From Soil to Souq, From Seed to Menu

Community conversations about Middle Eastern foodways, culture, and local food systems

A seed carries memory. A recipe carries family history. A market carries migration, trade, hospitality, healing, and belonging. Through the Seeds of Middle Eastern Culture project, we bring people together to explore how Middle Eastern foodways can strengthen cultural understanding, youth education, local agriculture, and community food security in Central Ohio.

Our Soil to Souq and Seed to Menu community conversations invite neighbors, educators, farmers, food business owners, researchers, cultural leaders, youth advocates, and anyone who loves food to ask:

• What grows here?
• What stories do our foods carry?
• How can culturally meaningful foods support health, belonging, and food security?
• How can young people become cultural ambassadors through cooking, gardening, tasting, and storytelling?
• What can Columbus build together when we start with food?

Why these conversations matter

Middle Eastern foodways offer an accessible and powerful way to learn about culture, history, geography, agriculture, health, migration, religion, hospitality, and identity.

In our first year, Seeds of Middle Eastern Culture worked with youth and community partners through hands-on activities: planting garlic, cooking traditional dishes, tasting unfamiliar ingredients, learning about spices, exploring family food memories, and connecting Middle Eastern food traditions with African, African American, Filipino, religious, and other food traditions present in the room.

The result was more than a curriculum. It became a growing community model rooted in relationship, cultural humility, and action.

What came out of the sessions

The Soil to Souq and Seed to Menu conversations helped community members move from ideas into project areas. Together, participants identified five action pathways:

1. Midwest Hearts MidEast

Supporting locally made Middle Eastern food products, food businesses, cultural preservation, youth education, and community-centered economic development.

2. Land Use

Exploring how culturally relevant crops — including herbs, vegetables, grains, and fruits important in Middle Eastern foodways — can be grown, shared, and supported in Central Ohio.

3. Youth Education

Creating hands-on learning experiences that help young people cook, garden, taste, tell stories, and become cultural ambassadors.

4. Farmers

Connecting growers, educators, and community members around crops that can thrive in Ohio while honoring Middle Eastern food traditions.

5. Food is Medicine

Highlighting the health, cultural, and community benefits of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean foodways, including herbs, legumes, grains, vegetables, olive oil, and shared meals.

These projects are living invitations. They are starting points for collaboration, not finished products.

A community-built approach

Our conversations are guided by a simple belief: food security is not only about calories. It is also about access to foods that are familiar, meaningful, healthy, sustainably grown, and connected to people’s cultures and communities.

That means listening to growers, cooks, youth, elders, cultural communities, food pantry leaders, educators, researchers, health professionals, and food entrepreneurs.

It means treating family recipes, market knowledge, garden wisdom, religious food practices, and lived experience as real expertise.

It means helping young people see themselves not only as learners, but as chefs, storytellers, teachers, cultural ambassadors, and future food-system builders.

Who is invited?

Everyone interested in food, culture, youth, farming, education, health, or community-building is welcome.

You might be:

• A community member who wants to learn more about Middle Eastern foods
• A parent, elder, or cultural knowledge-holder
• A farmer, gardener, or farmers market organizer
• A teacher, youth worker, or curriculum partner
• A food business owner, chef, caterer, or restaurant worker
• A food security or public health professional
• A student, researcher, or university partner
• Someone who simply believes food can bring people together

Join the next step

We are continuing to build a community around Middle Eastern foodways, culturally relevant crops, youth education, and local food systems.

You can get involved by:

• Joining the Seeds of Middle Eastern Culture community list
• Sharing recipes, stories, cultural practices, or food memories
• Participating in future Soil to Souq or Seed to Menu conversations
• Helping youth learn through cooking, gardening, or storytelling
• Supporting one of the five project areas
• Taking or sharing our Middle Eastern foodways appreciation survey
• Connecting us with farmers, food businesses, educators, or community partners

Role of Third Floor Design

Third Floor Design helped guide the Soil to Souq and Seed to Menu sessions using their Pathway Conversations™ framework, which moves groups from shared learning and questions into practical next steps. Their facilitation helped turn diverse community input into concrete actions and learning objectives for the youth in our program.

Come to the table

From soil to souq, from seed to menu, every part of the food system carries culture.

Together, we can grow a more connected, culturally sustaining, and delicious local food future — one conversation, one meal, one seed, and one story at a time.