‘I've poured my heart into it’: Students champion cooking for Hearty STU

STU students giving back to their community through hearty meals starting this winter semester. (Credit: Bernarda Delgado)

On Thursday, Jan. 15, STU students stormed into room G7 of Holy Cross House to enjoy the wintery vegetable soup made by Ty McCluskey along with Ecuadorian crown donuts, made by Bernarda Delgado.

Hearty STU is an initiative led by Claire Morrison, STU’s campus minister, to enjoy a weekly meal with the community.

Ty McCluskey, a third-year student majoring in Great Books and Sociology, is a direct descendant of the culinary gift in his family. 

He said he has learned a lot from his parents, who are owners of the catering business, Childs Food Ltd.

“My dad does most of the cooking and my mom handles the business,” he said.

McCluskey’s Irish stew was a family-inspired recipe from his dad.

An Irish stew is a vegetarian recipe filled with potatoes, turnips, parsnips, carrots and other hearty vegetables. 

McCluskey said that eating meals with the Hearty STU community on Thursdays, “[is] something that’s really cherished …  something that’s uniquely special to STU.”

Delgado, a third-year human rights student from Quito, Ecuador, wanted to make Pristiños, Ecuadorian crown donuts, to give the Latino students and others a taste of home.

Delgado said the Pristiños were “labour-intensive.”

“You need to roll the dough …  cut the dough into certain pieces, roll it up into a crown, fry it and then make the sauce that goes on top.”

The sauce is sugar cane and water boiled together to make a dark “caramel sauce.”

Food and cooking have always been part of Delgado’s life and it’s described as  a “love language in Ecuador.”

“Truly, one of my major love languages is cooking for others. That's why, in my first year at Hearty STU, I cooked like three or four times.”

Delgado recalls one of her first times that she cooked an Ecuadorian “traditional dish”

for Hearty STU. 

“I broke in tears because … I have that super deep connection to home,” she said.

Delgado's love for food comes naturally, as she grew up watching her mother cook and was raised by her grandmother. 

She also saw her grandmother’s passion for cooking and felt “invigorated to feed others.”

Delgado highlighted  the importance of having meals at Hearty STU that will give international students “a piece of home.”

“Being able to make that yourself and share it with other people, it is such a blessing, an honour to be able to just invite people to my little world, to my little corner of the world through food.”

The joy of cooking for Hearty STU is special for Delgado, as she is aware of many students who face food insecurity.

“Being able to not just provide them with a meal, but a meal that really means something. It comes made with so much love and I've poured my heart into it.”