August 19, 2021 • 26 mins
Tom talks with food critic and A Hungry Society Podcast host Korsha Wilson about supporting black culinary artists and relishing American dining experiences.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. Hey everyone,
welcome back to Citizen Chef. I am so looking forward
to this week's show because, in my opinion, it strikes
perfect balance between being timely and timeless. You see it
right now, it's August, and that means it's Black business months.
I like, I hope many of you have been thinking
(00:23):
a lot this past year on how to better support
black owned businesses in this country. And we actually spoke
to our guests today about this very topic almost a
year ago. Back then, there was a large push support
black businesses after the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer,
and such a push was long overdue. And even if
it is not as trendy it was a year ago,
(00:44):
these conversations illuminate how supporting your black local businesses go
far beyond being a political statement and more importantly, contributes
to preserving bashions of American history and encouraging future black
colinary leaders of tomorrow. Yes, I'm talking specifically up back restaurants.
So I'm gonna shut up now and I'll toss them.
Mike to the incredible Coursier Wilson, who was a food critic,
(01:06):
writer and and podcast host, Thank you so much for
having me so listen. My first restaurant job, I was seventeen,
just graduated high school, and I had been working in
this restaurant as a as a bus boy, and so
I knew the kitchen staff. And when I got to
the kitchen, they put me in the prep kitchen and
my boss, you know, I guess the chef was the
boss of the kitchen. But my boss was an older
(01:27):
black man by the name of Slim. Kind of hit
it off with him, and he showed me that the
restaurant had this recipe book that he was supposed to follow,
but he with a nod and a wink, said I
do things my way, and he had been cooking for
a bunch of years, and uh, you know, he just
really took me to his wing and showed me a
bunch of stuff and and kind of the closest thing
i'd have to have a mentor, I guess early on,
and he looked out for me and it was great.
(01:49):
And then later on when I was I lived in
East Orange. For those that don't know, East Orange is
probably black. Yeah, I grew up in Elizabeth, but I
lived in East Orange and my two blocks away from
where I lived. I lived near Upsala College and and
for those that don't know East Orange, it's probably nine
percent black. And I was commuting to New York working
(02:11):
and on a cook salary, So two seventy a month
apartment was just perfect for me. But I I right
down the street two blocks away Althea Gibson who was
the well known black tennis player UH champion, and she
had a restaurant and I used to go there and
at least once a week. Number one it was. It
was a block away and it was absolutely delicious, and
(02:33):
it was a lot of food that I I didn't
know obviously, not growing up with it, and I just
would eat through the menu and I was usually the
only white person in in in the restaurant, which was
really cool. And I kept going back and then finally
like they were like, you know, you know, I struck
up a conversation and you know, told when I was
a cook, and I was just really interested in what
was happening from just my culinary standpoint, and then then
it was just great. Then it was like I was
(02:55):
I was the guy that they could teach and and
it was it was a lot of fun. Yeah, So
restaurants and generall I see as like pillars of communities,
but black on restaurants in particular, there they provide edible
ties to black food ways in this country. It was
really funny because I at the time, I had spent
some time in in Gasking in the south of France
(03:16):
and southwest France, and so much of the food from
the south there was very reminiscent of a lot of
the food that I saw Alfia doing in her restaurant,
and and so you found a kinship there. But obviously,
so much of American cuisine as we know today was
based on, especially down South, of food from that was
brought over from Africa and then adapted to what was
(03:38):
available locally. And Black food ways are incredibly diverse, from
like Southern restaurants to Caribbean restaurants. And one of the
ways that we preserve tradition and cuisine is through home
cooking and through cooking that happens in restaurants. And so
when you think about like black restaurants in this country,
they're really like pillars of history and there you know,
(04:03):
they're a way of preserving Black history, which is ultimately
American history, right, And I mean it could obviously say
that that black cuisine is really American cuisine, especially when
you think about regional cuisine. You think of that the
cuisine that comes out of the South and the regional
pockets in the South as well. I mean, the food
in Louisiana has a different history than the food in Mississippi,
(04:26):
for instance. But but all all of that is really
out to the black cooks who who actually created the
recipes and then handed them down. In fact, when I
was a seventeen year old, um young cook right out
of high school working in my first restaurant, an elderly
black gentleman who um was responsible for doing all of
the recipes in the restaurant. I think back on where
(04:47):
we are now and think back on what he said, Yeah,
the recipes are good, but I use mine. And yet
this was a guy who clearly didn't get credited this
as chef in the restaurant. And and that's I guess,
what's what's happening. And so when you talk at out
restaurants being pillage of community and in black owned restaurants
being community, but it means so much more because I
think that there's a dad of gratitude that we need
(05:08):
to give to so many of those those black cuisines
and cultures, because that is what was really the cornerstone
of American cuisine absolutely. I mean, you know, enslaved Africans
really laid the foundation for what we considered to be
American food. And you know, they're not given the proper
credit for the techniques that they brought, for the ingredients
(05:29):
that were brought with them. I mean, I love that
you mentioned the regional differences in black food ways because
I think, you know, there's this notion that black food
is soul food and period, that's it, and that's definitely
not the case. It's you know, there are so many
like regional differences in black food ways in this country,
(05:51):
and you know that is because of history. That's because
of the enslaved Africans that came here, where they were from,
the tools and skills they brought with them, and where
they landed. And then as you know, migration happened from
the South to other parts of the country, the food
ways adapted to and so black food ways are really
this dynamic piece of American history that's edible. Can we
(06:15):
speak a little bit more about the different regional blanquisines
in this country and the links between food and community. Absolutely,
so the food ways in particular, I mean it depends
on so I grew up in the mid Atlantic. I
grew up in Maryland, and so when you think about food,
they're like, obviously you think of crab, there's a ton
of seafood. But if you go a little bit further south,
you're in North Carolina, there's a history of whole hog barbecue.
