A Toronto woman is going viral after sharing a video of herself serving free food to passengers on a TTC subway in an attempt to bring the community together and share recipes from her upcoming cook book.
Photos and videos surfacing to social media on Tuesday show a group of people setting up a free buffet table on a Line 1 subway train and serving passengers several different home-cooked items on a picnic table.
Izzy Petraglia tells Now Toronto that she was the mastermind behind the operation, one that was sparked after she saw a similar video on social media during American thanksgiving last November.
Petraglia, who has spent the past few years developing a passion for cooking and perfecting her craft, says she wanted to use the idea to help share recipes from a cook book she’s been working on.
“I really love sharing my food with people, and I want feedback from people who aren’t just like my friends or my family. And there’s no one better to do that with than strangers,” she says.
But it wasn’t just about sharing her delicious recipes, she says it was a chance to bring people together.
“Culturally, at the forefront of every background- everyone comes together for food. So, that was just a really big thing for me, I wanted to just bring the community on the subway,” she said.
And she did just that. On Monday evening, Petraglia along with several of her friends set up shop on the subway, beginning their journey at Glencairn Station and heading southbound.
Items on the menu included spicy miso cucumber salad, Pancit Bihon, sweet and spicy tofu and broccoli with homemade hot honey, slow cooked pineapple brown sugar, and crowd favorite ube white chocolate cookies.
“I made 100 of them, and they were cleared out, practically everything I made was cleared out,” she said.
While it’s not something you may see everyday, Petraglia says the feedback from passengers was very positive.
“People were honestly just happy to see it, even if they didn’t take food,” she said.
Social media users have also been leaving positive messages for Petraglia, and commending her for “spreading joy,” while some have been criticizing the move.
“Brave to eat in the subway, germs are everywhere,” a Reddit user said.
“As a real germophobe… My only question is WHY?!,” another user said.
According to Petragali, cleanliness and sanitization was top of mind when preparing and also serving the food, that includes regularly sanitizing hands, having hand sanitizer on deck for passengers, and mostly serving food instead of letting people take it themselves.
In addition to being clean, safety was top of mind and flyers were handed out with a full list of ingredients for anyone with allergies.
As for whether she would do it again, she says it might not happen immediately, but the option isn’t completely off the table.
“The goal of this was to just feed strangers,” she said. “I don’t want it to ever become a thing where people are actively searching this out.”
