Bookend: Eat and Greet
It’s Thursday morning, and the fourth floor of Parkway Central Library is alive with bubbling jollof rice, crisping empanadas, and stir-frying japchae.
Welcome to Edible Alphabet, the flagship series of Free Library of Philadelphia’s (FLP) Culinary Literacy Center. Since 2015, the program has convened those learning English as a second language (ESL)—many from the Caribbean, Central America, the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia—to practice conversation and cook a recipe under the direction of an ESL teacher and chef instructor.
“This is the best way to teach language skills,” says Lindsay Southworth, FLP senior program manager for adult education. “Cooking is community building—you have this real sense of togetherness.” When learners are relaxed, she says, they use spontaneous English, a skill hard to grasp in a traditional classroom.
But the six-week course—also offered at FLP’s branches and virtually—is not just for honing vocabulary and knife skills. It’s meant to get new Americans comfortable in their city and familiar with FLP’s other services, like its after-school programs and Library of Things collection.
“The English is important, but English is a vehicle,” says Southworth. “Even in the easiest situation, immigration is challenging. We want people to feel welcome, included.”
The class serves up some joyful stories, like the two women from Iran who didn’t know each other but now live in the same building and have dinner together nearly every night. “They’ve really become each other’s found family,” Southworth says.
She wants to see Edible Alphabet in every community and says no commercial kitchen is required. “We do this in the basement of a 100-year-old library, and we bring some cutting boards and an electric skillet,” she says. “It’s a great carrot to get people in the door, right?”
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