Adam Sudmann discovers his chefs between the aisles of multinational grocery stores, among food used in cuisines from all over the world.

He peeks into strangers’ shopping carts and asks what they plan to make for dinner that night. If it’s interesting, Sudmann said, he invites them to cook for his multinational pop-up food court My Lucky Tummy.

My Lucky Tummy, which began six years ago, hosts two to three events a year and features signature dishes from cultures around the world. Attendees can buy tickets online to try a plethora of cuisines served at different stations. The location and featured cuisine changes for each event.

The idea for My Lucky Tummy was inspired by Sudmann’s international travel and his exposure to the restaurant industry. He noticed a hierarchy in the business — Sudmann said customers were rude to waiters because they felt entitled and that behavior was common. Food courts, he said, lacked that power dynamic, allowing people to come together to dine as equals.

Sudmann recruits chefs from the Northside of Syracuse including refugees, immigrants and people from multinational backgrounds. He looks for people in niche grocery stores around the city and sometimes chooses people that work in his restaurant With Love, Restaurant.

Melissa Brennan, Michael Koval and Tori Russo (left to right) served foods to guests at a pop-up event last weekend. Jessie Zhai | Contributing Photographer

Last weekend, the pop-up restaurant held their final event of the year. Guests sampled cuisines from Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Iraq, South Sudan and Myanmar. My Lucky Tummy introduces the community to the various backgrounds of their neighbors and gives people the opportunity to experience a different culture without having to travel, said Venus Likulumbi, the dining room manager at With Love, Restaurant and a participant in My Lucky Tummy.

Likulumbi has experienced food from all over the world. Her mother is Spanish and Native American and her father is French and Congolese, which exposed her to different cuisines growing up, she said. In addition to the array of cultures represented in her family tree, she said her mother — “a renaissance woman” she called her — had friends from different countries who concocted meals from across the globe.

She has participated in the kitchen at My Lucky Tummy twice and said both experiences felt like a family gathering. Likulumbi stressed the authenticity of meals, which she said stems from the ingredients.

“Having authenticity is more of a pride of keeping something real that their mother made, their grandmother made, their grandfather made,” she said. “You grew up with it, that’s your comfort food.”

The chefs are representing their country, Sudmann said, and for many of the people eating their food, it’s their first exposure to that culture and country.

Sarah Robin — a chef at My Lucky Tummy — said she loves giving people the opportunity to experience a piece of her culture through food. Robin moved to the United States from Pakistan in 2012, and when the opportunity to cook for Sudmann arose, she took it.

Annie Dahlstein worked the pop-up food court last weekend, My Lucky Tummy’s last event of the year. Jessie Zhai | Contributing Photographer

At first, Robin stayed in the back of the house because she didn’t have the confidence to face the people who flocked to the events, she said. But Sudmann brought her to the front of the house, helping her out of her comfort zone to teach people about her food and her culture.

“The love from the community helped me,” Robin said. “Cooking makes me happy and people don’t know about Pakistani food. Whenever they have it they say it was the best food of their life.”

The events are especially beneficial for people who may not know much about the culture or cuisine of the different countries represented, she said, and it’s an opportunity to teach and learn in a space that is all theirs.

Sudmann said he wants to give the people who cook at My Lucky Tummy the recognition they deserve because they are usually “not celebrated in the dominant narrative.” Being exposed to different cultures brings the community together by helping people realize what they have in common with others, Likulumbi said.

“No matter if you were born and raised here or if you made Syracuse your new home, know that your community, your neighborhood, your neighbor have no differences,” she said. “We all just want to enjoy our family and friends, get together over comfort food and make the community better.”

Published on October 22, 2018 at 8:19 pm

Contact Brooke: bnkato@syr.edu