International events

Here are a few suggestions for community cooking and language events. Feel free to adapt them to suit your school or any events in the school calendar.

We have also provided more ideas linked to each country – just click on each country’s page for more ideas and to download each recipe and demonstrator notes. 

International Food Festival

Organise an International Food Festival on 23 June to celebrate International Olympic Day. Set up different stalls and use portable cooking equipment to demonstrate the different recipes from each of the seven countries.  Invite guests to try something new and taste each different recipe, learn about the ingredients used, watch cookery demonstrations and even have a go at making their own smoothie or fruit crumble.

Make sure everyone is given copies of the recipes to take away.  You could sell bags of ready-weighed ingredients for them to cook at home. Write signs in different languages, teach everyone at least one word in a different language, decorate the room or outdoor space with flags and maps and play music from each of the countries.

Guest chefs

Do any of the teachers, parents or school staff speak Hindi, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese or French?  Invite them to demonstrate how to cook one of the recipes explaining first in English then in the second language.  Ask them to teach you a few words such as the main ingredients or pieces of cooking equipment. Then everyone can have a go at cooking the dish and sit down to share a meal together.

Restaurants

Link up with a local Chinese or Indian restaurant and invite the chef or owner to cook the Chinese-style Vegetable Stir Fry or Chicken Rogan Josh or demonstrate a cooking skill such as chopping.  Whilst they cook they can teach everyone a few simple words in Chinese or Hindi and talk about the food that comes from their region.  (Please check which region they come from before you invite them as they may be Cantonese, Punjabi or Urdu speakers!)  Will they invite you for a tour around the restaurant?

Key dates

• International Olympic Day - 23 June each year
• 20 December each year is 2012! (Link with London 2012)
• Chinese New Year - 3 February 2011 (Year of the Rabbit) 23 January 2012 (Year of the Dragon)
• Chinese Mid-autumn Festival - 22 September 2010, 12 September 2011, 30 September 2012
• Diwali - 5 November 2010, 26 October 2011, 13 November 2012

Useful website

Find other the dates of other religious festivals on the BBC Interfaith calendar

Sporting events

Link cooking with different sporting events - for example, a Sports Day, athletics meeting, five-a-side football tournament or dance competition.  This could be a school or community event or you might just fancy a family rounders tournament in the local park.

Choose which recipes would suit your event and the time of year, for example Pumpkin Soup or One-pot Vegetable Chilli would work well in winter to warm up spectators, whilst a refreshing Mango and Banana Sunset Smoothie would be a welcome break for players during the summer months.  Think of how you would keep ingredients and final recipes warm/cold and how you could encourage people to get involved with cooking.  Give your sporting event an international theme by asking competitors to represent one of the 205 countries taking part in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Lloyds TSB National School Sport Week 28 June - 2 July 

Lloyds TSB National School Sport Week uses the power of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to inspire more young people to take part in and understand the value of sport.

In 2009 more than 10,000 schools and three million children took part. Students of all ages and abilities helped to organise an amazing range of inspirational events including their own Opening and Closing Ceremonies, Torch Relays, inter and intra school competitions.

Thinking of joining in this year…why not include a Let’s Get Cooking Around the World food stall? The Mango and Banana Sunset Smoothies inspired by the 2016 host country, Brazil could go down really well, as could an after-Games curry stall. Display the recipes in the national language along side the English version, make some flags or badges with the Values words on them in a range of languages and you have all the ingredients for a perfect fun event that would also support an application to join the Get Set network