When food writer Michael Shafran decided he wanted to write a recipe book, he decided to create a community around it before it existed. The very same community is key to creating the book.

“The Melting Pot is an evolution of various ideas that I'd been mulling over for years,” explains Shafran. “Having come from New York, I'd grown up with a couple of must-have cookbooks, including the New York Cookbook (by former New York Times food writer Molly O'Neill) and The New Basics. The former shows the beautifully diverse community of New York City's home cooks, suppliers and neighbourhood restaurants, and the latter seems to have every dish you'd consider a comfort staple – it's a kind of snapshop of the coast-to-coast evolution of the American kitchen. In Australia, our go-to cookbook is Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion, which I adore. It's produce-based, so I wanted to bring a complementary cookbook to Australia that would be dish and cuisine-based, and which celebrated our diverse cultures through our food.”

Crowdsourcing

“Along the way, I started following crowdsourced efforts like Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubb's Food52, and was looking at an online community as a strong extension to a cookbook, but over time, it became obvious that the most exciting thing was to do the reverse – cultivate a community, elevate unheralded home cooks and share everyone's respective cultures and recipes,” shares Shafran. “We've got so many celebrity chef cookbooks out there, I thought it was time to celebrate our home kitchen heroes.”

Food and social media

Shafran agrees that social media has changed the way we relate to and consume food. “There's so much sharing of cooking, eating and recipes out there. Rather than those experiences coming primarily from food 'authorities', people are now getting just as much – if not more – of their information from their peers. It's personal versus professional. How that changes how and what we eat happens in various ways. I know a lot of folks who take part in what I'd call the ‘Google Cooking School’: they buy ingredients and Google for ideas on how to use them, and maybe watch YouTube videos on different approaches to preparation, cooking and even how to plate it.”

Relationships

As more and more people discuss food online, real connections and friendships emerge. “There are so many conversations happening around recipes and restaurants, through comments and forums, and even some real friendships developed after they take their virtual relationships into real-life meetings. I've got some great friends that I've met through social media, and I'm actually having Passover dinner with a bunch of bloggers who –  until we dine together – primarily know each other through digital conversations.”

Tweeting at the dining table

“We can no longer just enjoy our meals,” shares Shafran, we have to photograph and document everything and share it on Foodspotting, Pinterest, Yelp, Foursquare, Urbanspoon, Facebook, etc. But I'm not going to bash it – it's got its good and bad points, and I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to Tweeting foodsnaps. It's here to stay, so I think the critics should just get over it and whinge about things that matter, like our unhealthy supermarket duopoly.”

Contributors

Shafran isn’t able to pay all of the contributors, but has arranged for excellent prizes for cooks who help out. “I'd love to pay everyone, but it's not commercially feasible, so I'm focusing on other ways I can reward people. It's important to me that we give back, so I worked with Zen Imports to award Tojiro knives to the finalists of our Australian food blogger competition, and we're giving away some great cookbooks to the finalists and winner of our Greek competition – whatever it is, it's gotta be something good enough that I'd really want myself. And we're crediting everyone with their own recipe and letting them tell their personal and family stories.”

Photo Credits

Main image: Helen Kammoun

Image one: Sam McAdam

Image two: Sneh Roy from Cookrepublic.com