From Garden to Table: Student Workers Share Culture Through Food

From left, Tedane Williams, Monae Carey and Vincent Osei help Omar Santiago Pineda Otalvaro prepare his meal at Common Ground Community Building.

During a summer cooking series, four student workers with Lincoln University of Missouri’s (LU) Native and Specialty Crops Program took turns preparing Monday lunches inspired by their home countries and family traditions. Monae Carey, Tedane Williams, Vincent Osei and Omar Santiago Pineda Otalvaro each brought something different to the table. The meals often featured produce they helped grow and harvest at the program’s small farm on campus, known as the Finca EcoFarm.

“They were hired as student workers, but I wanted it to be more than a job,” said Nadia Navarrete-Tindall, Ph.D., who leads the Native and Specialty Crops Program. “I wanted them to learn about what they were growing while also giving them opportunities to share their cultures and learn from one another.”

The cooking series grew from that goal and an idea from Sage Jakobi, who helps manage the program’s farmers market. Since much of the students’ work takes place outdoors planting, tending and harvesting crops, Jakobi suggested using early Monday afternoons to step out of the summer heat and into the kitchen.

Common Ground Community Building, a Jefferson City social service agency, provided its commercial kitchen for the sessions, marking a new collaboration with the Native and Specialty Crops Program. Some of the produce used in the meals came from Common Ground’s community garden, which supports its efforts to provide fresh food and connect families with local resources.

Common Ground Community Building is pictured behind its community garden in Jefferson City.

For Monae Carey, the cooking series built on what she had already been learning through her work at LU.

“I didn’t know a lot about plants when I began, but I’ve learned so much,” said Carey, a master’s student in agribusiness. “Now I’m trying to eat healthier based on the knowledge I’ve gained working here over the past several months.”

Among the crops she helped grow was callaloo, which her mother often used in one of Carey’s favorite dishes in Jamaica. Inspired by those memories, Carey planted the crop in the Native and Specialty Crops Program’s community garden at the Finca EcoFarm and harvested some for her meal of saltfish fritters, callaloo and steamed cabbage.

Tedane Williams, a junior majoring in physical education, brought his own connection to Jamaican cooking. For his session, Williams served Jamaican brown stew chicken alongside a second option of jack mackerel with rice. He used several ingredients grown at the farm, including onions, bell peppers, Scotch peppers and tomatoes.

Vegetables used during the summer cooking series came from the LU Native and Specialty Crops Program’s Finca EcoFarm and farmers market, as well as Common Ground Community Building’s community garden.

Williams said his mother taught him to cook, even guiding him from a distance through the first dish he prepared on his own.

“She actually taught me over the phone,” Williams said, recalling how she gave him a list and walked him through the process step by step.

One of the series’ favorite dishes came from Vincent Osei, a junior majoring in agribusiness from Ghana. Osei prepared jollof rice, a West African dish made by cooking rice in a seasoned stew with tomatoes, peppers and garlic. He served it alongside fried plantains and chicken.

“It’s one of the popular dishes in Ghana,” Osei said. “Growing up, everybody likes jollof rice.”

The response from the group made the experience especially memorable for Osei.

“It was very fun because none of them ever had jollof rice before,” he said, enjoying the opportunity to introduce students and staff to a dish from back home.

Vincent Osei fries plantains during his cooking session at Common Ground Community Building.

Omar Santiago Pineda Otalvaro, a sophomore from Colombia, brought another family favorite to the Monday meals. His plate featured rice and chicken with carrots, peas, tomatoes, onions and garlic, topped with a boiled egg and served with fried potatoes.

The dish held special meaning for Pineda Otalvaro. Just weeks earlier, after several months apart from his parents, he had spent time in the kitchen with his mother as she prepared the same meal.

Pineda Otalvaro said his work with the Native and Specialty Crops Program has helped him see how the different parts of food production connect.

“It’s almost like a circle,” he said. “We take care of the plants, we harvest the plants, we sell the plants and we collect the data.”

The cooking series added another part to that circle. The students brought what they had grown into the kitchen, shared it with one another and connected it to the foods and traditions they knew from home. Each Monday lunch offered a new way to turn their work on the farm into something they could sit down and share.