinese pubs,
bikeshops, condo dev.,
WHY? pie shops...
▪ Chinese vegetablles
anywhere and most
people know how to
cook them
▪ Age of ethnoburbs and
less urban enclaves
▪ Toronto
▪ One of the most
multicultural cities in
the world

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 • New regional influences
• New ingredients
(globalization)
• More people using a variety
of techniques
Toronto: Reshaped the culinary lansdcape • Large pop of South Asians
• Ethnoburbs also a driver of
multicultural Canadian
cuisine
• Multicultural cuisine is part
of everyday life. Flavours
from around the world are
common

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 Authenticity?

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 A Truly Canadian Creole
(According to Newman)
Fusion:
• Chef borrows flavour combinations, signature ingredients, cooking
techniques from other cultures’ cuisine and applies them to
another culture’s dish

Creole:
• Latin= create. Language analogy: pidgin (2 people);creole (kids)
• Mixing and innovation together
• When people live longer in a place, something else more lasting
emerges
• Not fusion foods: mixing that is so established that generations of
people are born into it

https://food52.com/recipes/14252-blueberry-lassi
 Example of creole

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Creole_cuisine
 Canadian Creole
•

•
•

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What about indigenous
cuisines?

• Oppressed groups
do not get the
chance to market
their culinary
traditions to others
• Current recovery of
Indigenous cuisines
and cultures
 • “Appearance of creole in Canada’s
cuisine reflects a growing
acceptance of the multicultural
nature of the country. The major
Conclusion: diasporic groups in Canada bring
new flavours to our tables, and
Canadian Creole the combinations that emerge
from those flavours are
increasingly framed as Canadian,
rather then hyphenated dishes”
(Newman, 2017:90)
Small group discussion
• 1 - How do you think we should call food
innovations associated Racialized Canadians?
• New Canadian cuisine, Fusion or Creole? Or
Other? Why?

• 2 – What are the pros and cons of the concept of

“authentic cuisine”
Time for a
short break
2 - Toronto & Multiculturalism

http://www.netnewsledger.com/2015/08/21/fire-song-set-to-premiere-at-toronto-international-film-festival/
Toronto: The Myth of a Analysis takes both culture & place into account
Multicultural City: Learning to Account of ways culture is developed and negotiated in the
live together without coming to everyday spaces
blows (Fruchter & Harris, 2010) The role of multiculturalism as tolerance

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Introduction
• City as the meeting place of
cultures
• How identity and difference
play out in Toronto?
• Ways culture is developed and
negotiated.
• Culture: shared meanings
• Cultural crises: contradictions of
meanings

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Past events:

Micro
aggressions?
 Toronto
• ½ pop. foreign born
• Microcosm of global cultural forces
• Myth: “Toronto is the most
multicultural city in the world”
• Representations of identity and
difference
• No shared past: creation myth =
Multiculturalism?
• “ however, even with a calendar
crammed with cultural festivals (…)
it does not mean that each group
enjoys equal opportunities…”

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Which multiculturalism?
Boutique Multiculturalism
• Market- oriented multiculturalism -
Serves up culture for consumption while
concealing the racial divisions that persist
among those who do the producing.
• Ethnic restaurants, weekend festivals
• Superficial and cosmetic commitment to
diversity (parallels to Li, 2000?)
• Market oriented
• Evasions of difference – claim we are
essentially the same
Strong Multiculturalist
• Unconditional, indiscriminate respect
for all cultures – other than one’s own
• Attempt to adopt manners, language,
customs of other cultures
• Negating cultural differences and
conflicts
• False multiculturalism
However..

• Racism remains
• Forever trapped in two
worlds
• Irreconcilable
differences

• How do we navigate
between naïve
optimism and potential
conflict?

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 • Not boutique or strong but in-between
• Acknowledges differences as more than material encounters
Tolerant • Acknowledges differences enriches our cultural conversation
• Acknowledges tensions and privilege
Multiculturalism • Those who tolerate and those who are tolerated
• Social power unevenly distributed
• Some need protection from intolerance

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Conclusion

• City as the meeting place

“Enthusiasm about shawarma, but
highly educated working as janitors,
and poverty and discrimination
drive young men into gangs”
• Multiculturalism as a process
requiring deep and longstanding
commitment and dealing with its
challenges as well as ideals

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What can we do?
• Informed multiculturalism
• Question racialized info/views/research
• Understand importance of immigration
and therefore, immigration &
settlement support
• Harness the power of food as a
language, a teacher, a tool through
which to embrace and demystify
diversity & differences and start
conversations
• Engage in real conversations & dialogue

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Serving Hope
Toronto Demographics

https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/99b4-TOHealthCheck_2019Chapter1.pdf
Toronto, Racialized Groups
Class Debate Truth or False:
Is Toronto really a Multicultural City?*

• All Groups : Prepare pro and cons arguments, based on evidences

and experiences.
• Random selection: one group to defend Truth (pro), and another
group to defend False (cons).
• Round 1 – Presentation (2 minutes for Truth & 2 minutes for False)
• Round 2 – Engagement
– Truth engages with the previous arguments of False ( you said
that but…) (1 Min)
– Myth responds ( 1 min)
– False responds (30 secs)
– False engages with the arguments of Truth ( 1 min)
– Truth responds ( 1 min)
– False responds (30 secs)
• Vote: Which arguments were most compelling?
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 KEY POINTS FROM TODAY

Implications for
Toronto
Canadian cuisine
Multiculturalism -
– Multicultural
Truth or Myth?
Revolution

Fusion, creole, Boutique Strong Tolerant

Authenticity?
other? Multiculturalism Multiculturalism Multiculturalism
Thank you

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