Prepping DISH mealkits with the team in our kitchen workspace.
Dish - the Mealkit is a collaborative art project between Yvonne and fellow artist Dave Kyu. In 2018 we received the Velocity Fund to support this project - dishes from Dish were made into mail-order mealkits that contain ingredients and the stories behind three recipes that immigrant youth have learned from their elders. The project asked customers to donate or “pay as you wish” for the meal kit, which pays for another meal kit to be donated to a person with food need. The stories behind these diverse dishes are vitally important to us. In the current political climate, connecting people is of utmost importance, and what connects people more than food? We believe this project can invite us to experience new cultures through food, animate the stories behind our meals, and strengthen our shared experience through the food memories we all share.
During the project we did quite a bit of research and outreach to various individual, organizations and non-profits that deal with food and or populations with food need. 1149 Cooperative was a tremendous source of information for other organizations/places that deal with food in a more communal way (Sate Kampar, 1149 Cooperative itself), sources for produce (Queen's Farm, produce whole sale businesses in south Philly, etc) and organizations that work with population with food need (Food not Bombs, A-Space, Philly Food Works, etc). This list was then lengthened by our project manager, Carol Zhou, due to her broad knowledge of the regions various organizations and people that are involved in social justice issues (W.B. Saul High School, Center in the Park, Allison Budschalow, etc.)
Packaged ingredients with the DISH recipe card.
Communication and conversation with all these places took up most of our time. In the end, we chose to make it simple by keeping the orders small and donating to one site that we felt meaningful. We decided to do so because we wanted to focus on working out the logistics of the process from start to finish and still have fun making an art project. By keeping it simple, it made it manageable for a team of two artists. During this time the Artblog interviewed the team about the project for their podcast, which can be found HERE.
Each meal kit includes three complete meals for 2-3 people - zha jiang mien(bean paste noodles), fish fillet stir fried with ginger and scallion and boiled chinese vegetables (with rice), and pork and crab wonton soup noodle. Of the three recipes, two where from members of the Philadelphia Chinatown Dragon Boat Team, and one was from a student at Central High School. Each meal kit included not only the recipe for each dish, but also the bio and story behind the people. On the recipe card is also a QR code that links to the video each participant made for the Dish project.
DISH mealkits being prepared for sendoff.
In total, thirteen meal kits were ordered, and with the help of Lane Frazee (Community Partnerships Coordinator), produce worth of twenty-five meal kits were donated to Mr. Steve Wade's food science classes at Walter B. Saul High School. As Lane Frazee reported back to us: "...The personal stories engaged the students. Listening to the personal stories made students more willing to try things they may have been hesitant about due to unfamiliarity, because they understood why it was special to someone else. Many students began to make connections/comparisons over who cooks in the family (mom, dad, grandparent, sibling), and how their families blend culinary traditions... To mix things up, Steve did some of the dishes two ways. He wanted to demonstrate how the same basic ingredients could be translated to different cuisine styles with some simple changes/additions..."
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