(06:39):
If you go in further south down Florida's seafood again,
but in a totally different way, more accented with the
southern flavors that you think of. Louisiana has their own
whole barbecue edition, and and seafood plays a big role there.
You go to the Midwest, it's hotly and then like
I just think one of the biggest and most important
(07:01):
part of black food ways is just joy and like
the joy of communal dining, coming together, eating, drinking. It's
like such a big part of black food ways in
this country. It was like one of the reprieves from
the atmosphere of this country in the past, and unfortunately
(07:22):
in the present, it's always been like such an important
part of black culture. And it's like I wrote the
story about fish fries and the importance of Friday night
fish fries and black communities across the country, and that
actually stems from slavery. It was usually held on Sundays.
It was a meal that the people who owned the
(07:43):
enslave Africans didn't have to worry about. Someone would go
fishing and bring back some fish and they didn't have
to work that day. So it was like a time
in which the enslaved Africans could come together and have
a meal. And that that tradition carried on as people
migrated across the country. And so you see fried fish
is popular on Friday nights in Los Angeles here where
(08:05):
I live, in New Jersey, and Harlem in the Northeast
in the South, Like all these traditions come from just
the joy of like coming together and being able to die.
And that's like such an important part of like black
food and the black restaurant community in this country. We'll
be back with more citizens, chef, So how do how
(08:31):
does my go about finding the restaurants they want to support?
You know, there's a saying that when white America catches
the cold, black America catches pneumonia, and that has been
so true with coronavirus. I mean, you know, running the
business and economics are running a restaurant, like the margins
are super slim already, and so you know, those businesses
(08:52):
have now had to pivot to take out our outdoor
dining and have largely been left out of the paycheck
protection program and so to become even more difficult to
run and sustain a business in this environment. So yeah,
it's it's been really tough. There's a ton of resources
um online of black owned restaurants. There's this great app
(09:15):
called Okra Eat Okra and it has black owned restaurants
across the country and you basically just type in where
you are into this app and it will pull up
all the black owned restaurants near you and it's wonderful.
And so it was started by this couple that had
that same question of where do I find black owned restaurants,
Like how do I support black owned restaurants? And so
(09:37):
they started this app and just started you know, crowdsourcing
data of black owned restaurants across the country and it's
such a wonderful resource. So do you see those black
owned restaurants that are pillars of the community you know,
continue to have a role in that community. Oh my goodness,
there's something so beautiful about black owned spaces. You know,
the cooking. For me as a writer, black owned spaces
(09:59):
really high light the ingenuity of Black Americans in this country.
But the dining and eating together, it's just it's it
offers like a bit of safety and comfort in the
country that hasn't always been safe for us. And so
it's just it's the most beautiful experience to be in
(10:20):
a black owned space and to feel that hospitality, feel
that warmth, and taste food that just has generations and
generations of history and and savvy, and you know, it's just,
you know, I I am constantly blown away by how
(10:40):
black people in this country have made a way out
of no way. And you taste that in the food.
You taste that just resiliency and that survival and joy
in every plate of food that you get in a
black owned restaurant. I think that's such a beautiful point.
And it reminds me of something you wrote, which is
what people of colors say, we're kept in the margins,
(11:02):
don't write us off. Um, how does that translate to
black business ownership in the food world. I wrote that
in as a response to kind of this sort of
you know, this wasn't recently, it was a while ago
where people color were saying, you know, the restaurant industry
isn't isn't as hospitable to people color as it should be,
(11:27):
and basically they kept hearing back, oh, but the restaurant
industry is so diverse, like what are you talking about?
And you know, obviously this industry is way better than
other industries in this country, and if you look at numbers,
sure the industry as a whole is very diverse, but
when you're looking at ownership or management level positions and restaurants,
(11:49):
it's still mostly white. And so I just wanted people
to realize that if you were actually, you know, interested
in making things more equitable, interested in making things, you know,
actually like sustainable, then you need to listen to people
color when they tell you what's going on. And I
think that's the only way that we're gonna make a
(12:10):
change in this industry and then those country as if
we actually start to listen to people who are marginalized
instead of telling them, oh, actually it's okay, what are
you talking about? So we we end up actuallyining a
cycle when we failed to take a step back and
listen and actually work on changing those numbers. Yeah, and
it's so personal to me too, because before I was
a food writer, I worked in restaurants and I worked
(12:33):
in fine dining, and it felt like even when I
went from hostess to server to manager, it felt like
there was this glass ceiling of how far I could
rise up too, you know, own a restaurant one day,
or you know, be the GM. It was always someone
came in, a white man came in and was the GM,
(12:55):
you know, and I was the only black woman working there,
and so there wasn't really any sort of model for
me to follow. It was just you know, will promote
you as far as we want you to go. But
there wasn't like a clear path to being a GM
or even ownership, right, Yeah, you know, I think something
(13:15):
else as I'm listening to you speak. You're right, Uh,
you know, there is diverse industry, but the you know,
the leaders at the top necessarily don't reflect that diversity.
