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Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio

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Speaker 1: and Adamized Studios.

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Speaker 2: When I met Darren Walker just a few months ago,

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Speaker 2: a friend took me across a crowded room with the words,

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Speaker 2: talk to this man about food, Ruthie. He is passionate.

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Speaker 2: So I did as told and put away all my

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Speaker 2: questions about the dynamic, social, radical philanthropic work he does.

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Speaker 2: President of the Ford Foundation, a member on the Council

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Speaker 2: of Formulations, a Fellow of the Institute for Urban Design,

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Speaker 2: vice chairman at New York City Ballet, and more So,

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Speaker 2: here we are ready to carry on our conversation about

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Speaker 2: food memories and his extraordinary work. You've chosen a recipe.

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Speaker 2: Would you like to read it?

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Speaker 3: I'd be delighted.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 4: Prosciutto and fig serves six. Ideally use purple basol and

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Speaker 4: ripe black figs or green basil and ripe green figs.

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Speaker 4: Twelve slices presciutto San Daniel, nine ripe black or green figs,

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Speaker 4: one bunch fresh mint, one bunch fresh purple or green basil,

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Speaker 4: one bunch rocket juice of one lemon, four to six

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Speaker 4: tablespoons extra virgin olive oil. Cut the figs in half.

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Speaker 4: Pick the young tender leaves from the mint and select

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Speaker 4: the smaller basil leaves. Pick over the rocket leaves, removing

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Speaker 4: the larger stems. Then wash and dry. Mix the lemon

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Speaker 4: juice with the olive oil. Season generously toss the figs

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Speaker 4: with the herb and rocket leaves, and the dressing. Place

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Speaker 4: on individual plates, combining the presciutto slices into the salad.

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Speaker 4: As you do so sounds.

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Speaker 2: Divine beautifully read thank you? Why did you choose this recipe?

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Speaker 4: I chose this recipe because I love figs. I'm from

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Speaker 4: the American South, and in Louisiana and Texas, figs are

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Speaker 4: plentiful and so I had them and just about everything,

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Speaker 4: and they were both sweet and tasty and healthy. So

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Speaker 4: I love them as a child.

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Speaker 2: So it would be sweet as in a tart or

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Speaker 2: in a jam.

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Speaker 4: Well, we in the South didn't have things like tarts.

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Speaker 4: We had pies, eyes which is, and cobblers. So I

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Speaker 4: remember my grandmother making cobblers. She made fig cobblers, peach cobblers,

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Speaker 4: strawberry cobblers, but my favorite were the figs.

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Speaker 2: And would you pick them from the trees or would

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Speaker 2: she go to a shop to buy them.

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Speaker 4: Did you have always, always in the yard? Always in

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Speaker 4: the South, people have in their backyards before organic farming

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Speaker 4: became chic, regular old working class Southerners would have figs

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Speaker 4: in their backyard, fig trees, pecan trees, all sorts of trees.

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Speaker 4: I remember picking things from mulberries. It was a magical

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Speaker 4: place in spite of the fact that we were poor,

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Speaker 4: because there were certain occasions when there were foods that

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Speaker 4: absolutely repulsed me that my family, especially my elders eight.

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Speaker 2: So I think it's interesting to talk about regional food

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Speaker 2: in the United States, because if I were to talk

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Speaker 2: about Italy right now, I would say that the food

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Speaker 2: of Italy isn't even region to region. It's town to town,

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Speaker 2: city to city, sometimes home to home, sister to brother.

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Speaker 2: And when I think about food in the United States,

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Speaker 2: the regional food that we talk mostly about, I think

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Speaker 2: is Southern food. And then if you divided Southern food

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Speaker 2: into Southern food of African Americans and the history of

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Speaker 2: that food, whether a lot of that food came from Africa,

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Speaker 2: whether I was reading that apparently some owners of plantations

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Speaker 2: would send for food from Africa, some seeds that people

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Speaker 2: are doing really interesting research about how African Americans really

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Speaker 2: contribute to the food of the United States.

