“Recipes from Home” is a new dining program that allows students to submit dishes or recipes from their homes and cultures, adapting them into dining hall menus across campus. Officially announced Oct. 24, the ASUW Office of International Student Advocacy (OISA) has worked in collaboration with UW Housing & Food Services (HFS) for nearly ten years to create the program.
The origins of “Recipes from Home” began almost a decade ago when Tracey MacRae, current assistant director of culinary and dining systems and campus executive chef of HFS, noticed that the homesickness of international students often manifested in missing food from home. At the time, MacRae was a unit manager running McMahon Hall and would listen to the requests of students she interacted with.
“It was a very rudimentary version of what we are doing now. It was still called ‘Recipes from Home,’ but it was literally just a little box where you would put a slip of paper in it,” MacRae said. “They weren’t necessarily submitting actual recipes, but they were submitting ideas of dishes and then I would try and incorporate them into menus.”
Over the years, MacRae’s project eventually fizzled out as they began to receive fewer submissions. Early this year, however, the conversation surrounding international comfort food was brought back to HFS’ attention.
“I received an email from the ASUW OISA saying that they would love to see more international comfort on our menus,” MacRae said. “And that’s really where the conversation between myself, UW dining, and the ASUW OISA started”.
Shern Sze Lim, the current director of OISA, emphasized the goals and inspiration behind this project.
“We believe every dish has a story behind it,” Lim said. “We really want to share it with the general public and really include the diversity of students and culture within campus.”
After months of planning and coordination, the new and improved “Recipes from Home” was announced via the OISA Instagram. The current adaptation of MacRae’s decade-old vision is a digitized form that allows UW students to submit recipes, dishes, or concepts to be incorporated into menus at Center Table and Local Point.
“The evolution of this is really focused in technology, [but] the heart and the idea of it is really the same,” MacRae said. “The connectivity to food hasn’t changed, but the program has advanced, and hopefully, it will be more accessible.”
MacRae and Lim share similar sentiments regarding the inspiration and aspirations for “Recipes from Home,” with the diversity and inclusion of students at the heart of the program.
“I hope that this program will help international students and many different students across campus to feel a sense of home and representation and to see that they are being heard and that we are actually engaging with them,” Lim said. “Food will help to build us as global citizens.”
MacRae and Lim both urge students to engage with the program, as it relies on student participation. Recipes and ideas for the program can be submitted through the Google Form linked in OISA’s Instagram.
Reach contributing writer Piper Davidson at arts@dailyuw.com. Twitter: @PiperDavs
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