You know. I know in my businesses I had got
in in thirty years of owning restaurants, I think I've
had two black general managers over the years, and you know,
(13:36):
there's that all feeling and you know in the sense
that to make it when you're you're black, you can't
just be good. You can't just be you know, you know,
someone who excels. You have to be you know, exceptional.
You just have to prove yourself. I think that's true
for women, and I think that's true for people of color,
that you have to just be really exceptional. And in
these cases, these two were exceptional. And I guess that
(13:57):
that that mentorship is so important because is when you
have black on black mentorship, people rise through the ranks,
they get the proper training, and that's something else that
you're supporting. You're not only supporting the owner with your dollars,
You're you're supporting a culture that will support and and
how hold up other other black people so they become,
you know, managers in general, and they're trained. And then
(14:19):
it's not only incumbent upon you know, it's it's in
a large restaurant group, people get lost and you know
you've got to have you kind of have to be
really aggressive to climb up the ranks. And and and
you know, in some people will look at someone who's black,
is being aggressive and saying, well, you know, you're being aggressive,
where if it's someone white, it's like they're just a
go getter. Yeah, and so yeah, of course, yeah, and
(14:42):
and so you're supporting more than just uh, you know,
you know the restaurant. You're supporting a whole training ground
for future restaurants and for you know, for for leaders
of the industry down the road. So it's it's more
than just that plate of food. Black restaurants, like you said,
like black restaurants really offer not just the opportunity for
diners to like experience this culture and experience this food,
(15:05):
but within the walls of the restaurant, it's mentorship in
that restaurant and if they decide to do something else
in the future that involves food. I think that's one
of the things we don't talk about in the restaurant
industry of how, you know, chefs that come up, you know,
through the fine dining world and then go on to
open up their own spaces, they can always call the
(15:27):
chefs that they worked with or the lione cooks that
they worked with, who may have their own spots now
and ask questions about financials or labor costs, or you
know whatever, but black chefs don't have that as much,
and so how do we create more of that? How
do we create more spaces where black chefs have that
access to mentorship that white chefs have traditionally had. And
(15:49):
I think that supporting black restaurants is the way that
we do that. The other thing, I think it's really important,
and it's kind of departs a little bit from supporting
black owned restaurants, but I really believe that in some
of the culinary schools and all the culinary schools, the
schools there should be black food studies because when you
have I mean, I think about food and finance high
do you know food and finance time. I'm a big
supporter and I think they do an amazing job. But
(16:11):
you go there and they're teaching all these you know,
students who are prominently black and Hispanic. They're teaching Italian
and French food, and they're they're not teaching them to
love their their cuisine. They're teaching them to love somebody
else's cuisine. And you know, I've seen that so many
times when you see, uh, you know, young chef that's
trained a certain way and it takes him thinking about
Kwami when Qualmy opened his first restaurant, he wasn't doing
(16:32):
what he's doing now. And I know he just left
his his kids and Kim, but but he wasn't doing
He was doing kind of more fancified tasting. And he
realized that it didn't work and because it wasn't coming
from his soul, wasn't coming from his heart, and he
was cooking somebody else's food. And you know, I hear
that from so many chefs. I have a friend of
mine who's Persian. His name is Bizad, and he trained
in some of the great restaurants around the world, and
finally one day said, why aren't I doing Persian food.
(16:55):
It's a it's a world class cuisine, and it's in
short changing it because either you know, there's no model
for that. And so what I think is really really
exciting is is I mean even think of Marcus Samielson.
You know, yes, he's he's black. He came through Ethiopia
through Sweden, and he was doing Swedish food until one
day he said, hey, I got to explore the black
side of my my heritage. And he went back to
(17:16):
Africa and found those dishes and found those flavors and
you know, you think we see what Edward O Jordan's do,
what a machine was doing, and you know they're they
were trained in more French, you know, French fied restaurants
in the Awardo, trained French laundry, and one day said
that's not me. I gotta do my thing. And so
I I find that to be really really exciting right now.
Like when I went to culinary school, we had cuisines
(17:39):
of the America's was like there was a day that
was Caribbean food, right for the Caribbean, which is like
fifty something country. Like it was just like, you know,
just laughably oversimplified and just like you know, I'm half
curb be in and it was just like, wait, why
(18:02):
why aren't we spending more time looking at the like
depth and complexity of jerk, you know, like there's just
as much beauty in that as any French dish or
Italian dish. But you know, we had a whole section
on French cookery, and the Mediterranean cuisines of Asia was
(18:23):
all compacted together like all of Asia, like, and it's
just as a writer, you kind of have to there's
that moment of asking myself, oh, wait, why we're talking
about the regional like specificity of Italian cuisine from the
north to the right, but we're not doing it with
(18:47):
the Caribbean. That doesn't make any sense to me. The
cuisines are very different island to island, So you know,
as a writer, for me, that's a really exciting thing
to try and explore and tease out for readers, like, Okay,
here are the ways in which like indigenous communities, enslaved Africans,
(19:07):
and colonization all come together to create these different cuisines
in the Caribbean that vary from island to island. And
here are some of the dishes. Like just like you
were talking about chefs like kind of breaking that why
am I not seeing my food cooked this way? Like
as a writer, it's like, why am I not seeing
my food talked about this way? And that's a really
(19:28):
fun thing to do. So a piece that I wrote
last year was about superfine dining restaurant here in New
York and the way I experienced that as a black
woman and how you know, this was a restaurant that
was luded and praised by all white male food critics
(19:49):
and it was like, wait a minute, this was actually
very uncomfortable for me, Like, and so, you know, what
would our food criticism world look like if there were
more black women writing about it? And I think you're
seeing it was kind of a a lot of people
reached out and said, you know, I hadn't really thought
about that or I hadn't really seen it that way,
And I think that's happening now people are really looking
(20:12):
around them and saying, oh, wait, like, oh, this system
was built to like not serve members of my community,
black members of my community. So how do we one
listen and to make changes to make sure that it
is equitable for everyone? Hey, welcome back to Citizen Chef.