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Speaker 4: Do you agree there would be no great American food

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Speaker 4: without the food of African Americans, both the foods that

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Speaker 4: we brought with us on the passage to America, the

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Speaker 4: rice that is a part of our tradition that is

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Speaker 4: now so deeply embedded in American food, especially Southern food.

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Speaker 4: And when I think about the South and regional cuisine,

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Speaker 4: it's important to understand the role of class and race

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Speaker 4: and the status of African Americans. For example, I detest

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Speaker 4: what I call slave food. What is that slave food?

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Speaker 4: Are the remnants of the cow, for example, that the

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Speaker 4: owners discarded. For example, this would include the intestines which

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Speaker 4: are called pigs feet, chicken neck, the things that the

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Speaker 4: enslaved people really had to eat because they were not

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Speaker 4: allowed to experience the bounty of the very produce and

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Speaker 4: poultry and meats that they cultivated themselves. And so I

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Speaker 4: have a really hard time and I think it's a

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Speaker 4: psychological issue of the complexity of being black in America.

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Speaker 4: The contradictions of our culture plays out in food and

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Speaker 4: and for me, part of it I think is just

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Speaker 4: my own Uh. The psychology, the trauma of being poor

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Speaker 4: in America and saying whatever is associated with that, I'll

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Speaker 4: reject it. And I'm not sure it's really fair because

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Speaker 4: there are lots of people who love Chitlin's and pigs feet.

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Speaker 4: I mean, my French friends love.

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Speaker 2: Is the sausage of it exactly.

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Speaker 4: What we what we call in rural Louisiana Buddha.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the blood sausage.

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Speaker 3: Blood sausage.

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Speaker 4: It's all amazing when you when you toast it and

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Speaker 4: put uh hot sauce and all the those kinds of

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Speaker 4: spices on it. And then we talk about the food

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Speaker 4: of the Creole community. So this is the complexity of

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Speaker 4: the American South. It's very much region by region because

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Speaker 4: where I'm from in Louisiana, the food is very much

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Speaker 4: a function of seafood. So gumbos at two phase. These

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Speaker 4: are the sorts of things that I grew up on.

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Speaker 4: My mother, who is Creole, is a master chef when

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Speaker 4: it comes to good old fashioned Creole foods.

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Speaker 2: Can we just go back one minute, because you, in

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Speaker 2: one hand said that enslaved people were forced to eat

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Speaker 2: the remnants in the most appalling way of the owners.

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Speaker 2: But you also said that they brought food with them

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Speaker 2: from Africa. Were they allowed to eat the food that

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Speaker 2: they brought with them or were they totally only allowed

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Speaker 2: to eat the food that was chosen for them by

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Speaker 2: the owners.

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Speaker 4: Actually, what happened was that they were able to bring

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Speaker 4: seeds and certain kinds of foods that ultimately became appropriated

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Speaker 4: by the owners. And it's why rice is so plentiful

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Speaker 4: in creole foods in a lot of southern dishes, because

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Speaker 4: that was a clear and important staple food. But for

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Speaker 4: the most part, the things that the enslaved people brought

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Speaker 4: with them they were not allowed.

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Speaker 2: And can you just define what creole food is there?

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Speaker 4: So Creole people are the people of Louisiana, the southern

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Speaker 4: part of Louisiana, and Creole is a result of the

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Speaker 4: mix of African enslaved women, primarily who were impregnated by

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Speaker 4: their owners, and in places like Martinique, Haiti, countries like

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Speaker 4: this were in some ways the origins of Creole culture.

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Speaker 4: But New Orleans became the center of the Creole world,

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Speaker 4: and it was this amalgamation of French.

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Speaker 2: That's what I was going to say, is French, because

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Speaker 2: Creoles sounds so French. To figure out where the French

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Speaker 2: came well.

