LYNNWOOD — It’s a gathering place on campus where people from different cultures can cook food in traditional ways.
The Cultural Kitchen at Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood opened last year and now is being used for private events such as cooking demonstrations. Volunteers did much of the work to get the outdoor kitchen built, and grants and donations helped with the costs. Their efforts continue, said Thomas Murphy, head of the EdCC anthropology department.
“This is essentially a service learning project,” he said. “Service is doing something that is helping the greater good. The learning part is that the good that’s being done is connected to learning objectives.”
Traditionally, an outdoor kitchen in Native American cultures would be used for cultural events, including feeding elders, Murphy said. In the past on campus, they’d fashion a temporary salmon pit with cinderblocks.
“They wanted something more personal,” he said.
Growing, cooking and eating food is part of a cultural experience, he said. The Cultural Kitchen has three cooking methods available: a cobb oven, an adobe oven — “We have students who grow up in places like Morocco or Russia who say, ‘I grew up cooking in something like this,’ ” Murphy said — and a Coast Salish pit oven, often used for salmon. Regional tribes, including the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, offered assistance and advice.
Altogether, volunteers from many groups, academic and otherwise, gave thousands of hours of their time, including students from the Edmonds School District, according to a report written by Erin Ryan, a research associate in the anthropology department who helped lead the creation of the kitchen.
“While emphasis is placed on Coast Salish traditional foods, the area encourages the sharing of traditional foods and preparations methods from around the world,” she wrote.
In August, one of the ovens was used to make naan, a flatbread from India, Murphy said.
“Cooking around a fire is quite pervasive and ancient in human evolution,” Murphy said.
Cooking also builds connections between people, foods and cultures, he told the Snoqualmie tribe’s newsletter in May 2014.
The Cultural Kitchen is an important part of keeping alive Native American culture and history, Snoqualmie tribal spokesman Jim Bove said. “We are proud to support them,” he said.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.