The International House at the University of Tennessee held a hands-on cooking demonstration of Bangladeshi food for students, faculty and staff Tuesday evening.
The cooking demonstration was an interactive way to teach students how to make a dish straight from the kitchens of Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi dish cooked for students to watch, help create and later eat was fried cauliflower made from chickpea flour and a number of spices deep-fried in a batter.
At the start of the event, those in attendance listened to the recipe as it was explained by a member of the Bangladesh Student Association while ingredients were explained and passed around.
Chickpea flour, all-purpose flour and seasonings such as turmeric, cumin, garlic, ginger and chili powder were hand-measured by students as they listened to the cultural significance of the ingredients and their traditional uses back in Bangladesh.
The fried cauliflower was explained as a typical 5 or 6 p.m. snack, since the Bangladeshi traditionally don’t eat their dinner until close to 10 p.m.
After the students hand-battered their own cauliflower, members of the Bangladesh Student Association fried it.
Following the presentation, the hot dishes were brought out, and students enjoyed eating the creations.
The event is a joint collaboration with the International House, which provides a budget to celebrate three different cultures each semester.
These organizations host cooking demonstrations one night a week and a culture night the following evening. For the cultural night, different student associations have decided to host guest lectures, panels of students and faculty, dance performances, musical performances and demonstrations of other forms of cultural expression.
The I-House budgets for roughly 45 to 60 people for both events and is always open to anyone on campus, including faculty, students and staff.
The cultural exchange allowed students to see another way of cooking with different ingredients common to the Bangladeshi culture.
“It is nice to try something new and different, just because we like to get in our routine with the same people, so it is cool to branch out and see others’ cultures and share the experience with everyone at UT,” Ruby Millican, a senior in chemical engineering, said.
The library also collaborates with other cultural events, including the Coffeehouse event held in Pendergrass.
“As a music librarian I want to showcase our music collection … where you can learn more about whatever country or region we are showcasing,” music librarian Nathalie Histov said.
“When you walk in, you can kind of get into the mood by having some of those traditional sounds in the background.”
Upcoming world showcase weeks include South Korea in February and Japan in April, where cooking, cultural night performances and demonstrations will be held.