This website serves as a display for a research project conducted by students at the University of Toronto Scarborough as part the History of Culinary Ethnography course. The aim of the project is to analyse halal food locations in East Toronto with regards to Muslim institutions such as mosques. We proposed some research questions that we will try to answer through our research as displayed on this website.

 

One of the key questions behind our research was how mosques in East Toronto attract halal food stores and restaurants in the area and basically act as Muslim community builders for the location. Another interesting question was regarding the ethnicity of these mosques and food locations. In short, our research questions can be stated as the following:

 

1. Are mosques attractors of halal food locations in the nearby community?

2. Is the ethnicity of the mosque (and its founders) a reflection of the type of food or ethnicity of the owners of halal food locations around the mosque?

3. Are owners of halal food locations in these communities providing food options related to their ethnicity or are they branching out and offering foods of other cultures? (eg. Pakistani store selling Hakka Chinese food).

 

For more information on the definitions of terms such as 'mosque' and 'halal', please visit our Background page. To contact us, or find out more about the people behind the project, please visit our Contact Us page.

 

The image below is an overview of what we have mapped for 4 mosques in East Toronto:

 

Masjid Bilal
Madinah Masjid

Masjid Abu Bakr

Masjid Darussalam

 

More information and browsable maps can be found on our Research tab.