Borrowing Great Ideas from the Sikhs: Food for BarCamp Vancouver
My contribution for the first BarCamp Vancouver was a selection of foodstuffs chosen and prepared so as to be friendly for vegans, Muslims eating Halal, Jews following Kashrut, Rastafarians eating Ital, people with food allergies and others with similar constraints.
I was tickled at how positive the reactions were at BarCamp - in particular, Aaron Pettigrew's reaction was most gratifying. :)
In a large part, my inspiration to do this came from the Sikh concept of Langar. From Wikipedia, Langar is:
… the term used in the Sikh religion for the free, vegetarian-only food served in a Gurdwara and eaten by everyone sitting as equals. The practice was introduced by Guru Nanak Dev Ji to break the caste system that was prevalent in India during the 13th and 14th centuries.
…
At Langar, only vegetarian food is served. This is done to ensure that all people, with whatever dietary restrictions (for example Jains, Jews, or Muslims) will feel welcome to eat as equals.
…
Langar is designed to uphold the principle of equality between all people of the world regardless of religion, caste, colour, creed, age, gender or social status. In addition to the ideals of equality, the tradition of Langar expresses the ethics of sharing, community, inclusiveness and oneness of all humankind.
I will put the recipes into separate posts over the next few days.
Link Summary
- http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouver
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism
- http://en.wikipedia.o.../Islamic_dietary_laws
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashrut
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ital
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_allergy
- http://aaronpettigrew.com/
- http://aaronpettigrew...an-friendly-flavours/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikh
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langar
- http://wikipedia.org/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurdwara
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Posted on Monday, August 28th, 2006 at 18:06
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August 28th, 2006 at 18:51
Thanks for this introduction to Langar, Zak — I'd never heard of it before. (Well, I guess this isn't strictly true: I've always known that anyone could eat free vegetarian food at the local Sikh Temple (Gurdwara) here in Vancouver, but I'd never really known why.)
And thanks again for the care you put into making the food this weekend. A large part of the reason that I got so excited about the food this weekend (other than the awesome taste) was because it was so thoughtful of you to prepare food that catered to everyone. You didn't have to do that, but you did it anyway, and I think that's really cool.
August 28th, 2006 at 20:00
Hey Aaron,
It was my pleasure!
Cheers!
–zak
August 28th, 2006 at 20:10
What, no Texas orthodox?
August 28th, 2006 at 20:13
Hey Mike,
I fear that I failed our Texan Orthodox friends - no deep fried meat this year. The closest we came was having meaty pizza on hand. :)
Cheers!
–zak
August 8th, 2007 at 16:16
[...] simple set of criteria - the food needed to be yummy, cheap to make, easy to eat, simple to serve, friendly to various dietary restrictions and [...]
August 11th, 2007 at 1:48
[...] At last years BarCamp Vancouver I prepared food inspired by the Sikh practice of Langar. You can read more about it in post Borrowing Great Idea from the Sikhs. [...]
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:32
Introduction to langar is great. Will follow the other posts about recipes.
cheers
Gulzar