A Peek at the Network of Food

The food network connected history and present, shaped our daily lives. Whatever I could capture was only the peak of the iceberg.

BY: JINGSHU HELEN YAO

As a child who was born in the city and grew up among the “forest” of buildings, I was naturally drawn to nature. Plants grow in soil and feed on water and sunlight, and they are the representation of nature to me. Taking care of plants thus became the first choice of getting closer to nature. The idea made me jump at the opportunity of the temporary work at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) Campus farm.

Image of my hometown, Nanjing / Photo courtesy of Community Climate Change

The UTSC Edible Campus initiative includes the traditional farm field across from the Pan Am Sports Centre and the modern eco-friendly roof-top garden in the IC building. I was in charge of watering six beds of vegetables at the farm and of the harvesting and maintenance of the roof-top garden. The main products are tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, and berries. Other departments also used the space for their own research purposes. 

Photo by Jingshu Helen Yao // THE UNDERGROUND

I ran into the team who studies wild bees several times, though I wasn’t able to actually meet them due to the social distancing protocols. 

Working at the farm was a fascinating experience. Hiding away from the main road and residential area, surrounded by trees and wildflowers that bloom in the summer. I almost forgot that I was in the middle of a well-populated and industrialized suburb. 

Even on the roof-top, where the blowing wind carries away the sound of cars and pedestrians from the street, I feel very much isolated among the sea of greens, a kingdom of nature by itself. 

However, my description of the work was largely romanticized by my fondness of the environment. Watering and harvesting is a very demanding job, my arms were sore all week for repeatedly carrying water buckets, my shirt was covered with dirt, and my pants were ripped open when climbing up and down to pick the tomatoes.

The harvesting accumulated throughout the week and we usually made a donation to the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union (SCSU) and the Residence Centre when we got several kilograms of produce. Our donations would be sent out together along with a produce box from Foodshare to students and staff members in need.

Photo by Jingshu Helen Yao // THE UNDERGROUND

Though I am a home cook and have to deal with food and ingredients quite often, I never carefully considered the journey of food before they get to the grocery store. During the last few days of my work, a storm destroyed the fence that supported the tomato vines overnight. I also noticed some of the potatoes and beans turned yellowish brown, as if they were dying. With very little experience, I started to panic and contacted my supervisor, despite the fact that she should be on vacation and relaxing. She replied that “it’s only the cycle of nature” and told me not to worry, which made me reflect on myself. Even though I claim to love nature, I am ignorant of its ways.

Photo by: Jingshu Helen Yao // THE UNDERGROUND

Very often, we think of food as something we are completely in control of, something that answers to our demand and is determined by our needs. However, human society was shaped and changed by food in ways that we usually won’t recognize. 

An anecdote that always lives to share was the origin of the name “tea”. The languages around the world have two main ways of referring to the items we called tea in English, one being the variation of “te” and the other being the variation of “cha”. The name “te” originated from Min Nan, China, and “te” was exported from there by ship and transported to Southeast Asia, South and West Africa, and West Europe. On the other hand, “cha” originated from Sinitic and was transported by land to Central and East Asia, West Europe, and East Africa. 

Photo courtesy of Quartz

The food network helped shape our language, not only by one word, but also all the semantically related words. Words such as green tea, teapot, and tea party, all exist because of this food network.

Not only our language but our way of thinking is also shaped by food. I recently moved to downtown Toronto, close to Koreatown. When I mentioned it to my friends, their responses were surprisingly similar. 

“Oh great,” they said. “Korean food is delicious!”

It seemed almost natural to think about an ethnicity's food when we think about a certain community. It’s almost impossible to introduce a place without mentioning the eatery, and the local food will always become a big token to attract tourists. 

Other than going to work, I was in quarantine at home and had to occupy myself with whatever was available around. Spending more time cooking became the new normal of my life. As a student who attended school full time and worked part-time on the side, making quality dishes wasn’t part of my cooking habits. Most of the time, I simply put vegetables and meat in one pot and side with some rice, noodles, or bread. The extra cooking time gave me the opportunity to devote to time-consuming tasks such as baking, formation, and other techniques that I wouldn’t regularly use. It also offered me a chance to find the sense of belonging by making dishes from my hometown, or at least a modified version with subsided ingredients that were easier to get in Canada.

I even contributed with a recipe for Cooking the Past, a blog site that uses recipe sharing as a method of storytelling. The rice cake recipe was nowhere near authentic Chinese cuisine but more of a creation of someone far away from home and the ingredients she was familiar with. 

Yet, I found comfort in the smell and taste that distantly resembled the ones in my memory. The memory of cultural food is like the memory of home.

Photo by: Jingshu Helen Yao //THE UNDERGROUND

Once I left, it was hard and almost impossible to get back to where I started. The life journey of immigrants is to make home far away from home, or at least something similar to home.