116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
International Banquet celebrates 50 years of diversity, visibility for international students at Coe College
See the recipes that made this year’s event
Apr. 11, 2024 6:15 am
CEDAR RAPIDS — For 50 years, Coe College has been offering students and the public something faster than any international commercial flight available today.
Their International Club can’t promise you a trip around the world in 80 days the way Jules Verne envisioned when he penned his popular novel in 1872. But since 1974, it’s managed to take the community through dozens of countries without ever leaving campus.
This year’s trip last Sunday, April 7, 2024, touched down in more than a dozen countries over three hours.
How it happens
Like most big trips, it took a lot of planning. To serve hundreds of people every year, organizers start preparations several months in advance. For the 50th milestone, students Thanh Tran and Oyin Adewuyi started their work last semester.
Students may not be the best cooks or have the biggest kitchens in their dorm rooms. But each spring, they transform into chefs to convey their culture to the masses.
This annual banquet made a buffet meal with five appetizers from Liberia, Ghana, Brazil, Italy and Lebanon; five entrees from Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Korea and Myanmar (formerly Burma); and six desserts from Liberia, Ireland, Brazil, Vietnam and France. To wash it down, visitors had Horchata, a traditional cinnamon rice beverage, and Jamaica, a hibiscus tea drink — both from Mexico.
After organizing, college students work with Sodexo, Coe’s on-campus dining service, to determine how to translate family recipes with imprecise measurements like “a can,” or metric measurements into recipes that can be made for the masses.
“It’s very hectic,” said Tran, president of the International Club and an International Banquet organizer.
After food supplies come in, students spend an entire day making the food together, paying particular attention to serving size with recipes to ensure enough food to go around.
“Some students eat more than others,” Adewuyi said. “We have to figure out how many people it would actually serve.”
Over time, the process has gotten more efficient. In past years, former International Student Advisor Deanna Jobe, who served from 1980 to 2014, said the preparation took much longer.
“Working side by side with students preparing food into the night for three days provided many fond memories and a lot of laughs,” Jobe said. “I am so proud this is one of the most long-lived traditions at Coe College. It is a tribute to all the international and American students who work to keep the banquet going year after year.”
What they made
Tran, a senior in accounting and data science from Vietnam, chose to make Che Thai, a Vietnamese fruit cocktail that incorporates tropical fruits and coconut milk. With a “fool’s spring” in February and March, she was setting her sights on the advent of warm weather.
“Usually, it’s served on ice over the summer,” she said before the April 7 banquet. “I was expecting it to be warmer.”
Adewuyi, a junior studying biochemistry and psychology, chose a couple French dishes for dessert. Although she mostly grew up in Nigeria, she thought creme brulee and meringue cookies reflected a part of her culture that would be manageable in the heat of a busy event on Sunday.
While Nigeria is one of Africa’s English-speaking countries, its proximity to Francophones is inescapable; for many years, she dedicated her time to learning the French language and culture. Creme brulee was an endearing symbol of the experience.
“Growing up, we had a dish similar to creme brulee. It was a custard that was less sweet,” she said. “When I got to the U.S., everyone told me I should try creme brulee.”
A few dishes were more familiar to the Eurocentric palate of Iowa, even from abroad — twisted doughnuts from Liberia; Pallotte Cacio and Uova with fried eggs, cheese and breadcrumbs in a tomato sauce from Italy; and Fifteens, a tray bake with marshmallow and cherries from Ulster, Ireland.
Others on the menu challenged the American palate a bit more, but in delicious ways. Falouda was served as an ice cream treat with rose syrup, vermicelli and sweet basil seeds in an homage to Pakistan. Samgyeopsal served thick slices of grilled pork belly in the same way Koreans love to find at specialized restaurants just for the dish.
Recipes for all of the food served at this year’s International Banquet are available online at coe.edu. This summer, international students plan to release a recipe book of the dishes served over the International Banquet’s first 50 years.
Bringing everyone together
After serving and tasting food from across the world, listening to each other call home in their native tongue and soaking in the culture through various presentations, international students have realized one thing: They’re more alike than they are different.
“These events are a way to show our representation and that we are actually very diverse,” Tran said. “It’s a safe place to express ourselves and share our culture. It’s a safe space to say this is something I really enjoy, and I’d like to see if you enjoy it, too.”
Tran, who has no close relatives in the country, has found solace in the friendly staff and students at Coe. Making dishes from home — ones she can’t even find in Vietnamese restaurants here — has made Cedar Rapids feel more personal.
Adewuyi, whose family moved to Minnesota when she was an adolescent, misses the Nigerian holidays and the way common holidays, like Christmas and New Year’s, are celebrated.
But after noticing the common ingredients and cooking techniques used from continent to continent, she noticed the people making them weren’t so different, either.
“Meeting other people from other places makes you realize how much you have in common with people from other nations,” she said. “We’re actually quite similar.”
This isn’t an event that simply tolerates an amalgamation of differences — it’s a place that celebrates their diversity by integrating them all as one.
Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.
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