Integrative Culinary Therapy (ICT) is a collaborative method that encourages intimacy through cultural connection and presenting therapy in a nontraditional method, by way of cooking.

Ask yourself this: if there was a dish that someone could eat to understand you better or know more about you, what would it be? Who taught you that dish? If you had to make it right now, who could you call for the recipe? Who could you not call?

Now, think about the lessons you were taught as a child and adolescent about love, romantic relationships, and your role as a romantic partner. Who taught or told you these things? What did you see about romantic relationships in your household or in your extended family growing up?

By sharing food from their culture with their partner, each half of the couple can engage in a new kind of intimacy. The food itself is a vehicle for initiating deeper conversations and exposing the meaning and belief systems that play a role in how a person behaves in their relationship.

We don’t always know how to connect what happens in the present to messages that we’ve heard since infancy, but food holds memories. Food can bring us back to a time when we were more hopeful, less jaded, and a time when we were forming the ideas that continue to influence us. Once we’re able to connect with our partner in this raw way, we can start having the right kind of conversation to address what needs to be repaired in the relationship.

In ICT, couples are challenged as a unit, as well as individually, to explore their sociohistorical backgrounds through sharing various ingredients, foods, and meals that hold cultural significance. Rather than normalizing the societal standard, ICT validates and empowers the diversity of minorities and the way we establish and sustain romantic relationships. By helping couples to name, include, and respect each partner’s social location and cultural identity, ICT is about collaboratively addressing and resolving issues within the romantic relationship using the act of cooking and eating traditional foods.