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Speaker 4: And it's important to understand that the Louisiana purchase, which

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Speaker 4: was owned by France, and of course Jefferson, facilitated the

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Speaker 4: purchase of that massive part of America that France owned

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Speaker 4: where French culture was already established. French foods were established,

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Speaker 4: but the arrivals of large numbers of enslaved people really

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Speaker 4: changed the texture of the food. It became more spicy,

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Speaker 4: richer than other parts of the United States where the

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Speaker 4: spices were really not a part of.

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Speaker 3: The food tradition.

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Speaker 4: So it's both a part of the racial history of

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Speaker 4: the country, the American South. My mother herself a very

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Speaker 4: light skinned black woman with long hair like yours, is

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Speaker 4: a result of the kinds of mixing, if you will.

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Speaker 4: And when you visit a city like New Orleans, you

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Speaker 4: see many, many people who are black with light skin,

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Speaker 4: straight hair, who also call themselves creole.

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Speaker 2: And so going back back, tell me about the family

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Speaker 2: you were born into.

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Speaker 4: Well, I was born in a small town in Louisiana

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Speaker 4: August twenty eighth, nineteen fifty nine. Place of birth charity

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Speaker 4: hospital lot.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't proper charity, I mean, do people contribute it

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Speaker 2: to it?

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Speaker 4: It was a state run, it was hospital. It was

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Speaker 4: a really challenging place. I was born to a single mother.

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Speaker 4: I never knew my father, but in many ways it

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Speaker 4: made me resilient. I remember one person saying to my mother,

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Speaker 4: what ails your boy? Something ails your boy? And of

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Speaker 4: course what ailed me was that I was a little

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Speaker 4: queer boy, and that was for some just an anathma.

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Speaker 4: And that my mother seemed to be so comfortable and

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Speaker 4: supportive of me was also an oddity. And my mother

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Speaker 4: worked a lot, and she always did her very best,

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Speaker 4: took and when she wanted to really treat us, she

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Speaker 4: cook my favorite jambalaya, shrimp and dewey sausage, chicken and

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Speaker 4: a real deep black woo that's made in an old

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Speaker 4: skillet and with bell peppers and onions.

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Speaker 3: It was just divine.

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Speaker 2: Where would she buy the ingredients? Would you find shrimp

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Speaker 2: and fish markets?

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Speaker 4: Absolutely in every town there is plentiful along the Gulf coast,

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Speaker 4: and we weren't far from the Golf coast. You could

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Speaker 4: find shrimp and crawfish and catfish, all the things that

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Speaker 4: I used to love. And then you, just as I said,

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Speaker 4: put a macailany hot sauce on it. On everything, and

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Speaker 4: it was beyond delicious.

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Speaker 3: This was all in our head.

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Speaker 4: My mother to this day intuitively knows how to make

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Speaker 4: a great gumbo, great corn bread stuffing for the turkey

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Speaker 4: at Thanksgiving, just intuitively. And did she teach you well, Ruthie,

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Speaker 4: I live the New Yorker life that I always wanted

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Speaker 4: to live, which means which means I.

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Speaker 3: Eat out every night.

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Speaker 4: I when you live in New York City, the combination

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Speaker 4: of dinner parties, galas and great restaurants means that you

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Speaker 4: can choose to simply not cook.

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Speaker 3: I have.

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Speaker 2: I think they're apartments without kitchens.

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Speaker 3: Now, oh, well there are apartments.

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Speaker 4: I lived in a lovely apartment with a tin burner

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Speaker 4: wolf range. My mother came to visit. She said, son,

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Speaker 4: I think something's wrong with your stove.

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Speaker 3: And I said, oh my gosh.

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Speaker 4: Really, so I called down to the porter and he

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Speaker 4: comes to the apartment and he goes into the kitchen

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Speaker 4: and I'm standing there with him and my mother and

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Speaker 4: he says, you never turn the pilot light on when

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Speaker 4: you moved in.

