Flavours of Auburn Cooking Classes

Flavours of Auburn are doing social enterprise right. In 2007 four small cultural groups approached Auburn Council and created the Auburn Small Community Organisation Network (ASCON). Membership grew and in 2009 they began hosting food events as a part of the annual Good Food Month. The classes and tours became so popular that in 2013 they began running Auburn tours year round; in 2014 they got the small business on board to open up to visitors; and in 2015 they began a full time program of tours and cooking classes. The classes not only allow visitors to experience food from around the globe, but also provide employment and training to newly arrived migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Flavours of Auburn have joined forces with House of Welcome, a transitional housing provider for people seeking asylum in NSW, and together they host regular cooking classes at the Auburn Centre for Community. The Iranian classes are some of their most popular. They keep the class sizes small so that you participate and keep a close eye on the production of a celebration chicken and rice dish, a Persian salad, a Middle Eastern dal and Iranian samosas. It’s an informal setting in a commercial kitchen and allows you to chat to your hosts and the trainee teachers about their lives and cultures. At exactly the point where the smell of cooking is driving you mad everyone retires to the dining room which has been set for dinner and shares a feast. It is delicious, educational and social and will leave you feeling that as long as there’s food to bind us, our communities will succeed more often than they fail.