When Virginia Lensi first moved to the U.S. from Milan, she fell hard for one element of American culture: brunch. “It was my first time realizing that people here actually have pancakes on Sunday,” says the American Ballet Theatre corps dancer. “I had brunch once, and I loved it. I always wanted to keep pancakes as a tradition on Sundays with my friends or my boyfriend.”

In the folktale “Stone Soup,” members of a village each bring one ingredient to a simmering pot; it doesn’t matter what they bring, but they learn that the combination of items is more delicious than each one indivi­dually. That’s how Mark Morris thinks of this vegetable stew hailing from Kerala, a state in the south of India.

Keon K. Nickie learned to cook by watching three of the wonderful women in his life: his sister, mother, and grandmother. “I started at a tender age, 7 or 8,” says the former Dallas Black Dance Theatre member, who now works as the artistic assistant for DBDT’s second company,­ Encore! Growing up in Arouca, Trinidad and Tobago, Sunday meals were a highlight of the week, and macaroni pie was always on the menu. “We’d have it with fried rice, stew chicken, potato salad, and callaloo [Caribbean stewed greens],” says Nickie, who, since moving stateside for college, has continued the tradition by making macaroni pie nearly every Sunday. Now, he invites friends over to share the fruits of his labors.

Growing up, whenever Bala Devi Chandrashekar was feeling under the weather, her mom would make her jeera rasam, a traditional Indian cumin-and-pepper soup. Chandrashekar did the same for her two sons, and continues to swear by the dish’s healing powers.

Kyle Marshall turns to cooking for stress relief. “I also eat a lot, so I like to make big meals,” adds the dancemaker and artistic director of Kyle Marshall Choreography. “This curry dish is something I started making as a dancer coming home and wanting something that felt really filling.”

“I have a sweet tooth, for sure,” says Dawn Atkins. The recently promoted Miami City Ballet principal searched for a snack to bring to work each day, but struggled to find something that gave her the sugar fix she was craving—and was healthy.

As a New York City–based flamenco dancer, Laura Peralta makes regular pilgrimages to Spain to study the form for a few months at a time. After several hours of intense flamenco classes, her favorite thing to eat is salmorejo, a chilled tomato soup usually served with Iberian ham (jamón ibérico), crumbled hardboiled eggs, and short breadsticks called picos.

When Caitlin Trainor’s daughter Evangelina was a toddler, Trainor wanted to give her a treat that was nourishing and contained minimal refined sugars. After some experimentation in the kitchen, Trainor developed her cast-iron banana bread.