Dorm cooking is not for the weak. The kitchen is often chaotic, and when you reach in to get a spatula, you might end up with a whisk — but if the space is filled with people who share the same love of cooking, the chaotic scene can often become a cherished memory.
At 7 p.m. last Wednesday, Feb. 11, the Black Latin American and Caribbean Club (B.L.A.C.C.) came together to cook Haitian food. With sounds of laughter filling Walker kitchen, students gathered to craft a traditional Haitian meal consisting of poul fri (Haitian fried chicken), bannann peze (fried and smashed plantains) and pikliz (pickled cabbage).
For many college students, away from their favorite home-cooked dishes, dorm cooking is a ritual that brings their community together and establishes a feeling of belonging. The bones of cooking are sharing customs, memories and most importantly, recipes.
“Food is about learning a person,” B.L.A.C.C. president Madi Thomas PO ’26 said. “The conversations one has show how you can put a person on a plate. It really makes you think of different combinations you never had before. In that way, cooking gives rise to community.”
“Food is about learning a person,” B.L.A.C.C. president Madi Thomas PO ’26 said. “The conversations one has show how you can put a person on a plate. It really makes you think of different combinations you never had before. In that way, cooking gives rise to community.”
As the cooking began, light-hearted competition ensued. Students danced around the kitchen, moving between different demo stations set up with overflowing plates of ingredients as they chatted with one another. Shoulder to shoulder, attendees disregarded the kitchen’s cramped quarters, embracing the inevitability of collaboration.
Debates quickly emerged concerning the proper way to cook each cultural dish — one student even Facetimed a family member just to check that they’d gotten the steps just right.
For many, the communal, casual cooking class mirrored the rhythm and flavors of childhood memories spent hanging out in the kitchen with family members. In channeling aspects of their family throughout the night of cooking, students managed to keep homesickness at bay.
“This event, to me, is less so about the food and more so about the fact that all of us had some form of experience with growing up in a Caribbean household,” B.L.A.C.C. member Nathaniel Wisdom PO ’26 said. “With events like this, friends will step up and take more of a cooking role. This mirrors the Caribbean household with the same dynamic of recreating home at college through the medium of cooking.”
Haitian food, in particular, is often hard to come by in the Claremont area. One student claimed that you had to drive more than 30 miles from the 5Cs just to find the nearest Haitian restaurant.
As club member Amid Louis PO ’26 described, the sparsity of Haitian food meant that the event was an opportunity not only to get together and cook with friends, but also to share his family’s cuisine. Louis reiterated that food often acts as a small nod to home; however, with its inaccessibility, this opportunity meant that much more.
“Growing up, I only ever ate Haitian food,” Louis said. “Like, for example, one of my favorites was cereal being a supper food as opposed to breakfast. I would eat cereal at night because Haitians put sugar and salt in cereal. Trust me, if you do it correctly, it tastes so sweet with the sugar enhanced through the salt. At the end of the day, Haitian food is part of my culture. Already, the smell of oil feels like home. All the people around me, the smells, the sound of Creole Caribbean language.”
Although many of the event’s attendees come from Latin American and Caribbean families, cooking Haitian food allowed them to build cross-cultural bridges and bond over shared experiences.
“I think Haitian food is an underappreciated cuisine in general,” Wisdom said. “Personally, I haven’t had Haitian food, which is interesting because Jamaica is a next-door neighbor. There is all of this unnecessary conflict between Caribbean islands. But this inherent friction can be diluted by the fact that — oh, we are all cooking the same things together.”
Cooking bypasses initial tensions, turning strangers into collaborators through the simple act of preparing food together. Rather than the small talk that students are all too familiar with, B.L.A.C.C. cultivated a unique atmosphere shaped by the comfort of familial memories. What came at the end of the night was a true labor of love, reflective of everyone who participated.
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