(20:40):
I want to turn back briefly to the history of
Black Americans in the food industry because the narratives are complex,
and in fact, what the narratives I heard is that
some black people don't want to work in the service
industry because it's too close to being in servitude for
a predominantly white audience. Is there truth in that narrative
and does that ring true to your experiences? Mm hmm,
so I haven't. I don't know if it's because I'm
(21:03):
surrounded by black culinarians, but we all you know, love
being in the food industry. I think that there is
there is a shame associated with I think in previous
generations with working in the hospitality industry, you know, it
was more, you know, we want you to be a
teacher or a doctor or a lawyer, because of that
(21:26):
history of hospitality being us providing service to white folks.
But I I think my generation and definitely generations after,
you know, see cooking as an art form. And I
don't know if that's because of the ways in which
food in general has turned into more of a like
(21:46):
pop culture thing, but I think definitely older generations, you know,
saw it as kind of a lowly sort of profession
and we should try to do something else. But I
think my generation and younger it is a platform that
we can use to to be artists and creative. If
you know, parents of black children are telling them, you know, no,
(22:08):
you don't want to be in the restaurants, who want
to be a doctor, You want to be a lawyer,
Like every other family in America's telling their kids they
don't want to go into the restaurant business. When I
told my family I wanted to be a cook, they
kind of looked at me a little crazy too, and
and so many other people tell the story. But we
touched on the media for a second. Well, if there
are no black food writers, who's actually writing that story
for that that parent to say, hey, that's a that's
(22:30):
a viable and yeah, sure if you want to cook that,
I think that's okay. If there's if there are more
black journalists, then maybe there would be more examples of
why that's a reputable, you know, business to to get into.
And that Oh my goodness, you just touched on like
the thesis so my work, because you know, it's not
just about documenting what's going on in food right now.
(22:51):
You know that that black chefs are doing the incredible, beautiful,
brilliant work that black chefs are doing. It's about making
sure that you know, a black child in the future,
if they want to be a chef or a food writer,
or a Somalia or a farmer, they don't have to
search as hard as myself or previous generations did to
find examples of people that look like them. They are
(23:12):
doing the work that they want to do. And so
it's you know, I tried to avoid writing about food
and black schofts in this trendy sort of way because
this work is actually way more subversive, and I think
people realize, like it's about documenting black food for the
(23:33):
future because it's been here. It should have been documented
then and it wasn't. It's it's happening now and people
are going to build on that, like just like the
enslaved Africans that came here lad the foundation. It's about
documenting that foundation for people to build on in the future.
So why is important to keep this conversation going beyond
the current moment into the future. Because when black businesses thrive,
(23:56):
communities around them thrive. Restaurants are ecosystems that impact not
only the people who work there, but guests, farmers, vendors, neighbors,
like the larger communities. So when you make sure these
businesses thrive, you're investing in the future. Right. I think
there's a whole other conversation to have around supporting black farmers.
(24:18):
I've read something I think was in Civil Eats that
there's a couple of hundred thousands of black farmers that
do fifty million dollars in businesses and there's thousands and
thousands of white farmers that do over you know, fifty
million dollars in business, and so you know, by supporting
black restaurants, especially if those restaurants are supporting black farmers,
that is I mean obviously that's that's the ecosystem that
(24:41):
you need to create and and and continues so everyone
everyone flourishes. Yes, absolutely, Yeah, of course this has great
talking to you. Always get to chat with you. Thank
you so much. Yeah, I honestly I feel like I
could talk to of course, for hours beyond a limited
time we have for our show. As mentioned, the black
(25:02):
culinary experience is not a monolith, but the through lines
identified are intrigic to this country, in this world. They
also point out in conversations even just a year later,
with such a good reminder that the fight is not over.
In fact, it's really just beginning. I also want to
end on a note. Of course, you mentioned about the
joy you are serving each plate at a black owned restaurant,
and I think those of us who are not black
(25:24):
needs remember how lucky we are that we're able to
partake in these culinary experiences and how important is that
we keep supporting these businesses way beyond end and not
just in August. Thanks to Courser Wilson and make sure
you check out her podcast, Hungry Society, and, as always,
a very warm thanks to a Place the Table. Citizen
Chef is executive produced by Christopher Hasciodas, produced by Gabby Collins,
(25:47):
and researched by Lillian Holman. Tell us what you want
to hear with the hashtag citizen Chef and we'll catch
you next time. Thanks for listening them
Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. Hey everyone,
welcome back to Citizen Chef. I am so looking forward
to this week's show because, in my opinion, it strikes
perfect balance between being timely and timeless. You see it
right now, it's August, and that means it's Black business months.