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Speaker 2: Oh, how long had you been living there?

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Speaker 4: Well, it was August because my mother was in town

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Speaker 4: for my birthday. We moved in January, and of course

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Speaker 4: I said, what's a pilot light?

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Speaker 2: We've talked about the cooking of your mother family at home.

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Speaker 2: What was your first restaurant experience.

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Speaker 4: Well, my first restaurant experience was at the age of

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Speaker 4: thirteen when I worked as a.

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Speaker 3: Bus boy thirteen.

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Speaker 4: Indeed, I worked at a bus boy at a place

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Speaker 4: that was a very nice seafood restaurant. And when you're

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Speaker 4: a bus boy, you sit at the bottom of the organization,

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Speaker 4: along with the dishwasher, and you your job is to

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Speaker 4: be as discreet and invisible as you can as you

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Speaker 4: proceed around the room, taking away the things that people

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Speaker 4: no longer want. And that experience was profound because it

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Speaker 4: was the first time that I truly understood what it

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Speaker 4: felt like to be invisible, because people simply did not

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Speaker 4: acknowledge my very existence.

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Speaker 2: What was the restaurant like? Was it a fancy restaurant?

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, for.

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Speaker 4: You know, Baytown, Texas in nineteen seventy two, it was.

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Speaker 4: It was it was a nice, middle class restaurant that

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Speaker 4: took credit cards, arts, and the professionals who worked in

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Speaker 4: the all refineries in those sorts of places dined there,

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Speaker 4: all white, kind tale and primarily back of the house

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Speaker 4: were black and Latinos.

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Speaker 2: Was it legal to employ a thirteen year old?

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Speaker 3: Oh of course it wasn't legal.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't no.

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Speaker 3: Silling me.

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Speaker 4: I broke the law at age thirteen.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, you didn't employer broke the law.

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Speaker 4: What it did for me was instantiate a sense of

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Speaker 4: what it feels like to be marginalized. And I think

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Speaker 4: about that today. How many people feel invisible.

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Speaker 3: I went to.

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Speaker 2: College, and where did you go?

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Speaker 4: I went to the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, which,

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Speaker 4: for me, coming from my background and community like going

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Speaker 4: to Paris, and there I was introduced to an entirely

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Speaker 4: new world of.

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Speaker 3: Yes food.

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Speaker 4: But the reality of race and class really plays out

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Speaker 4: in college, at least for me it did. I lived

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Speaker 4: in a dorm with people from all over Texas, white

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Speaker 4: almost exclusively. Because the University of Texas at that time

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Speaker 4: had over forty thousand students, less than one thousand were

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Speaker 4: African Americans, and half of them were athletes. So it

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Speaker 4: was from that perspective, a very lonely place. But I'm

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Speaker 4: an extrovert by nature, and I found my way. I

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Speaker 4: was very engaged. I was the leader of the student union.

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Speaker 4: I was very much engaged in campus life, but in

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Speaker 4: the process I made friends with some interesting people. And

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Speaker 4: I recalled a debutante party where Frank Sinatra was the talent,

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Speaker 4: another where the Temptations and earth Wind and Fire. Because

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Speaker 4: there's nothing like Texas debutants. They give the best parties,

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Speaker 4: their parents spend extravagantly and caviar. I was introduced to

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Speaker 4: at one of these parties. In retrospect, it was good caviar.

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Speaker 4: It wasn't great caviar, but I knew that I was

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Speaker 4: tasting something that was really good because it was with champagne.

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Speaker 4: And to me, there's literally nothing better.

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Speaker 2: So you were in university and then you went to

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Speaker 2: I came to New York, New York.

