A Taste of Harmony

A Taste of Harmony is a new-ish community initiative developed by the Scanlon Foundation – a philanthropic organization established in June 2001, with a mission to support the creation of a larger cohesive Australian society.

The main principle behind it is to celebrate the diversity of culture in Australia via the means of people in workplaces either cooking and/or eating typical dishes from their native countries together.

It isn’t a fundraiser, and doesn’t require anything specific from anyone other than for someone to organise whatever best fits in a workplace in order for everyone to share lunch together on any particular working day between March 15-21, with March 21being National Harmony Day.

It’s simple to do: have a chat at work and you might find yourself surprised at the number of people who have diverse backgrounds. Everyone has their own special and unique family favourite dishes (of food!) which are usually an expression of who they are and what their origins were, and these are dishes which would be ideal to make at home and bring along to work to share with workmates.

It’s not a cooking competition, but just a recognition of the fact that we live in a unique country comprised of people originating from 230 different countries. You can cook something from your country of origin or something you like – it really doesn’t matter.

It means that you take the time to sit and chat with your workmates, with food as the icebreaker.

Some of Australia’s top chefs are endorsing this event and acting as Ambassadors, like Tobie Puttock, Maeve O’Meara, Dominique Rizzo, Cheong Liew, Shannon Bennett, Alastair McLeod and our own Judith Sweet.

There is a website where you can register your workplace if you want. Otherwise, why not use this as an excuse to eat something different one day for lunch at work?