I like, I hope many of you have been thinking
(00:23):
a lot this past year on how to better support
black owned businesses in this country. And we actually spoke
to our guests today about this very topic almost a
year ago. Back then, there was a large push support
black businesses after the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer,
and such a push was long overdue. And even if
it is not as trendy it was a year ago,
(00:44):
these conversations illuminate how supporting your black local businesses go
far beyond being a political statement and more importantly, contributes
to preserving bashions of American history and encouraging future black
colinary leaders of tomorrow. Yes, I'm talking specifically up back restaurants.
So I'm gonna shut up now and I'll toss them.
Mike to the incredible Coursier Wilson, who was a food critic,
(01:06):
writer and and podcast host, Thank you so much for
having me so listen. My first restaurant job, I was seventeen,
just graduated high school, and I had been working in
this restaurant as a as a bus boy, and so
I knew the kitchen staff. And when I got to
the kitchen, they put me in the prep kitchen and
my boss, you know, I guess the chef was the
boss of the kitchen. But my boss was an older
(01:27):
black man by the name of Slim. Kind of hit
it off with him, and he showed me that the
restaurant had this recipe book that he was supposed to follow,
but he with a nod and a wink, said I
do things my way, and he had been cooking for
a bunch of years, and uh, you know, he just
really took me to his wing and showed me a
bunch of stuff and and kind of the closest thing
i'd have to have a mentor, I guess early on,
and he looked out for me and it was great.
(01:49):
And then later on when I was I lived in
East Orange. For those that don't know, East Orange is
probably black. Yeah, I grew up in Elizabeth, but I
lived in East Orange and my two blocks away from
where I lived. I lived near Upsala College and and
for those that don't know East Orange, it's probably nine
percent black. And I was commuting to New York working
(02:11):
and on a cook salary, So two seventy a month
apartment was just perfect for me. But I I right
down the street two blocks away Althea Gibson who was
the well known black tennis player UH champion, and she
had a restaurant and I used to go there and
at least once a week. Number one it was. It
was a block away and it was absolutely delicious, and
(02:33):
it was a lot of food that I I didn't
know obviously, not growing up with it, and I just
would eat through the menu and I was usually the
only white person in in in the restaurant, which was
really cool. And I kept going back and then finally
like they were like, you know, you know, I struck
up a conversation and you know, told when I was
a cook, and I was just really interested in what
was happening from just my culinary standpoint, and then then
it was just great. Then it was like I was
(02:55):
I was the guy that they could teach and and
it was it was a lot of fun. Yeah, So
restaurants and generall I see as like pillars of communities,
but black on restaurants in particular, there they provide edible
ties to black food ways in this country. It was
really funny because I at the time, I had spent
some time in in Gasking in the south of France
(03:16):
and southwest France, and so much of the food from
the south there was very reminiscent of a lot of
the food that I saw Alfia doing in her restaurant,
and and so you found a kinship there. But obviously,
so much of American cuisine as we know today was
based on, especially down South, of food from that was
brought over from Africa and then adapted to what was
(03:38):
available locally. And Black food ways are incredibly diverse, from
like Southern restaurants to Caribbean restaurants. And one of the
ways that we preserve tradition and cuisine is through home
cooking and through cooking that happens in restaurants. And so
when you think about like black restaurants in this country,
they're really like pillars of history and there you know,
(04:03):
they're a way of preserving Black history, which is ultimately
American history, right, And I mean it could obviously say
that that black cuisine is really American cuisine, especially when
you think about regional cuisine. You think of that the
cuisine that comes out of the South and the regional
pockets in the South as well. I mean, the food
in Louisiana has a different history than the food in Mississippi,
(04:26):
for instance. But but all all of that is really
out to the black cooks who who actually created the
recipes and then handed them down. In fact, when I
was a seventeen year old, um young cook right out
of high school working in my first restaurant, an elderly
black gentleman who um was responsible for doing all of
the recipes in the restaurant. I think back on where
(04:47):
we are now and think back on what he said, Yeah,
the recipes are good, but I use mine. And yet
this was a guy who clearly didn't get credited this
as chef in the restaurant. And and that's I guess,
what's what's happening. And so when you talk at out
restaurants being pillage of community and in black owned restaurants
being community, but it means so much more because I
think that there's a dad of gratitude that we need
(05:08):
to give to so many of those those black cuisines
and cultures, because that is what was really the cornerstone
of American cuisine absolutely. I mean, you know, enslaved Africans
really laid the foundation for what we considered to be
American food. And you know, they're not given the proper
credit for the techniques that they brought, for the ingredients
(05:29):
that were brought with them. I mean, I love that
you mentioned the regional differences in black food ways because
I think, you know, there's this notion that black food
is soul food and period, that's it, and that's definitely
not the case. It's you know, there are so many
like regional differences in black food ways in this country,
(05:51):
and you know that is because of history. That's because
of the enslaved Africans that came here, where they were from,
the tools and skills they brought with them, and where
they landed. And then as you know, migration happened from
the South to other parts of the country, the food
ways adapted to and so black food ways are really
this dynamic piece of American history that's edible. Can we
(06:15):
speak a little bit more about the different regional blanquisines
in this country and the links between food and community. Absolutely,
so the food ways in particular, I mean it depends
on so I grew up in the mid Atlantic. I
grew up in Maryland, and so when you think about food,
they're like, obviously you think of crab, there's a ton
of seafood. But if you go a little bit further south,
you're in North Carolina, there's a history of whole hog barbecue.
