Once every month, the kitchen at Inala’s HUB Neighbourhood Centre fills with aromatic smells and locals eager to learn and share food and culture.
The centre runs cultural cooking classes on the first Friday of the month, where locals can either volunteer to teach a class of people how to make a meal that is culturally significant to them or the community.
Or locals can simply show up and learn to make the dish on the centre’s menu; no booking or reservation is required.
Charlotte Dirou, Neighbourhood Centre Manager, said the classes, which have been running since September 2025, were popular among locals.
“We have such a wonderfully diverse neighborhood that it just made sense to run these classes, and we’ve got a big commercial kitchen as well,” Ms Dirou said.
Ms Dirou said every class, which runs from 9.30am to 12.30pm, is different depending on the volunteer cook, the participants, and the day.
“The cook usually will share a little bit about what the dish is, why they make it, and which cultural occasion it’s typically made for,” she said.
“They’ll do some prep, and then they’ll get a few volunteers to come in and get everything together.
“In one class, we made mandazi, which are African donuts, so we watched the cook prepare them, and then everybody helped with the frying of them.”
At the end of the cooking demonstration and process, they all sit together and eat the food they’ve made, Ms Dirou said.
“I think it’s really important to give people the opportunity to share their culture with people from other cultures,” she said.
“That social aspect of cooking and eating together is so important.
“It’s just a really wonderful way to bring together people of all different cultures and walks of life.”
Some of the meals the class have made together are Vietnamese spring rolls and salads with congee, butter chicken curries, and more.
Vegetarian and vegan options are always made available to participants as well, Ms Dirou said.
Ms Dirou, who attends the classes, said she writes the recipe of the day down as the class progresses, printing out copies and handing them out at the end of the class for participants to take home.
“I’m trying to compile all the recipes we do so that at the end of one year, we’ll have a little recipe book of all the different recipes that we’ve made.”
The next cultural cooking session classes at HUB Neighbourhood Centre located at 79 Poinsetta Street, Inala, will take place from 9.30am to 12.30pm on Friday 6 February, 6 March, 10 April, 1 May, and 5 June.
