Western Courier

Issue date: 3/6/06 Section: News

Media Credit: Holly Sowlles A young girl dances at the Food and Culture Club's international feast held last Tuesday night. The night included food, music and guest speakers.

The Western Illinois University Food and Culture Club held the first of its biannual presentations last Tuesday night, titled "A Culture of Rice: An International Feast." The event was held in the Lamoine Room at the University Union, and was attended mainly by First Year Experience students from various food and culture courses. The occasion featured speakers, dinners, food and music celebrating the rich heritage of the world's most popular foods.

Speakers, such as Guada Cabedo-Timmons, foreign languages and literature assistant professor, and Siyoung Park, geography professor, presented topics ranging from the origins of rice's cultivation to its use in art. In addition, other aspects of large rice producing countries such as India and China were discussed, including fashion, art and technological advancement.

Speaker Mandeep Singh, faculty development professor, spoke on how India, one of the world's largest rice producing countries and home to nearly 1.2 billion people, is quickly becoming a leading producer of information technology and software. He used humor and first-hand experience to give examples of this to the audience.

In addition to the night's speakers, the celebration also featured demonstrations of various forms of cultural entertainment. Among these was a dance performed by the CIS Chinese Macomb School. The performance was a rendition of a famous Chinese poem that is, "known by many children in China before they are in pre-school."

"So-Ran-Bushi: A Dance" also was performed by Sayaka Mori, choreographer and freshman athletic training major, and a team of nine Japanese students. This traditional Japanese dance is one of the country's most famous, and carries a more modern tone. Mori said it was "fun," but "took a semester to learn."

The evening ended with the audience getting to taste the foods they had learned about. Among the dishes served were Indian pappad, Hawaiian rice salad, Szechwan beef and rice noodles and many other rice themed foods from various cultures.

The audience ranked the food to be everywhere from "excellent" to "kinda gross."

One student, who was enjoying a spoonful of Spanish paella, described it as being "distinct" and "more filling because of all the different ingredients."

Students also enjoyed free drinks, a formal dining atmosphere and the music of composer Shoko Tayama.

The Food and Culture Club was formed in 2003 and currently has a dozen members.

The club is led in part by professor Rita Kaul.

Gina Skaronea, student president, said their objective is, "to expand the knowledge of other cultures and foods."

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