Joan Quinn

FCNS tastes success with cultural foods class

by Mark McGowan

Imagine a Thursday night class that lasts nearly five hours.

OK, so maybe that doesn’t sound so appetizing. But what if the class included dinner? A really good dinner?

Sixteen students in the School of Family, Consumer and Nutrition Sciences are taking an international journey of the taste buds this semester in “Cultural Foods,” a 400-level elective class offered for the first time in years.

The classmates learn about various cultures of the world and their cuisine, and spend their Thursday nights either cooking and eating the topic du jour or visiting one of the area’s many ethnic restaurants for a chef-prepared meal with explanations of each dish and stories from the homelands.

“It’s a very popular class. It sounds like they’re having a lot of fun, and I’m sure they’re learning a lot, too. There are just so many more types of foods than most people have experienced by the time they get to college,” said Laura Smart, acting chair of the school inside the NIU College of Health and Human Sciences.

“There are a lot of restaurants where people can go to sample things, but here our students are learning how to make the foods and about the nutritional values of the foods,” Smart added. “Our students will be serving diverse clients, and I think most people today are interested in trying new foods from different cultures.”

Instructor Joan Quinn, coordinator of the FCNS food systems labs, said the growing popularity of the hospitality major persuaded the provost’s office to fund an additional class in the school. Cultural Foods, listed in the catalogue for years but rarely offered, got the nod.

Quinn had no trouble or delay filling the limited-enrollment class, and hopes this semester’s recipe for success allows new sections in the future.

“The students are interested in finding out about foods they’re not used to. Their reaction has been, ‘I’m glad I had this class because I never would’ve gone into a restaurant and ordered this,’ ” she said. “There are so many cultures to explore that we can’t get through them in one semester.”

It’s provided a smorgasbord of new tastes, even for Quinn, who considers her palate well-versed.

The semester’s menu includes foods from Africa, Brazil, China, Cuba, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Mexico, the former Soviet Union and Thailand. So far, the class has sampled cactus (served as a vegetable in Mexico), bean cake (a Korean dessert made with sweet beans and rice flour, which created a gelatinous texture) and juniper berry tea (a Native American beverage).

One field trip took the group to Taxco Restaurant in Sycamore, where owner Jesus Romero prepared and presented a seven-course meal. (Students pay their own bills while eating out.) Many of the dishes are not found on Romero’s menu, but reflect what is served in a normal Mexican home.

While at Taxco, the NIU group also experienced the first of many surprises: Only one of the foods was spicy, although the students expected many or all of the foods would come with a kick.

At It’s Greek to Me in DeKalb, owner Thedore “Ted” Panourgias served the class an 11-course dinner.

The “Taste of Greece” started with saganaki (flaming cheese), soup and a Greek salad, which includes feta cheese, Greek olives, pepperoncini and anchovies.

It also featured pastichio (baked macaroni with ground beef, topped with béchamel sauce, a white sauce spiced with pepper and nutmeg); mousaka (baked eggplant with potato and ground beef, topped with béchamel sauce); gyros; chicken roletini (stuffed chicken breast with spinach and feta cheese, topped with egg lemon or marinara sauce); rice; potato; coffee; and baklava, a rolled pastry with nuts, almonds and honey.

Panourgias said he hopes the class helps the students – and, ultimately, their friends and those others they will cook for – embrace different tastes.

“A lot of people today, especially the young generation, the only thing they know is the hamburger and cheeseburger,” Panourgias said. “Most of the time, people don’t want to try new things, but Greek food is very healthy, very tasty.”

One week, the FCNS foods lab within Wirtz Hall came alive with the aromas of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, courtesy of NIU’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

Julie Lamb, the center’s outreach coordinator, found a group of graduate students willing to cook some foods from their native countries and to talk about their homelands. That evening brought Surprise No. 2: Many of the dishes packed an extra spicy punch.

“I really enjoyed our evening with the Southeast Asian students. They just brought such excitement,” Quinn said. “Foods are so much more than body-fulfilling nourishment. They are who we are. They tell so much about us.”

Students have visited ethnic markets, where they marveled at the diversity of foods for sale, from meat, canned goods and produce to exotic seasonings and spices. Quinn herself has shopped in small markets from Elgin and Aurora to Rockford in search of just the right, but often rare, ingredients needed to prepare the recipes.

They also have enjoyed authentic examples of ethnic foods that have not been “Americanized” for U.S. tastes. Romero told the students he had never heard of a burrito until moving to this country, Quinn said.

Natalie Yeagle, a senior nutrition and dietetics major from Farmer City, Ill., researched and presented South America and the Caribbean.

Yeagle prepared two power point presentations on her research into the area, which focused on food as well as religion and the climate. The evening’s meal included coconut beer-battered shrimp, black bean soup, a Brazilian rice dish called farofa (white rice with manioc flour, which comes from the cassava root), Chilean corn bread with jalapeno peppers and shakes made of guava.

Other favorites she remembers from the semester include a homemade peanut sauce, from Southeast Asia, and nasturtium flowers, eaten by Native Americans.

“The class is really something I look forward to every week. I’ve wanted to take it since my freshman year, and I’m really glad they finally offered it. I really love learning about other cultures, and I love to cook, so it’s nice for me because I can combine two of my passions,” said Yeagle, who hopes to put her knowledge to work as a nutritional adviser in the Peace Corps and later in government food programs tailored for children and minorities.

“It’s helped prepare me to relate to other cultures,” she added. “I’m going to be talking to a lot of Hispanic people, obviously, with the culture of the United States going that way as the minorities become the majority.”

Neil Bhatnagar, a senior hospitality major from Lombard, said the class has given him a global view in the kitchen.

“I’ve learned different culinary techniques, and I can prepare foods I like. When I cook, I fuse ingredients from other cultures,” said Bhatnagar, who plans to attend culinary school after graduation and someday hopes to own a restaurant.

His presentation focused on Scandinavia, Central Europe and the former Soviet Union. The menu included pierogis, a Hungarian spicy bean goulash, Swedish meatballs, borscht, Russian slaw and a German chocolate drink.

“The class is really fun because you learn about the whole world,” Bhatnagar said. “You learn about all the different cultures, the different traditions, the celebration foods, what foods they produced and how it influenced the U.S. diet.”

Quinn hopes she can teach the course again, and soon.

The class is an important one as the United States grows more diverse, she said. College graduates who are bilingual are in high demand, she added, and those who can top that off with a knowledge of the culture are even more marketable.

And with three new textbooks available, plus the power of the Internet to track and possibly purchase ingredients, the borders stand wide open.

“Our graduates will become either dietitians or hospitality managers, and they need to recognize that they foods the think of as normal may not be acceptable to people of other cultures. There are food preferences. There are religious beliefs,” Quinn said. “One big difference is that we work our meals around the protein source – usually meat, red meat – whereas around the world they start with vegetables and grains and then their proteins are added, usually beans.”

Meanwhile, the teacher is eager to continue learning alongside the pupils.

“This is the most fun class I’ve ever taught. I’m having fun. The students are having fun,” she said. “We have an amazing camaraderie as we all sit down and have meals together and talk about the food and the culture.”

4-5-04