(06:39):
If you go in further south down Florida's seafood again,
but in a totally different way, more accented with the
southern flavors that you think of. Louisiana has their own
whole barbecue edition, and and seafood plays a big role there.
You go to the Midwest, it's hotly and then like
I just think one of the biggest and most important
(07:01):
part of black food ways is just joy and like
the joy of communal dining, coming together, eating, drinking. It's
like such a big part of black food ways in
this country. It was like one of the reprieves from
the atmosphere of this country in the past, and unfortunately
(07:22):
in the present, it's always been like such an important
part of black culture. And it's like I wrote the
story about fish fries and the importance of Friday night
fish fries and black communities across the country, and that
actually stems from slavery. It was usually held on Sundays.
It was a meal that the people who owned the
(07:43):
enslave Africans didn't have to worry about. Someone would go
fishing and bring back some fish and they didn't have
to work that day. So it was like a time
in which the enslaved Africans could come together and have
a meal. And that that tradition carried on as people
migrated across the country. And so you see fried fish
is popular on Friday nights in Los Angeles here where
(08:05):
I live, in New Jersey, and Harlem in the Northeast
in the South, Like all these traditions come from just
the joy of like coming together and being able to die.
And that's like such an important part of like black
food and the black restaurant community in this country. We'll
be back with more citizens, chef, So how do how
(08:31):
does my go about finding the restaurants they want to support?
You know, there's a saying that when white America catches
the cold, black America catches pneumonia, and that has been
so true with coronavirus. I mean, you know, running the
business and economics are running a restaurant, like the margins
are super slim already, and so you know, those businesses
(08:52):
have now had to pivot to take out our outdoor
dining and have largely been left out of the paycheck
protection program and so to become even more difficult to
run and sustain a business in this environment. So yeah,
it's it's been really tough. There's a ton of resources
um online of black owned restaurants. There's this great app
(09:15):
called Okra Eat Okra and it has black owned restaurants
across the country and you basically just type in where
you are into this app and it will pull up
all the black owned restaurants near you and it's wonderful.
And so it was started by this couple that had
that same question of where do I find black owned restaurants,
Like how do I support black owned restaurants? And so
(09:37):
they started this app and just started you know, crowdsourcing
data of black owned restaurants across the country and it's
such a wonderful resource. So do you see those black
owned restaurants that are pillars of the community you know,
continue to have a role in that community. Oh my goodness,
there's something so beautiful about black owned spaces. You know,
the cooking. For me as a writer, black owned spaces
(09:59):
really high light the ingenuity of Black Americans in this country.
But the dining and eating together, it's just it's it
offers like a bit of safety and comfort in the
country that hasn't always been safe for us. And so
it's just it's the most beautiful experience to be in
(10:20):
a black owned space and to feel that hospitality, feel
that warmth, and taste food that just has generations and
generations of history and and savvy, and you know, it's just,
you know, I I am constantly blown away by how
(10:40):
black people in this country have made a way out
of no way. And you taste that in the food.
You taste that just resiliency and that survival and joy
in every plate of food that you get in a
black owned restaurant. I think that's such a beautiful point.
And it reminds me of something you wrote, which is
what people of colors say, we're kept in the margins,
(11:02):
don't write us off. Um, how does that translate to
black business ownership in the food world. I wrote that
in as a response to kind of this sort of
you know, this wasn't recently, it was a while ago
where people color were saying, you know, the restaurant industry
isn't isn't as hospitable to people color as it should be,
(11:27):
and basically they kept hearing back, oh, but the restaurant
industry is so diverse, like what are you talking about?
And you know, obviously this industry is way better than
other industries in this country, and if you look at numbers,
sure the industry as a whole is very diverse, but
when you're looking at ownership or management level positions and restaurants,
(11:49):
it's still mostly white. And so I just wanted people
to realize that if you were actually, you know, interested
in making things more equitable, interested in making things, you know,
actually like sustainable, then you need to listen to people
color when they tell you what's going on. And I
think that's the only way that we're gonna make a
(12:10):
change in this industry and then those country as if
we actually start to listen to people who are marginalized
instead of telling them, oh, actually it's okay, what are
you talking about? So we we end up actuallyining a
cycle when we failed to take a step back and
listen and actually work on changing those numbers. Yeah, and
it's so personal to me too, because before I was
a food writer, I worked in restaurants and I worked
(12:33):
in fine dining, and it felt like even when I
went from hostess to server to manager, it felt like
there was this glass ceiling of how far I could
rise up too, you know, own a restaurant one day,
or you know, be the GM. It was always someone
came in, a white man came in and was the GM,
(12:55):
you know, and I was the only black woman working there,
and so there wasn't really any sort of model for
me to follow. It was just you know, will promote
you as far as we want you to go. But
there wasn't like a clear path to being a GM
or even ownership, right, Yeah, you know, I think something
(13:15):
else as I'm listening to you speak. You're right, Uh,
you know, there is diverse industry, but the you know,
the leaders at the top necessarily don't reflect that diversity.
