Global Cuisine Initiative appreciates cultures on campus through food

Global dishes are served intermittently in Lehigh’s two on-campus dining halls, Rathbone and Lower Cort, to show appreciation for other cultures and give international students a taste of home. 

Lehigh’s Dietician Keri Lasky said the program is sponsored by Lehigh Dining through the Global Cuisine Initiative. The initiative focuses on serving dishes that remind international students of their home countries, which can help them transition to a new environment on campus. 

Lasky said the transition to college for international students is particularly difficult, as they are not only adjusting to a new language, but also to a new place and way of education. She said she hopes the initiative eases this transition.  

Runyi Wang, ‘26, is from Beijing, China. She agreed the transition to Lehigh has been difficult, especially after eating different cuisine than she’s used to. 

“After two months, I don’t think I’m used to eating it every day,” Wang said. “Especially vegetables and noodles. The way of cooking them is much different.”  

John Hynes, Rathbone’s executive chef, said the initiative originated in 2015, when a first-year student asked for a popular Nigerian dish to be featured. He said the program has been run by the Lehigh Dining staff ever since. 

Hynes said he analyzes the demographics of Lehigh students in order to plan cultural cuisines to feature. He said he also looks for feedback from students.

With the help of a student from Haiti, Hynes said he was able to bring Haitan cuisine to Rathbone. 

“It’s exciting when you can get (the students) involved,” Hynes said. “It’s not about me. At the end of the day, it is about making everybody feel at home.”

While Hynes plans meals for students that involve their home cuisines, he said he also draws on his own Jamaican heritage.

He said students love when curry chicken is prepared, which is a Jamaican dish Hynes brough to Rathbone. He tries to incorporate it when possible because of the meal’s popularity. 

Hynes said Global Cuisine nights are typically planned for the semester when students are on break because many international students remain on campus during those times. 

He plans to hold these events at least once a month, yet he said the dining staff sometimes faces challenges with staffing and ingredient sourcing for specific dishes on occasion.  

Lasky said it can be hard to incorporate every student’s culture into the dining hall’s offerings because there are so many. 

“We have to think about what the majority of our students will like,” Lasky said. “We’d like to feature a really niche dish, but it’s tough because we still have to serve the entire population.” 

Wang said she believes the dining halls could make the global cuisine offerings more inclusive and helpful to students by listing a dish in its original language in addition to its English translation. 

Lasky said serving global cuisine is important for Lehigh because it shows an appreciation for the array of cultures that are present on campus.

“We are a country of multiple cultures,” Lasky said. “People have their values and we want to celebrate our customers’ values and their history. We’re here to serve them.” 

Lasky said she is working with the Office of International Affairs to create an educational program that will provide an orientation on the types of cultural cuisine on campus. 

This program is a new initiative that will be presented once at the start of each semester in August and January.

She said the presentation will give students from other countries and backgrounds a summary of where they can go for help and how to provide the school with feedback.

Students who wish to give feedback or suggestions about how their culture is being represented in the dining halls, or what they would like to see, can do so by visiting the feedback page on the Lehigh dining website.