“…show me your recipes and I can show you who you are.”
— Edward Lee, Buttermilk Graffiti
My name is Natalie “Lee” Arneson (she/her) and in my Spring Quarter Individual Learning Contract (ILC) I set out to answer the question, how can food call a person home? I explored this in the context of diaspora groups and the complexity of what “home” can mean when one comes from a multitude of histories and food stories. I myself am the daughter of multiple cultures, descended from many heritages. This work was personal in a way that brought a new life to my academic pursuits, because what is academics without passion?
“Food is history, memory, and love.”
— Valérie Déus, “Haitian Kitchen”
The Project:
My main focus for Winter and Spring Quarter 2023 has been diasporic foodways in the U.S., and naturally this led my research back to my own family histories as the multi-racial descendent of immigrants. This Senior Capstone Project grew out of my column with the student newspaper the Cooper Point Journal, of which I worked at for a little under four years. It was in my first year working as the Arts Editor in 2022 that I began publishing a monthly column titled “Feeding the Diaspora” to share stories on multicultural identity and how food plays a large role in continuing and reclaiming cultural ties. These pieces became the groundwork for my project.
By the end of Spring 2023, I had written and printed a 74-page cookbook titled Homecoming: Recipes from My Multicultural Kitchen. Homecoming contains two introductions, 10 recipes transcribed by me, 4 creative writing pieces, 4 original poems, 3 installments from my “Feeding the Diaspora” column, and over 20 photographs. This cookbook is not only the summation of my academic work at The Evergreen State College, it is first and foremost an archive and a love letter to my family, my communities, and myself. Without the support and encouragement of my faculty, Sarah Williams and Catalina Ocampo, as well as the encouragement of my family and friends, I wouldn’t have been able to complete this project. Homecoming is the culmination of the foods that sustained me, the people who inspired me, and the way I have gotten to love these foods, my histories, and myself. As of July 2023, I’m currently on my second print run for this cookbook and have sold over 30 copies.
Defining ‘Diaspora’; a diaspora is formed when people belonging to a cultural and/or ethnic group are living in a place that is not their or their ancestor’s country of origin.
“The recipe—the memory of her mother’s hands—had been lying dormant on her tongue for all those years. Tasting it must have been a kind of homecoming.”
— Grace M. Cho, Tastes Like War
Project Sites:
Winter 2023: https://wordpress.evergreen.edu/foodag-portfolio-w23-arneson/
Spring 2023: https://wordpress.evergreen.edu/foodag-portfolio-sp23-arneson/
The Cooper Point Journal: https://www.cooperpointjournal.com/?s=feeding+the+diaspora
Where to Buy the Cookbook: https://natleetherese.wordpress.com/my-works/
