Food: The best networking tool

My office was international. While there were less than ten of us there, everyone came from all across Europe and had interests in a variety of different topics besides education.

In February, my director decided that it was time that we have a team bonding day outside of the office. For us, the options were endless, where it took a huge email chain to decide what we really wanted to spend our day-off doing.

Nonetheless, we came to the conclusion that we all have one major interest in common: food. We all love to eat and learn about food from different cultures. We decided to have our team building day consist of making a large meal together while drinking and enjoying each other’s company at La Cuisine de Flore. We were then going to continue on and try an assortment of different beers from The Beer Factory.

When signing up for the cooking classes, we were able to vote on which appetizer, entree, and dessert we wanted to cook all together. For my coworkers, the choice seemed quite obvious. For me, this was probably one of the most difficult decisions I had to make. And believe me, I am terrible at making decisions.

For most of my life growing up, my parents cooked almost every meal for me. My dad was awake with me before school everyday so he helped me with my breakfast and packed my lunch, while my mom made dinner every night. While living in North Village this past semester at Furman, I cooked myself two scrambled eggs for breakfast every morning, but then I ate every other meal in either the Dining Hall or the PDen. I never really had to cook whole meals for myself.

Sure, I had my favorite meals growing up, like my mom’s delicious homemade mac and cheese or my dad’s perfectly prepared ham and cheese sandwiches, but I do not think that I had a real appreciation for cooking before I spent my time in Brussels. I had respect for the chefs at restaurants and at the Dining Hall, but my appreciation is now much deeper thanks to the opinions of my colleagues.

Three of my coworkers are from Italy. They view food in a completely different light than I had ever considered before. They thought of food and love as the same thing. There cannot be love without food. Mothers expressed their love to their children through cooking for them daily. Our friendships grew over the talk of food as we ate our lunches together everyday.

I was not prepared to talk about food as often as we did. I had always been a picky-eater, where my diet has really only broadened within the past year or so. I had to learn all the “proper” cooking and eating vocabulary, including knowing the names of different types of pasta.

While this may seem a bit different than normal skills you learn while studying abroad, I learned networking and interpersonal connection through the talk of food. I was able to understand my coworkers on a deeper level by learning about cooking and the importance of food in their cultures. We were able to share childhood memories and recipes through simple conversations about bread and soup.

While we were unfortunately unable to have our team-bonding day due to COVID-19, I improved my own skill of interpersonal connection while simultaneously becoming a more well-rounded cook. I was able to network with my own coworkers on one of the most important things that our bodies need to survive.

Who knew learning different skills could be so enjoyable.