Food Brings Us Together

Hello, I’m Minchan! Today, my family and I are at my grandmother’s house to do gimjang. What is gimjang? It is a Korean cultural tradition to get together and make a lot of kimchi before winter comes. Gimjang is more than making kimchi. It’s also about spending time with family. It is always good to get together. Do you also have any special food traditions?

Hi, I’m Emil! We also have this kind of cultural tradition in Azerbaijan. Here’s a picture from my aunt’s wedding. Do you see the thing on her shoulder? It’s a flatbread. It is so big that it covers her shoulder. We believe that putting the bread over the shoulder brings good luck. A flatbread is made only from flour, salt, and water. We eat this bread at every meal, but we make it bigger on special days. So, everyone in the community gets together and helps out. Baking the bread together makes our community stronger.

I’m Vivian! Have you heard of hawker centers in Singapore? Hawkers are people who sell food on the street. They formed the hawker centers and these centers have become a huge food community. These centers are so popular that they are always full of people. There are all kinds of food, from Chinese noodles to Malaysian curry to Indonesian satay.

My friends and I are from different countries. We all have different food tastes. But at the hawker centers, we can always find something we like. Sometimes we share the tables with strangers and end up becoming friends. It is fun to enjoy the food with good people. That’s why I love this hawker culture.