In its twenty-seventh year, thousands of people in one hundred Quebec communities are emphasizing the pleasure of participating in a community kitchen. The rise in food prices, which is higher than inflation, is hurting many households. They are already weakened and hit hardest, as these households spend a large chunk of their budget on buying groceries. As the grocery budget can be squeezed, the quantity and quality of groceries purchased prove insufficient to sustain basic needs.
This worrying situation encourages the Regroupement des Cuisines Collectives du Québec (RCCQ) and its members to demand the right to a decent diet. Always flouted, it’s high time to guarantee the right to food in Quebec.
Community kitchens take on their full meaning and become an indispensable tool for economically weak people with precarious status. However, this activity is not only for the latter, if the savings obtained from it are significant, the human benefits are even greater.
social influence
Communal kitchens are available to everyone across the province and have an undeniable social impact, both individually and collectively. They are true vectors of change by encouraging openness and discovery. By bringing together people with different cultures of origin, gender identities, experiences and backgrounds, they support coexistence. They succeed in reducing social inequalities and enabling encounters that are sometimes surprising but always enriching. Thanks to these moments of solidarity, all Québec society is beautified. They promote the creation of connections between people and contribute to their integration into urban and rural communities. Cooking together, joining a group also means sharing values such as solidarity, autonomy, respect, dignity, democracy, justice and social justice.
By preparing enough meals for multiple people, community kitchens help reduce the food waste that often results from cooking together. Surplus can be frozen or given away. Nothing is lost, everything is shared!
collector
Finally, the communal kitchens allow for the development of the participants, helping them acquire different skills and encouraging them to take care of their own and their family’s diet. By pooling their knowledge and skills, they learn together and break the isolation of many people. Sharing and sharing are at the heart of every meeting. Through pleasure, laughter, secrets, goodwill, and friendship, people improve their health (physical, mental, and economic) and, in turn, their collective well-being.
When participants join a cooking group for a variety of reasons, they stay there because it’s fun, because meeting each other fills their being as much as it fills the fridge.
This is the recipe for the communal kitchen.
” First I went there to cook better and to feed my family, but now it’s more than that, much more than that! We’ve become friends with the girls in my group, we go out together, it’s great! »
Shoshanna Cohen, participant in a shared kitchen group at the Center d’entraide Racine-Lavoie in Saint-Eustache
On this March 26, 2023 we celebrate with joy and sharing the 27th National Day of Communal Kitchens and we will celebrate it for a very long time, inflationary context or not. Because cooking together is so much more than cooking!
Photo provided by Josee Poirier Defoy
Josee Poirier Defoy, President of the Board of Directors of the RCCQ