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Speaker 4: I came to New York because I was enamored of

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Speaker 4: the idea of New York, like so many people who

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Speaker 4: feel alien in their own community, So I went to

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Speaker 4: New York. I went to New York because also I

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Speaker 4: wanted to make money, and I'm unapologetic about that, because

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Speaker 4: when you grow up poor in America, black in America,

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Speaker 4: the thing you don't want to ever be again is

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Speaker 4: poor in America. And so I was lucky. I went

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Speaker 4: to first a big law firm and then to a

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Speaker 4: large bank and had a great run on Wall Street.

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Speaker 4: I enjoyed it. I didn't love it, but it provided

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Speaker 4: me with some level of financial security that was necessary.

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Speaker 2: When you go to a restaurant, what do you look for?

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Speaker 2: Do you look for the food, the atmosphere, the people,

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Speaker 2: the energy.

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Speaker 4: I look for the vibe. The vibe, and the vibe

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Speaker 4: to me includes what does it smell like, What does

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Speaker 4: the menu look like? What does the design of the

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Speaker 4: menu look like? What is the decor? Is it consistent

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Speaker 4: with the vibe or is there discontinuity of some sort.

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Speaker 4: I mean, for me, I really like energy. Some people,

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Speaker 4: for example, say, oh, this restaurant's too loud.

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Speaker 3: I don't know. I like a loud restaurant.

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Speaker 4: If I want an intimate dinner, yes, I'll choose something

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Speaker 4: that is quiet with very little background noise. But if

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Speaker 4: I want to have a great evening, I'll book a

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Speaker 4: table aboutos R or it's loud, it's boristerous. It feels

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Speaker 4: like New yuk on steroids. That's why I live in

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Speaker 4: New York. To drink New York from the fire hose.

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Speaker 4: And when you walk into a restaurant. You understand the vibe,

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Speaker 4: you understand the menu, you understand the people. By just

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Speaker 4: looking around and taking it all in.

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Speaker 2: You went to Harlem.

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Speaker 4: It's hard to imagine now that there was a time

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Speaker 4: when Harlem wasn't a desirable neighborhood. I remember when I

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Speaker 4: moved to New York in the mid nineteen eighties. No

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Speaker 4: one really wanted to live in Harlem.

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Speaker 2: Weather clubs, so there were great sat.

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Speaker 4: By that time, clubs were all gone. The Apollo was

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Speaker 4: the only thing left. The Renaissance Ballroom, the Small's Paradise,

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Speaker 4: all of those great places, the Cotton Club, they were

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Speaker 4: all gone, and what had replaced them was massive disinvestment.

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Speaker 4: I met the most brilliant man called Reverend Calvin Buttz,

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Speaker 4: who is the pastor of the historic Abyssinian Baptist Church

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Speaker 4: in Harlem, and he and another member of the church,

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Speaker 4: Karen Phillips, had a dream of vision to redevelop Harlem,

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Speaker 4: to create an in geo, a nonprofit that would take

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Speaker 4: many of the literally thousands of vacant properties in Harlem

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Speaker 4: and redeveloped them.

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Speaker 3: And so that's what I did. For eight years.

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Speaker 4: I worked for him, developing over a thousand units of

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Speaker 4: affordable housing. We helped develop the main commercial street in Harlem,

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Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty fifth Street.

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Speaker 2: I know that in areas of poverty, the access to

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Speaker 2: fresh food is actually very, very limited. I know there's

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Speaker 2: been a strong movement to try and get food that

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Speaker 2: isn't package, that isn't fast food, that isn't bad for

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Speaker 2: your health into areas of poverty.