You know. I know in my businesses I had got
in in thirty years of owning restaurants, I think I've
had two black general managers over the years, and you know,
(13:36):
there's that all feeling and you know in the sense
that to make it when you're you're black, you can't
just be good. You can't just be you know, you know,
someone who excels. You have to be you know, exceptional.
You just have to prove yourself. I think that's true
for women, and I think that's true for people of color,
that you have to just be really exceptional. And in
these cases, these two were exceptional. And I guess that
(13:57):
that that mentorship is so important because is when you
have black on black mentorship, people rise through the ranks,
they get the proper training, and that's something else that
you're supporting. You're not only supporting the owner with your dollars,
You're you're supporting a culture that will support and and
how hold up other other black people so they become,
you know, managers in general, and they're trained. And then
(14:19):
it's not only incumbent upon you know, it's it's in
a large restaurant group, people get lost and you know
you've got to have you kind of have to be
really aggressive to climb up the ranks. And and and
you know, in some people will look at someone who's black,
is being aggressive and saying, well, you know, you're being aggressive,
where if it's someone white, it's like they're just a
go getter. Yeah, and so yeah, of course, yeah, and
(14:42):
and so you're supporting more than just uh, you know,
you know the restaurant. You're supporting a whole training ground
for future restaurants and for you know, for for leaders
of the industry down the road. So it's it's more
than just that plate of food. Black restaurants, like you said,
like black restaurants really offer not just the opportunity for
diners to like experience this culture and experience this food,
(15:05):
but within the walls of the restaurant, it's mentorship in
that restaurant and if they decide to do something else
in the future that involves food. I think that's one
of the things we don't talk about in the restaurant
industry of how, you know, chefs that come up, you know,
through the fine dining world and then go on to
open up their own spaces, they can always call the
(15:27):
chefs that they worked with or the lione cooks that
they worked with, who may have their own spots now
and ask questions about financials or labor costs, or you
know whatever, but black chefs don't have that as much,
and so how do we create more of that? How
do we create more spaces where black chefs have that
access to mentorship that white chefs have traditionally had. And
(15:49):
I think that supporting black restaurants is the way that
we do that. The other thing, I think it's really important,
and it's kind of departs a little bit from supporting
black owned restaurants, but I really believe that in some
of the culinary schools and all the culinary schools, the
schools there should be black food studies because when you
have I mean, I think about food and finance high
do you know food and finance time. I'm a big
supporter and I think they do an amazing job. But
(16:11):
you go there and they're teaching all these you know,
students who are prominently black and Hispanic. They're teaching Italian
and French food, and they're they're not teaching them to
love their their cuisine. They're teaching them to love somebody
else's cuisine. And you know, I've seen that so many
times when you see, uh, you know, young chef that's
trained a certain way and it takes him thinking about
Kwami when Qualmy opened his first restaurant, he wasn't doing
(16:32):
what he's doing now. And I know he just left
his his kids and Kim, but but he wasn't doing
He was doing kind of more fancified tasting. And he
realized that it didn't work and because it wasn't coming
from his soul, wasn't coming from his heart, and he
was cooking somebody else's food. And you know, I hear
that from so many chefs. I have a friend of
mine who's Persian. His name is Bizad, and he trained
in some of the great restaurants around the world, and
finally one day said, why aren't I doing Persian food.
(16:55):
It's a it's a world class cuisine, and it's in
short changing it because either you know, there's no model
for that. And so what I think is really really
exciting is is I mean even think of Marcus Samielson.
You know, yes, he's he's black. He came through Ethiopia
through Sweden, and he was doing Swedish food until one
day he said, hey, I got to explore the black
side of my my heritage. And he went back to
(17:16):
Africa and found those dishes and found those flavors and
you know, you think we see what Edward O Jordan's do,
what a machine was doing, and you know they're they
were trained in more French, you know, French fied restaurants
in the Awardo, trained French laundry, and one day said
that's not me. I gotta do my thing. And so
I I find that to be really really exciting right now.
Like when I went to culinary school, we had cuisines
(17:39):
of the America's was like there was a day that
was Caribbean food, right for the Caribbean, which is like
fifty something country. Like it was just like, you know,
just laughably oversimplified and just like you know, I'm half
curb be in and it was just like, wait, why
(18:02):
why aren't we spending more time looking at the like
depth and complexity of jerk, you know, like there's just
as much beauty in that as any French dish or
Italian dish. But you know, we had a whole section
on French cookery, and the Mediterranean cuisines of Asia was
(18:23):
all compacted together like all of Asia, like, and it's
just as a writer, you kind of have to there's
that moment of asking myself, oh, wait, why we're talking
about the regional like specificity of Italian cuisine from the
north to the right, but we're not doing it with
(18:47):
the Caribbean. That doesn't make any sense to me. The
cuisines are very different island to island, So you know,
as a writer, for me, that's a really exciting thing
to try and explore and tease out for readers, like, Okay,
here are the ways in which like indigenous communities, enslaved Africans,
(19:07):
and colonization all come together to create these different cuisines
in the Caribbean that vary from island to island. And
here are some of the dishes. Like just like you
were talking about chefs like kind of breaking that why
am I not seeing my food cooked this way? Like
as a writer, it's like, why am I not seeing
my food talked about this way? And that's a really
(19:28):
fun thing to do. So a piece that I wrote
last year was about superfine dining restaurant here in New
York and the way I experienced that as a black
woman and how you know, this was a restaurant that
was luded and praised by all white male food critics
(19:49):
and it was like, wait a minute, this was actually
very uncomfortable for me, Like, and so, you know, what
would our food criticism world look like if there were
more black women writing about it? And I think you're
seeing it was kind of a a lot of people
reached out and said, you know, I hadn't really thought
about that or I hadn't really seen it that way,
And I think that's happening now people are really looking
(20:12):
around them and saying, oh, wait, like, oh, this system
was built to like not serve members of my community,
black members of my community. So how do we one
listen and to make changes to make sure that it
is equitable for everyone? Hey, welcome back to Citizen Chef.
