We owe women of color for the foods we love to eat
For this week’s episode, we talked to a food historian and three cookbook authors about the influence cooks who are people of color — especially women— have on what and how we eat today.
NPR Code Switch
It’s easy to take the variety we have access to in this country for granted. But what we eat and cook tells the story of who we are, where we come from and how we relate to each other.
So Karen, for all those different cuisines you and I just listed, you would think that we’d have just as many diverse voices in food media and publishing. But which ingredients and dishes are popularized and which chefs are bolstered has been filtered through a super narrow lens of an industry dominated by mostly white, mostly male decision-makers. And those decision-makers aren’t at all representative of who is actually behind the authentic variety of food we enjoy in this country. For decades, it’s been women – immigrants and women of color, especially – who have shaped the way you and I eat today.
Lori Lizarraga, Host, Code Switch
A diversity study by a multicultural book publisher surveyed, like, 22,000 press and publishing staff. And of those who responded, 76% were white – in 2019. And even if you are one of the very few POC authors who manage to get through that gate, you’re going to be asked to do more than cook. You’re going to have to get personal.
Lori Lizarraga, Host, Code Switch
I think cookbooks will always be important because, of course, we have, like, social media, which is a very dynamic platform that is constantly changing, but there’s a real permanence to cookbooks that I think makes them really important cultural artifacts that I don’t think will ever sort of go out of style.
And I think for that reason, I’m really glad I documented my recipes in that way.
Priya Krishna, Food Journalist
You know, for me, like, every dish has a soul to the dish – has a spirit, has a history. And as long as that stays intact, I feel very strongly that everything else is flexible. And I say this because that’s how people have evolved over the course of time. Like, I think that for the immigrant experience, for Arabs, the food that they remembered when they left in the, you know, ’60s or ’70s has evolved, right? No one family has that authentic way to make that recipe. Everybody has a different spin on it based on what’s available to them. So why not be flexible? You know, you don’t have pomegranate? What is another thing that’s tart and that you can put in there? Like, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with that. And in fact, the dish becomes better over time when people discover these things. Also, there’s this conception that our cuisine is not adaptable, is not flexible. And, in fact, it is very adaptable.
Reem Assil, Food & Social Justice, Speaker, Chef
Through cooking, through owning restaurants, through writing and publishing recipes. And for a long time, people of color in the food industry have had to jump through the hoops of a tightly gate-kept publishing world.
Karen Grigsby Bates, Senior Correspondent
I love this question around authenticity because it leads to a series of other interesting questions, right? Like, authentic to whom, right? And under what conditions? When I taught food studies at UNC, I would often ask my students to think about who the authenticity was for, right? Who is the consumer of that authenticity? Who needs for something to be called authentic Chinese food, authentic Puerto Rican food? I doubt it’s the people themselves, right? I don’t personally look for food because someone has told me it’s authentic. I eat the food and decide for myself whether it feels like – you know, to use something beautiful that Reem said – can I detect the soul of the dish, right? Is it in there? And again, to the question of authentic to whom – right? – there is only one Von Diaz there is only one Reem Assil.
The circumstances that created me include a lot of hybridized cultures. Puerto Rico is a place that is African, Indigenous, Spanish, American and more, at this point. So does my authenticity require all of those things to be represented in a dish, or is my authenticity more about the quality and the freshness of the sofrito that’s used as the foundation for the beans, for the sauces, for the stews?
Von Diaz, Storyteller, Documentarian, Cook
Food is alive. Cuisines are alive. If you don’t adapt them – right? – if you don’t change the ingredients, then it’s not living, right? It’s not evolving. And there are a number of things happening in our world today that require that we evolve our cuisines, right? Climate change is upending everything we know about agriculture year in and year out.
Von Diaz, Storyteller, Documentarian, Cook
You know, women are the keepers of culture everywhere on the planet. And I will agree that, despite women being the domestic ones – you know, the folks that take care of the home, that take care of the family – we don’t have proportional representation, probably, in any field. Cookbooks certainly are among them. I also know that, despite my positive experience with my current book process, the folks making decisions at the highest level, particularly for major publishers like the ones that Reem and I are working with – those spaces do continue to be white, and there do continue to be a lot of men that, like – there’s an expression in Spanish called a chingona…for folks who haven’t heard of that – right? – is like a bada** woman – like, a tough and hardworking person who is confident. That’s sort of, like, how I translate that term. And I think that part of what I’ve been seeing is a lot of us in this space insisting – right? – we are the keepers of culture. We don’t have to do it this way. My culture is incredibly expansive and has lots and lots of intersections with other things. I am not one thing.
Von Diaz, Storyteller, Documentarian, Cook
I think there needs to be a concerted effort to be doing reconnaissance amongst communities that are underrepresented. A lot of times, the excuse that folks give for why there isn’t a person of color in the running is that they didn’t have that many applicants. And it’s like, well, OK, if we want to be truly restorative in this world – right? – if we want to engage in practices that lead to justice, then we need to go out into communities that are underrepresented and get to know these talents, right?
There are – and this is still true to this day – abysmally few editors of color at major publications like the ones that Reem and I are working with. And it shows, right? It puts a lot of onus on the writer to represent – right? – and to do an excellent job. So, yeah, my magic cleaver would lead to some concerted efforts to get to know the culinary talent that maybe hasn’t made it yet ’cause they’re – you know, they’re the future.
Von Diaz, Storyteller, Documentarian, Cook