Podcast: Life Kit – 3 ways to honor (and pass on) traditions through food
Food is not just fuel. Food is a living currency. It brings us wealth and joy. It sustains us and connects us to our past and to the future. And like all valuable things, food requires protection because traditions can be stolen, like they were stolen from Indigenous people. Whatever your background, knowing and honoring your traditional ways of cooking, eating and gardening can make your life healthier and richer.
Parth Shah, Host of Life Kit
Foodways is your food traditions. You can’t really pinpoint precisely what your food traditions were because they changed over time.
Devon Mhesuah, Professor
It’s the utensils. It’s the objects. It’s the material culture. It’s the smell. All of that’s foodways. And also the rituals – what’s served at a wedding, a funeral? Foodways include making sure your shoes are off if it’s a house where shoes are not worn in the home. Food is not just food. Food is a way to understand an entire culture or an aspect of a culture or an aspect of human existence, period.
Michael W. Twitty, Culinary Historian
Carrying on your foodways is a lifelong practice. If starting a garden is too daunting to take on, that’s all right. Maybe start by planting an herb on your windowsill. And that brings us to takeaway No. 2 – there’s no shame in starting small. Be patient with yourself, and don’t feel pressure to duplicate traditions.
Parth Shah, Host of Life Kit
It’s your job to make these things a little bit different and pass them on. But you’re – what we’re talking about here is not the canon but the construct, and the construct is us. I mean, you are not your parents. I am not my parents. We are not carbon copies of those that came before us, so why do we expect that a recipe will be a carbon copy?
It’s supposed be dynamic and morphed. And if you don’t have those connections, research them and make your own connection, make your own traditions. You know, breathe life into it. Maybe discover something people aren’t doing anymore and then bring it back to life.
Michael W. Twitty, Culinary Historian
I think when we talk about the foodways of Black and brown people around the globe, I think energy is an element that I think the West is missing, you know? It talks a lot about ingredients. It sees recipes in terms of ingredients and techniques. So what she’s talking about is the energy of the person going into the process of cooking. She’s talking with the energy that people who enjoy it. She’s talking about the energy of the food, the vibration of the food from the ground, from the water, from the air, right? All of that matters. And, you know, when you try to tell people about that, they go, eh. They kind of just wave you away. But, I mean, we’re the only people, African Americans, who call our cuisine not by a national title or an ethnic title. We call it by this invisible force – soul, that is as invisible as God and love. That’s the vibration cooking she’s talking about. It’s just another name for this life force cooking that we do.
Michael W. Twitty, Culinary Historian (on a book called “Vibration Cooking” written by the late Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor – artist & anthropologist)
Treat food as more than just fuel. Feel empowered to approach cooking like an artist. You don’t have to toss out your teaspoons set, but start shifting your focus away from ingredients and tools to the more magical elements of the experience.
Parth Shah, Host of Life Kit
The recipe is not a dictation. A recipe is a spell. You become both a chemist and a witch – a chemist and a warlock the minute you enter the kitchen, you know? Your mood, your knowledge base, your wisdom, your connection to the ancestors, your connection to the legacy that you’re going to leave behind to the descendants – every single one of these things – you’re sitting at the crossroads every time you cross the threshold to the cook.
Michael W. Twitty, Culinary Historian (on a book called “Vibration Cooking” written by the late Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor – artist & anthropologist)
One way to opt in is to be mindful of the language you use to talk about food. A lot of us are used to seeing food only in terms of nutrition. But avoid judging foods just based on how many grams of protein it has.
Parth Shah, Host of Life Kit
As people, we know that we are much more than our age, than our caste, community, race, gender. We want to be taken for what we truly are, for how we contribute, whether it’s in our homes, our workplaces or in other countries. It’s the exact same thing with food. The minute you reduce food to a carbohydrate, protein and fat, you’re reducing food to what it is not. When you begin to think of food as carbohydrate, protein and fat, you also begin to see the society in a very fragmented manner.
Rujuta Diwekar, Nutritionist
One of the things or one of the slogans that is always said before you start eating a meal is (non-English language spoken). You know, so it’s basically the one who cooks and the one who grows food and the one who eats, may all of them be at peace. In modern terms, you can think of it as may our health, our economy and ecology all be in a state of balance, you know, because only then can we thrive together as a community.
Rujuta Diwekar, Nutritionist
There are some people who don’t have access to nutritious food. You know, they only have the cheap stuff, you know. So being active means that you’re trying to find solutions to that. You know, let’s get more farmers markets. Let’s force our tribal councils to help the tribal farmers so that we can produce more foods for our people.
Devon Mihesuah, Professor
Recap
Takeaway #1 – connect with your elders. Learning about traditions requires commitment, endurance and an acceptance of ambiguity.
Takeaway #2 – pace yourself. Try a week of eating traditional foods.
Takeaway #3 – food is not just fuel. Be mindful of the language you use.
Takeaway #4 – be active in your community. Help others eat well.
Parth Shah, Host of Life Kit