Food from another culture – Fostering cultural integration through homemade food
Recently, the pace of life has accelerated, especially as generations have passed. Without a doubt each generation has an impact on the next, spreading a new culture and a new difference that has an impact on society. In this case, changes in societies are the consequence of external factors, such as adjusting one’s lifestyle to keep up with current trends.
During the design process I explored how design can achieve sustainable change for the better during the fast-paced lifestyle through homemade food. For this reason, I have designed a third party system that links amateur chefs and consumers in the field of homemade food, through a website. However, this system integrates diverse cultures through their cuisines. It combines food with the fun of experiencing new recipes, connecting other cultures, empowering individuals to start their own businesses, easing people’s lives with daily responsibilities and obligations. It is also a way to sustain local communities and exchange cultural and diverse knowledge.
As a designer, I designed a system that serves various groups of society and achieves several categories of sustainability areas. In addition to that I am a link and a common factor between the chef and the consumer, as I’m not only on chefs or consumer side, rather my presence as a designer between the two parties is to facilitate the project process through plans and analyzes that can help meet both parties were needed, by designing a system that allows the consumer to choose in full transparency the best dishes with the best quality and creating a competitive spirit among chefs to provide the best and guarantee all parties right. However, as a change agent, my goal is to direct the target group to order healthy home food rather than unhealthy fast food, as well as for those who want to try different dishes prepared by someone who grew up in the original country.
Furthermore, facilitating the process of obtaining traditional complex food that foreigners residing in Sweden have grown up with in their childhood. As one of the similar projects that I can refer to and had a dialogue with during the process and was inspired by is an article by Ivana, where she indicates the cultural importance of the meals that were prepared in the homes in which we grew up and that we did not realize the cultural importance of food because it was just food for us when we were young and now she appreciates family recipes more than ever because it connects us to heritage and loved ones. (Strajin, 2021) “SEEfest Alumna Gets Distribution for “HOMEMADE” Documentary Web Series”.