by Jen Myers

The students in Lowell High School teacher Jessica Lander’s class may be from 17 very different nations around the globe, but if there is one universal truth it is this – regardless of culture, language, religion, or starch of choice – grandmas absolutely do not want to give up their secret recipes.

That fact ranked as the top challenge the students faced when gathering family recipes from their homelands for the sixth edition of “Tasting History,” a cookbook created annually by the immigrant and refugee students in Lander’s U.S. History II Seminar. This year’s edition includes 99 recipes from 17 countries.

Emanuel Sanchez, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 2019, contributed his family’s recipe for “Habichuelas con Dulce,” a dessert made with red beans, sweet potato, raisins, coconut milk and spices. He said it was the first dish to come to mind because it reminds him of his neighbors and community in the Dominican Republic and how everyone would share food.

Just don’t ask Emanuel what is in it or how to make it.

“I don’t know a lot about the recipe,” he admitted. “My grandma told me I’m not going to find out the recipe. My grandma was the one who wrote the ingredients in the book. I haven’t checked it out because she told me not to look at it, but sometime I peek.”

In front of a packed room at a book party and signing at lala books downtown on April 29, Lander and five of her students spoke about the book project, and answered questions from Mill City Grows’ Kerri Keeler, who acted as emcee.

“In the class we study immigration from Ellis Island to Angel Island and laws that included and laws that excluded,” Lander said, adding she was looking online for lesson and project ideas when the idea of creating a cookbook came to her.

“A lot of the lessons said something like – have your students imagine they had to leave their home and come to a new country,” she recalled. “Of course, my students don’t have to imagine because my students are experts. I wanted to create a project that centered their expertise and really ensured that my students see that their history is a central and important part of our country’s history.”

The cookbook project allows the students to work on their English writing and communication skills in a different way, share their stories and their family’s stories and culture, learn more about their classmates and the world, as well as try some foods that may be new to them.

“There was a lot of food that was really really good, but some that was not for me,” laughed Isadora Pires, who came to the United States from Brazil in 2022. “But, I still respect their food and what it means to them.”

Like Emanuel, Isadora had a hard time wrangling her favorite recipe – Angu a Baiana, a flavorful stew of ground beef, smoked sausage, bacon, cornmeal, tomato sauce, corn, cheese, and spices, from her grandma.

“My grandma always made it for me when I was sick – she would spend all day cooking it for me,” Isadora said. “It was also the last food I ate before I left Brazil.”

Even though her grandma was reluctant to share her recipe at first, once she saw the book, she was amazed.

“My grandmother was really proud and she cried a lot,” she said. “And I cried a lot.”

“I learned a lot about the diversity of my class and I really enjoyed reading their stories,” said Isabella Valencia Velez, who came to Lowell from Colombia in 2019. The recipe she contributed was Salpicón de Fruta, a fruit salad topped with condensed milk or ice cream, which can be found at food carts in the parks of Cali, Colombia where she is from.

Salpicón de Fruta, Isabella wrote in the book, reminds her of being a child in Cali visiting the park with her parents.

“I remember the bakery, the ice cream parlor, the food stalls, the games, and if it was hot, we would go eat a Salpicón with condensed milk and ice cream,” she wrote. “We sat on a bench until we all finished eating.”

Isabella did not realize how important those times were until she came to the United States at 12-years-old and everything was suddenly strange, new, and confusing.

“All I want to do is go back to those moments (in Cali) one day and eat one with my family without worrying about anything,” Isabella wrote. “When I think about those moments I just feel calm and at peace, as if everything in the world was fine.”

One of the unintended bonuses of creating the book has been a partnership between Lander’s classes and the Lowell Public Schools Food Services Department, which came to Lander a few years ago interested in recreating some “Tasting History” recipes in the LHS cafeteria and across the district.

Food from Cambodia, Guatemala, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Brazil, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ecuador, and Somaliland has been served in LPS cafeterias for the first time, starting with Cambodian Lok Lak, a fan favorite, in 2022.

“Each month, LPS Food Services choose a recipe and adapt the recipe to the nutrition guideline and for serving thousands of students,” Lander said. “What is really beautiful and what I love is the head of food services comes to our class with samples and asks our students for feedback about the food. The adults in the room are coming to the real teachers – these young people.”

Tasting History can be purchased at lala books at 189 Market St. in Downtown Lowell or at https://www.jessicalander.com/tasting-history