Cookbook celebrating the 39 different languages spoken by families on a Leamington estate has now been released

Members of the community centre launched a fundraising appeal last year to help with the costs of creating the cook book
Some of the members of the SYDNI cookbook team. Left to right: Romy Dixon,  Gladys Gibbs and Jerome Tucker. Photo suppliedSome of the members of the SYDNI cookbook team. Left to right: Romy Dixon,  Gladys Gibbs and Jerome Tucker. Photo supplied
Some of the members of the SYDNI cookbook team. Left to right: Romy Dixon, Gladys Gibbs and Jerome Tucker. Photo supplied

A cookbook that celebrates the 39 different languages that are spoken by families from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds on an estate in Leamington has been released.  

The cookbook idea was initially conceived in 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of the building of the Sydenham Estate in Leamington.

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It was put on the back burner for seven years but this year the cookbook has been released to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of The SYDNI Centre – a community centre in Cottage Square in Sydenham.

Jerome Tucker, a volunteer and trustee at the Sydni Centre, said: "The recipes are full of simple, healthy ingredients transformed by the Midas touch of our cooks into something precious.

"All sorts of different people have contributed the recipes – many from the estate itself, all ages and all backgrounds.

"So naturally our recipe book reflects the glorious diversity of Sydenham. The common denominator, though, seems to be a love and passion for cooking.”

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One of the aims behind having the cookbook was to print enough copies of the book to enable it to be distributed free to every household on the Sydenham Estate and a group at the community centre launched a fundraising campaign June 2021.

Several members of the community centre were involved with the cookbook, including Romy Dixon, Gladys Gibbs, Jerome Tucker, and Kate Cliffe, SYDNI centre manager.

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Leamington estate that has 39 different languages spoken by families across the ...

Jerome added: “Thanks to Leamington Town Council, The William Cadbury Trust, ASDA Green Tokens and a Crowdfund which many local people supported, enough was raised and 3,000 copies of the book have been printed and posted through Sydenham letter boxes.

“It’s really been an inspiration talking to people about the food they love to cook and its meaning to them.

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“You’ll see that most of these recipes are not just presented as a cold set of instructions. We’ve tried to locate them in the context of people’s life stories: Where did I learn to cook this meal? What does it mean to me and my family and friends? Why do I love it so much?

“Collecting these recipes has brought home to all of us at SYDNI the obvious but overlooked message that food is about so much more than nutrition. It’s about friendship and love.

"It’s about tradition and ritual but also about experimenting and broadening our horizons. It’s about warmth and comfort, about pleasure and fun.

“It’s one of the ways we express our view of the world but also just a way of cheering ourselves up.”

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The SYDNI Centre was opened in 2002 and provides a resource accessible to those in the Sydenham community. The building has a range of meeting rooms, a café and a large outside area with a children’s playground, gardens and vegetable beds.

For those that do not live on the Sydenham Estate, but would like to try out the recipes, they can buy the cookbook at the SYDNI Centre for £3.50.

The back page of every book has a £1 voucher which can be used towards the cost of one of the popular SYDNI veg bags.

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