Upon entering Pupuseria Reina La Bendicion, a one-room restaurant off of Nolensville Road, it’s hard to know where to look first: the neon gold fish tank, the telenovela playing on the TV, or the Salvadoran crafts cheerily cramming the walls.
Louisa Shafia
But a plate of hot pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador, commands focus: tattooed with griddle marks, the tender corn flour cakes are filled with soft cheese and refried beans and served with a heap of crunchy curtido slaw and red salsa.
This is the kind of locals-only joint that guests might visit during an InterNASHional Food Crawl curated tour of Nolensville Road (formally named Nolensville Pike), an area densely settled with immigrants from all over the world. A jaunt around the neighborhood yields such culinary finds as pistachio-laden Iraqi baklava, Somali coffee and savory sambusa pastries, and ginger-scented Nepalese momo dumplings.
Most Nashvillians don’t know about the culinary treasures being served up just 20 minutes south of downtown, but the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) is working to change that.
Louisa Shafia
TIRRC’s mission is to empower immigrants and refugees in Tennessee, and harnessing the appeal of immigrant cuisine is one way to do that. In 2013, TIRRC hosted the first annual InterNASHional Food Crawl, handing hungry ticket holders a list of names and addresses of immigrant-owned restaurants and food markets, and like a foodie scavenger hunt, set them loose to pick up samples of the house specialty at each stop.
But one food crawl a year wasn’t enough.
“We kept getting requests from people who were out of town during the Food Crawl asking if we could offer it more often,” explains Leah Hashinger, TIRRC’s Community Relations Manager. After seven sold-out years, TIRRC is now offering curated food tours for groups of 25 or more throughout the year. “This is a way for us to extend the event and make the magic of the Food Crawl accessible to more people.”
On a typical tour guests experience a broad range of the area’s dining culture, which may include food from Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Tours run two-and-a-half hours, and feature visits to five of TIRRC’s “best of” list of restaurants and markets, where guests can taste two dishes typical of any given country’s cuisine.
Louisa Shafia
Tours begin with a bus pick-up at the pan-Latin Plaza Mariachi mini-mall, where wine, beer, and music await onboard. “This is not a stuffy luncheon or your typical ‘diversity tour,’” Hashinger laughs. TIRRC staff members lead the tours, so along with talking about the food, guides are able to give the context and history of Nashville’s immigrant and refugee community.
Louisa Shafia
On a stop at Pupuseria Reina La Bendicion, for example, owner Reina Arévalo, a kind-eyed native of El Salvador, answers the questions of curious visitors with the help of a translator, while behind her a team of women cooks amiably stuffs and sears a seemingly endless stream of pupusas.
“These are people who know the landscape and community, and have eaten at these restaurants many times,” Hashinger says.
After getting a taste of this part of town, people like to take a little of the tour home with them. Among the most popular purchases are piñatas, baklava, and spices from the various markets on the tour. And that’s what TIRRC likes to see.
Louisa Shafia
More than just exposing people to new food options, the tours aim to bolster the mom-and-pop businesses of the entrepreneurs who’ve come to Nashville seeking a new life, and to build a bridge between immigrants and the rest of the city. The hope is that people will come back and visit these restaurants on their own.
For more information or to book a tour, visit nashvillefoodcrawl.com or email Leah Hashinger at leah@tnimmigrant.org.