The Macquarie Dictionary defines nourishment as that which nourishes; food, nutriment or sustenance.
But Strathalbyn man Mark Jarder believes that feeding others is about so much more than food on a plate.
There is one dominant ingredient that comes through each dish he creates: dignity.
Since arriving in the Adelaide Hills from Vancouver in 2024, Mark has fed hundreds of Strathalbyn residents – free of charge.
Far from “a soup kitchen”, Mark makes gourmet Filipino meals for “anyone that’s hungry or needs a pick-me-up” through his grassroots community initiative, Food and Dignity.
“It’s not about finding the poorest or the homeless – it’s not for that,” he says.
“Number one, they’re hungry – that’s the first qualifier.
“Second is you, as an individual, feel like you need a pick-me-up and I chose those words deliberately, because the food is not about what your socioeconomic status is.
“It’s all about needing something different in that moment or that day, whether it’s a break from making dinner or treating yourself to something gourmet, whatever it is.”
Mark’s authentic Filipino recipes have made waves in his new home of Strathalbyn.
In peak production he is handing out more than 100 servings a week.
Both his love for Filipino cuisine and the idea for Food and Dignity started 11,743km away, in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia – where he grew up.
When Mark was three, his father secured a job as an IT programmer and the whole family moved from the Philippines to the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
“I actually partly identify as Arab in that sense,” he says.
“There were a lot of Filipinos in Riyadh, which is where the royal family lived.”
Prior to social reform, women in Saudi Arabia faced a range of restrictions, which meant Mark’s mother was unable to work.
To make use of her time and help her fellow expat community, she cooked and distributed Filipino meals.
“They would deliver it to where people live, a lot of the people lived in one massive house or compound, it was actually very efficient in the sense that you just needed to go to one place,” Mark says.
At 16, Mark’s family emigrated to Vancouver, where he eventually started his own food distribution side hustle – inspired by his Filipino and Arabic roots.
Despite a thriving foodie scene, Mark was frustrated by Vancouver’s lack of Arabic cuisine.
“There was Yemeni, Egyptian, Afghan and if you look at the spices and how it’s made, it’s kind of similar – but it’s not quite Arab, it’s different,” he says.
So Mark started a culinary journey of his own, reverse-engineering the Arabic dishes he had grown to love from his childhood and distributing them to the Arab community in Vancouver.
An attempt at recreating Kabsa – an Arabian rice dish – took 25 attempts to get right.
“The reason why I stopped is because the people that have been there (Saudi Arabia) like me, they were finally, like, ‘Yalla Habibi, it tastes the same’.”
Fast forward to 2023, Mark and his wife, Kim – who grew up at Murray Bridge – visited SA for a family holiday.
One year later they were living in Strathalbyn, due to what Mark describes as divine intervention.
“We’re here because I felt like God called us to join the church community called Sunday, in Mt Barker,” he says.
“I felt God say that’s where you’re meant to be, I asked for two impossible signs and it happened.”
Initially on a visitor’s visa, and similarly to his mother all those years ago in Riyadh, Mark was unable to work.
“It was driving me bonkers, I used to be the provider with a side business for the past 13 years,” he says.
With time on his hands, Mark decided it was time to fire up the grill again – but this time the recipients of his meals would not have to pay.
“I’m cooking Filipino food for the kids anyway, so I started making extras,” he says.
“First week, I was like, ‘I’ll give some to the Strathalbyn Buy Nothing Group’, I think it was 16 servings throughout the week.”
Mark’s program kept growing and the demand was becoming too much for his home kitchen.
He now rents a commercial kitchen at a local church and has various ingredients donated to him from throughout the local community.
“People were not really putting their hand up initially, because I learned that they thought it was for the destitute – so a complete misunderstanding,” he says.
“It’s not a soup kitchen, if you want to be specific, it’s for people that are actually in the middle, low-middle class, who are having cash flow issues.
“Young families, that’s one demographic, and the other ones are seniors that don’t have family.”
When asked about the future of Food and Dignity, Marks says if it can remain sustainable, he is in it for the long haul.
“This could indefinitely go on to the day I die and that’s the intent,” he says.
“What I want is for there to be multiple people like me that have the capacity and to do it small-scale.”
