For Tammara Soma, growing up, food was “a source of fear.”
“I had an eating disorder when I was young,” Soma said in an interview with Gloria Macarenko on CBC. The first edition THURSDAY.
It wasn't until she began working on developing sustainable and equitable food systems that she began to view food as a source of healing.
“Food heals in many ways. It heals the body. It heals the mind. It also strengthens cultural identity.
“But above all, it brings people together,” explains Soma in his documentary: Food is my teacherwhich she co-wrote and co-directed with award-winning Canadian filmmaker Brandy Yanchyk.
In an effort to learn more about how food could be a source of love and healing, Soma, assistant professor and research director and co-founder of the Food Systems Lab at Simon Fraser University, traveled across Colombia -British and Alberta for the documentary, meeting various communities to discover the cultural relationships they have with food.
Watch the full documentary here:
Here is an excerpt from her conversation with Macarenko, where she talks about Food is my teacher — streaming on CBC Gem as part of the Absolutely Canadian series.
This file has been edited for length and clarity.
And the title of this doc, Food is my teacher – why is that?
I'm a professor at SFU, so I'm a teacher. But I realize that food is one of the greatest teachers.
It can teach us more about the planet and about other people from other cultures. But more importantly, based on my journey making this documentary with Brandy Yanchyk, food can teach us about love.
And that's the message I hope to convey through this documentary.
How do you do it?
In this documentary, I travel across Alberta and British Columbia and meet these extraordinary leaders, from Indigenous community leaders to Sikh, Muslim, Chinese, Filipino and Polish leaders. And they all share a little bit about how they use food to heal communities, to learn and preserve their language and identity, and basically to break down stigma.
There is a lot of hatred. There's a lot of tension there. But we promote unity.
I know this is a labor of love for you because you study food and food safety for a living. When you visit these different communities, when you talk with these people, what strikes you?
I think what strikes me is that a lot of these communities on the ground are doing a lot of things with very few resources.
With communities like the Rocky Mountain Filipino Organization…this particular association of Filipino workers was laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite all their challenges, they were there to support their communities, creating baskets full of culturally appropriate food. And it's just amazing to see how there is so much love and so much resilience in the midst of everything.
What was that experience like for you, hearing all these different points of view?
I cried a lot.
I was so touched. I have learned so much from all of these amazing leaders and, most importantly, in Vancouver's case, from Indigenous experts Cease Wyss and Senaqwila Wyss.
I just learned about the impact of residential schools, but also about the beautiful Harmony Garden, where they are working hard to reconnect their own Squamish First Nation community and with their ecological knowledge and traditional food practices.
Where did this all start for you, in terms of your relationship with food, during your childhood?
Growing up, I was bullied a lot. Especially when it came to food, it was not a source of healing at that time. Food was actually a source of fear. I had an eating disorder when I was young.
By doing this work, becoming a food systems teacher, and connecting to food from a spiritual perspective, I actually healed my own problem with food. And so I also want to show through this documentary that it is possible to heal. It is possible to repair our broken relationship with food.
Many people are currently struggling to put basic groceries on the table. So, in your opinion, where does the message of your film fit into this context?
I think this film is timely because this documentary shows that food is not just a commodity. Food is much more than that.
It is a spirituality, it is an identity, but it is also a source of rapprochement. And I think our government, our leaders should know that we need to invest in food.
We need to invest in people, especially in these wonderful community organizations that tackle issues like hunger, poverty and community development. So we need more support.