(20:40):
I want to turn back briefly to the history of
Black Americans in the food industry because the narratives are complex,
and in fact, what the narratives I heard is that
some black people don't want to work in the service
industry because it's too close to being in servitude for
a predominantly white audience. Is there truth in that narrative
and does that ring true to your experiences? Mm hmm,
so I haven't. I don't know if it's because I'm
(21:03):
surrounded by black culinarians, but we all you know, love
being in the food industry. I think that there is
there is a shame associated with I think in previous
generations with working in the hospitality industry, you know, it
was more, you know, we want you to be a
teacher or a doctor or a lawyer, because of that
(21:26):
history of hospitality being us providing service to white folks.
But I I think my generation and definitely generations after,
you know, see cooking as an art form. And I
don't know if that's because of the ways in which
food in general has turned into more of a like
(21:46):
pop culture thing, but I think definitely older generations, you know,
saw it as kind of a lowly sort of profession
and we should try to do something else. But I
think my generation and younger it is a platform that
we can use to to be artists and creative. If
you know, parents of black children are telling them, you know, no,
(22:08):
you don't want to be in the restaurants, who want
to be a doctor, You want to be a lawyer,
Like every other family in America's telling their kids they
don't want to go into the restaurant business. When I
told my family I wanted to be a cook, they
kind of looked at me a little crazy too, and
and so many other people tell the story. But we
touched on the media for a second. Well, if there
are no black food writers, who's actually writing that story
for that that parent to say, hey, that's a that's
(22:30):
a viable and yeah, sure if you want to cook that,
I think that's okay. If there's if there are more
black journalists, then maybe there would be more examples of
why that's a reputable, you know, business to to get into.
And that Oh my goodness, you just touched on like
the thesis so my work, because you know, it's not
just about documenting what's going on in food right now.
(22:51):
You know that that black chefs are doing the incredible, beautiful,
brilliant work that black chefs are doing. It's about making
sure that you know, a black child in the future,
if they want to be a chef or a food writer,
or a Somalia or a farmer, they don't have to
search as hard as myself or previous generations did to
find examples of people that look like them. They are
(23:12):
doing the work that they want to do. And so
it's you know, I tried to avoid writing about food
and black schofts in this trendy sort of way because
this work is actually way more subversive, and I think
people realize, like it's about documenting black food for the
(23:33):
future because it's been here. It should have been documented
then and it wasn't. It's it's happening now and people
are going to build on that, like just like the
enslaved Africans that came here lad the foundation. It's about
documenting that foundation for people to build on in the future.
So why is important to keep this conversation going beyond
the current moment into the future. Because when black businesses thrive,
(23:56):
communities around them thrive. Restaurants are ecosystems that impact not
only the people who work there, but guests, farmers, vendors, neighbors,
like the larger communities. So when you make sure these
businesses thrive, you're investing in the future. Right. I think
there's a whole other conversation to have around supporting black farmers.
(24:18):
I've read something I think was in Civil Eats that
there's a couple of hundred thousands of black farmers that
do fifty million dollars in businesses and there's thousands and
thousands of white farmers that do over you know, fifty
million dollars in business, and so you know, by supporting
black restaurants, especially if those restaurants are supporting black farmers,
that is I mean obviously that's that's the ecosystem that
(24:41):
you need to create and and and continues so everyone
everyone flourishes. Yes, absolutely, Yeah, of course this has great
talking to you. Always get to chat with you. Thank
you so much. Yeah, I honestly I feel like I
could talk to of course, for hours beyond a limited
time we have for our show. As mentioned, the black
(25:02):
culinary experience is not a monolith, but the through lines
identified are intrigic to this country, in this world. They
also point out in conversations even just a year later,
with such a good reminder that the fight is not over.
In fact, it's really just beginning. I also want to
end on a note. Of course, you mentioned about the
joy you are serving each plate at a black owned restaurant,
and I think those of us who are not black
(25:24):
needs remember how lucky we are that we're able to
partake in these culinary experiences and how important is that
we keep supporting these businesses way beyond end and not
just in August. Thanks to Courser Wilson and make sure
you check out her podcast, Hungry Society, and, as always,
a very warm thanks to a Place the Table. Citizen
Chef is executive produced by Christopher Hasciodas, produced by Gabby Collins,
(25:47):
and researched by Lillian Holman. Tell us what you want
to hear with the hashtag citizen Chef and we'll catch
you next time. Thanks for listening them
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