This year, Camosun is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and a key aspect of this is recognizing current and former Camosun students. The first annual Camosun Food Affair shines a spotlight on restaurants founded by or employing Camosun students. During the week of September 16 to 23, over 40 restaurants—mostly located in Victoria, but some are in Sooke, Sidney, and Cowichan Bay—will be participating. Each restaurant will have a menu item specifically themed for the event.
Camosun College advancement and alumni engagement director Jody Kitts says that the event was conceived as a response to the social pressures of COVID-19.
“We didn’t think it would be realistic to have a homecoming where we could have a whole bunch of our alumni on campus for our 50th anniversary, so we were trying to think of what could we do where groups of alumni could come together and celebrate Camosun’s 50th birthday without putting the pressure on the campus,” she says.
Kitts says that since restaurants had been allowed to open with established protocols in place, this would be a good way to bring people together in a COVID-safe manner.
“That’s where it kind of came from, then we reached out to Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts to see where some of our alumni are, like where are they working, who employs a lot of our students, and what restaurants were started by Camosun alumni? So we started there and we just kept adding on,” says Kitts.
“One of the things we wanted to do was show the local community our gratitude for supporting our students for the last 50 years, either the Culinary Arts or the Hospitality Management students, but a lot of our other students are also servers in restaurants and work in hotels, so we thought we would drive businesses to them, as our way of saying thank you.”
Kitts says that while the common theme uniting the restaurants is the college’s 50th anniversary, the restaurants are given the creative freedom to come up with dishes that reflect their own identity.
“We’re leaving it up to each restaurant to come up with something, because every restaurant has their own menu, their own culture to their menu… It could be a Thai restaurant or whatever. [Camosun Trades Development and Special Projects chair] Steve Walker-Duncan had recommended it to some of the people, the chefs, as a Camosun alum, to recreate their final project, because they would have done a capstone project to get their Red Seal,” she says. “Other restaurants are just going to pull things together, like we know Brentwood Bay is going to do a Camosun-themed nacho. I don’t know what that means, but we’re going to leave it to them to be creative. Zambri’s said they were going to do a Camosun-themed pasta—I have no idea what that’s going to be.”
Kitts says that food is an important part of culture, and it’s a great way for people to get together and appreciate their friends, family, and neighbours.
“Camosun is a very important part of this community, and we have a reason to celebrate. This is our opportunity to celebrate, maybe not all together, but from Sooke to Sidney to downtown to Cowichan, we’re going to be able to celebrate Camosun’s 50th anniversary,” she says. “In almost every culture, food is a unifying event… Any time there’s food, that’s family.”
For a full list of participating restaurants, visit camosun.ca/eat.