WHAT
Comida Casera is multigenerational project bringing together participants to share food and stories honoring the people, places, and dishes that form their connection to home. Created in 2016 by Evelyn Rydz, the project began as a way to bring together a wide range of women from different fields, neighborhoods, generations, and backgrounds to share stories and food inspired by a woman - from mother, mentor to friend - who gives them the sense of home and belonging. Since 2016, the project has expanded from backyards to libraries, community centers, museums, universities, and to online exchanges open to all.
Since March of 2020 programs include a series of online recipe and story exchanges from and about home. Participants share what is bringing comfort, healing, and the sense of home during these challenging times. The online exchanges are a space to share recipes and stories from home while celebrating differences and building on common ground. A community cookbook is shared after each event. Recetas de Casa events are free and open to the public. All are welcome.
MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES OF HOME
Hundreds of participants from over 30 different countries spanning across 5 continents have gathered around the table for intimate Comida Casera events grounded in active listening as a means of building care and community. Together participants share how they carry their sense of home from one table, generation, and culture to the next.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The title of the project Comida Casera translates literally from Spanish to mean homemade food or food from home, it is also used as a way to describe comfort food. A first generation American, Evelyn Rydz sees food as a connective material linking the people and places of the past with those of the present. The Comida Casera project was largely inspired by her Mother and the homemade food she shares in gestures of hospitality, generosity, celebration, mourning and tradition.
IN CONVERSATION AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS
June 14, 2021, Evelyn Rydz in conversation about Comida Casera with Melani N. Douglass, director of public programs, creator and curator of RECLAMATION: Recipes, Remedies and Rituals at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
This conversation was part of a series of in-depth interviews with the Curative Collective, a group of Women, Arts, and Social Change partners working at the intersection of food, art, and social change. From advocacy and social justice to healing and restorative self-care, this diverse collective serves communities throughout the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The Curative Collective is also working on NMWA’s exhibition, RECLAMATION: Recipes, Remedies, and Rituals to make sure that the exhibition incorporates local communities and their perspectives.
WBUR The Artery Feature
There are women at the dinner from China, Turkey, Cambodia, Italy and beyond. After we eat, laugh and cry, I realize there's been a catharsis — that these women have unloaded some real feelings about home, about the beautiful and complicated nature of families, about what they take from the women in their lives and what they shed. - Maria Garcia
edible BOSTON Feature
Boston-based visual artist Evelyn Rydz partners with East Boston’s Eastie Farm on a provocative installation at the ICA Watershed inviting us all to the table to share the power of community, food, and cultural identity. - Robin Hauck
THE Scope Feature
Although there [was] no physical shared table or food, there [was] a virtual unifying idea of the table created by the experiences of all being at home during these uncertain and challenging times,” said Rydz, who was able to bring together current or former Boston residents of all ages and backgrounds, without asking them to break self-isolation and leave their homes. - Maria Aguirre
THE BOSTON GLOBE Feature
Before COVID, Evelyn Rydz ran “Comida Casera” (meaning homemade or comfort food), a peripatetic gathering around a table for a meal and storytelling. In lockdown, she knew food couldn’t be tasted online, but stories could still be shared. So she launched “Recetas de Casa,” or “Recipes From Home.” Twenty participants Zoom in from around the world to share recipes that remind them of home, and tell the stories behind them. - Cate McQuaid