How 4 Black chefs are handling *gestures wildly* all of this
Issue 166: As restaurants try to reopen safely after Covid-19, "I hope the industry isn’t cleansed of its culture and diversity," chef Kwame Onwuachi writes.
Hello! Welcome to Nosh Box, a lunchtime-ish food newsletter.
Read last Friday’s dispatch: The Turkish app using AI to read coffee cup fortunes
In the Washington Post today, chef and writer Kwame Onwuachi speaks with three other Black chefs about how they’re navigating “the twin assaults of a global pandemic and outrage after yet another killing of a black man by police.”
Peter Prime, the chef/owner of DC restaurant Cane, talks about the challenges he has faced in trying to cook the food of his Trinidadian heritage rather than more mainstream barbecue dishes that his investors thought would play better in the city.
He and Seattle chef Edouardo Jordan both describe the difficulty of convincing predominantly white institutional figures — investors, landlords, bankers — to take them seriously.
Onwuachi, who was won the James Beard Award for Rising Star Chef of the Year last year, also shares his experiences striking that tough balance:
I went through some of the same struggles in trying to find my path to the cuisine of my heritage. Investors and owners have constantly pushed me to do what they think is right, instead of what was authentic to me. Admittedly, stuck between the doors of poverty and a paycheck, I sometimes succumbed to their influence.
Onwuachi is shown here on the top left; clockwise: Nina Compton; Edouardo Jordan, and Peter Prime.
Photos by Scott Suchman for The Washington Post, Shannon Renfroe, Denny Culbert, and Deb Lindsey for The Washington Post
And in New Orleans, chef Nina Compton has recently reopened one of her restaurants for a tasting menu — one table at a time. It’s a significantly scaled-down model focused on safety and cleanliness amid the pandemic.
Onwuachi writes:
Restaurants will change along with the nation when this is all said and done. Single-use menus, wrapped and sealed silverware, sanitizer offered before and after every meal.
But I hope the industry isn’t cleansed of its culture and diversity.
Before we go, a recipe parody that takes on the “some bad apples” trope:
