Share Your Foodways

The New Jersey Folk Festival has teamed up with Arts Institute of Middlesex County to collaborate on creating videos for the Share Your Foodways Project. Begun during this pandemic, this collaboration allows our programs to highlight chefs and home cooks in the region who are contributing their food traditions and recipes to our local community. New Jersey Folk Festival students and staff help collaborate on many aspects of the video productions, in front and behind the camera. Chefs featured in our collaborative videos also participate in other New Jersey Folk Festival programs and projects.

What are “Foodways”?

Foodways are the context and meaning around food: why and when we eat what we eat.

What is “Share Your Foodways” and why is Middlesex County involved?

In this series, local cooks share recipes and food traditions that are important to them. For each cooking tutorial and recipe set we produce, we give 100 free ingredient kits to families through the REPLENISH food pantry network.

At the Arts Institute of Middlesex County, our Division of Folklife and Cultural Heritage celebrates the many ways that Central New Jersey residents express their identities, including music, dance, rituals, crafts, language, and food!

Share Your Foodways Collaboration with the Library of Congress

In 2022, Share Your Foodways was invited to collaborate with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress on three new Share Your Foodways films. You can watch all of them on the Library of Congress YouTube channel, and read an introductory behind-the-scenes blog post blog and about the first, second, and third films in the series.

The New Jersey Folk Festival’s focus on the cultures of Oaxaca in 2021 brought us to meet Estela and Lourdes Rojas, a mother and daughter duo whose family owns several restaurants in New Brunswick. Estela has been cooking for one of the oldest and largest Oaxacan restaurants in the city, Costa Chica, for decades. Lourdes and her family own El Gallo Felix. Together, their families have built a life in America around the culinary heritage of their home in Oaxaca.

Listen to NJFF’s New Jersey Folk Podcast episode on chefs Estela and Lourdes Rojas

Michelle Washington Wilson is a chef based in Atlantic City whose family has been involved in culinary businesses and agricultural work over several generations. Coming to South Jersey as part of the Great Migration. Michelle’s family have picked blueberries as seasonal workers and have owned catering and restaurant businesses in South Jersey and Philadelphia. Michelle was first featured as a presenter at the New Jersey Folk Festival’s Heritage Area during the 2022 festival on Transportation and Migration, speaking on the foods of the Great Migration.

You can hear her family stories, watch her make a simple “After School Special” Mac & Cheese, a rich Seafood Mac & Cheese, and a “Jersey Fresh” Fruit Cocktail on the NJ Folk Festival YouTube page—or watch the full video!

How Can I Participate?

We’re glad you asked! You can share your own recipes and food stories by filling out our Recipe Card, and online on social media with the hashtag #ShareYourFoodways and tag @ArtsInstituteMC.

To watch cooking tutorials, print out SYF recipe cards, read about our guest cooks, and learn how you can support REPLENISH, please go to https://www.middlesexcountynj.gov/?navid=954 [insert QR Code for SYF]