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Speaker 4: When I moved to Harlem in nineteen ninety five, it

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Speaker 4: was a food desert. There was no supermarket. There were

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Speaker 4: no fresh foods to be found other than at the

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Speaker 4: local bodegas, which were stocked primarily with brown things. Brown

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Speaker 4: let us brown vegetables, and things close to their expiration date,

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Speaker 4: whether it be dairy or other products. And so this

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Speaker 4: is why we fought so hard for a supermarket that

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Speaker 4: would bring fresh produce. And so that supermarket came, but

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Speaker 4: along with it came higher income people. And the risk

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Speaker 4: is always that gentrification means that the winners are the

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Speaker 4: new residents and the losers are the people who have

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Speaker 4: been there, pushed out and pushed out. Today, when I

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Speaker 4: visit Harlem and you come on the subway, come off

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Speaker 4: the subway on one twenty fifth street and you come

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Speaker 4: up and you see on the one side you see

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Speaker 4: Whole Foods, Starbucks.

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Speaker 3: H and M.

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Speaker 4: I mean it is I mean there used to be

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Speaker 4: nothing there but literally abandoned buildings. It's been transformed, and Ruthie,

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Speaker 4: there's both good and bad associated with that transformation. And

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Speaker 4: what we at the Ford Foundation have worked on over

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Speaker 4: many years is helping to address the issue of food

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Speaker 4: deserts to finance supermarkets, food shops, other forms of cooperatives

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Speaker 4: that bring fresh food from farms and other places.

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Speaker 2: It is incredible work that you're doing at the Ford

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Speaker 2: Foundation with your experience having lived in poverty. Were you

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Speaker 2: hungry as a child or were you just limited in

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Speaker 2: your choices?

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Speaker 4: I was never hungry as a child, but I was limited.

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Speaker 4: And as I look back and reflect on some of

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Speaker 4: the things we ate, it's not a surprise to remember

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Speaker 4: the levels of diabetes. For example, I recall visiting my

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Speaker 4: family back in Rayne, Louisiana after we moved to Texas.

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Speaker 4: We'd spend weeks in the summer there and I recall

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Speaker 4: walking on this dirt road past various little shotgun shacks

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Speaker 4: where people lived, and seeing people without their limbs sitting

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Speaker 4: on the porches, especially large, often overweight men and women

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Speaker 4: without a leg or with their leg missing from the knee,

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Speaker 4: and someone would whisper, oh, that's diabetes. And then I

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Speaker 4: think about what we would have for lunch. Sometimes we'd

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Speaker 4: have a slice of bread, a slice of balogne, and

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Speaker 4: what my great aunt would call sweetened water.

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Speaker 2: What was that?

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Speaker 3: Just water and.

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Speaker 4: Chull And she'd take an old mason jar and just

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Speaker 4: put water in from the faucet and then just pour

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Speaker 4: sugar saturated with sugar, shake it and then pour it

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Speaker 4: into our little plastic cups that we have.

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Speaker 2: I think that we look at food, as you've just

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Speaker 2: described it, as an equal kind of insecure. We look

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Speaker 2: at it as unfair, but we also look at it

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Speaker 2: as great pleasure. We look at it as deliciousness, and

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Speaker 2: we should celebrate it.

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Speaker 4: Joy of food, it's no matter where we are. Food

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Speaker 4: is joy and the way in which it signifies culture, generosity,

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Speaker 4: a sense of grace, and an extension of human dignity

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Speaker 4: to another. Only food can do that.

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Speaker 2: It conveys, doesn't it. Food conveys as you say, love,

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Speaker 2: conveys generosity. It also conveys comfort. And so I was

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Speaker 2: wondering what would be your comfort food, my comfort meal, okay,

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Speaker 2: a meal fried chicken, old fashioned potato salad, collared greens

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Speaker 2: cooked in hamhock, and my mother's corn bread. Delicious, comforting,

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Speaker 2: full of memories and love. Thank you, thank you very

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Speaker 2: very much. Well, let's go have lunch.

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Speaker 4: I love the Idlet's have lunch.

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Speaker 2: I'm starving. Let's go have lunch. Thank you. To visit

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Speaker 2: the online shop of the River Cafe, go to shop

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Speaker 2: the River Cafe dot co dot Uque.

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Speaker 1: River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and

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Speaker 1: Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 4: I