Armed with a vision of communal engagement and the belief that food is medicine, Ed Shanshala is on a mission to take the lost art of home cooking on the road. “Teaching kitchens are more than just mobile cooking stations,” Shanshala notes. “They are hubs for collaboration and community.”
Shanshala, Chief Executive Officer of Ammonoosuc Community Health Services (ACHS) in Littleton, New Hampshire, used a grant from the Rural Health Redesign Center (with supplemental funds from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) through the Northern Border Regional Commission) to purchase two portable test kitchens and a trailer. He aims to rekindle an interest in fresh cooking for his community, in a world where, as he says, “convenience often trumps nutrition”.
This effort was launched in partnership with White Mountain Community College’s culinary program and Northern Vermont University’s multimedia videography program because they help create an engaging cooking experience. “We decided to stand up a relationship where culinary students create recipes, videography students produce instructional videos, and when we’re on the road, participants can taste the meals with us,” Shanshala explains. “This multi-modality approach will spark the senses for all learning styles.”
Shanshala recruited a health center patient, Jose Bonilla, who recently opened a bread company (Bonillabread.com) with his wife and son, to serve as a guest chef for the teaching kitchen. Bonilla is a self-taught cook who learned by watching his Puerto Rican grandmother and mother in the kitchen. “I want to teach people who don’t feel comfortable in the kitchen learn how to use a knife, or find inexpensive ingredients, and learn to love cooking like I do,” he said.
ACHS expects to launch their mobile kitchens during National Health Center Week 2024.
Reviving the Communal Meal
Shanshala laments cultural shifts and trending decline of home-cooked meals and family dinners. A 2019 report shared in YouGov.com found that while 87 percent of families would like to have more dinners together, only 29 percent sit together for a meal every night in the United States. “Learning to cook at home has fallen by the wayside,” Shanshala observed. During the pandemic, he noted empty shelves of processed foods in grocery stores and the lack of basic cooking ingredients in many households.
When it comes to nutrition education, Shanshala emphasizes intrinsic motivation, competence, autonomy, and belonging as the core of his teaching philosophy. “No one wants to hear ‘try this low sodium, low carbohydrate meal’,” he says. “You just turn me off right there.” Instead, his approach is to make cooking an enjoyable experience first and foremost, with the added benefit of elements like low-sodium or high-fiber coming as a pleasant surprise. “Healthy is a footnote, not a headline,” he says.
Shanshala’s journey began in the early 2000s with a visit to a Wegmans supermarket where he encountered a chef preparing a dish he didn’t recognize. The enticing aroma and opportunity to sample the dish, paired with a visually appealing recipe card and access to all ingredients, sparked an idea. “It was a seminal experience,” Shanshala recalled. “I realized that people need to experience food firsthand to truly understand and appreciate it, as opposed to a nutritionist just handing out a fact sheet.”
Shanshala’s vision extends beyond individual health. By promoting cooking as a communal activity, he hopes to strengthen social bonds: “As a health center, we need to get out in the community as good guests. And how better to be a guest than to share a meal and have a conversation?”
Shanshala hopes his work will foster a sense of community, promote healthier lifestyles, and prove that food truly is medicine.