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