Let me start by saying that I aim no judgement at anyone involved on either side of this Twitter conversation. I am merely trying to look at the overall conversation a couple days later and figure out exactly what transpired, and why it did.
Food culture is one of my favorite things to talk about. Whether that be the changes in food culture people desiring to eat more naturally (farm to table), or chefs looking to bring back heritage recipe with meats and produce, or chefs looking to change food culture through their restaurant menu. You don’t expect food culture to be changed through a tweet, but just a few days ago I believe that’s exactly what happened.
It was the morning of Wednesday November 28th, 2018 and as usual I opened up Twitter as I enjoyed my first cup of coffee for the day. What do I see, but a a tweet from a Twitter follower that I respect @jayacancook starting to go viral. I recognized the tweet because the night before she had posted because the night before she had tweeted a picture of her dinner; braised short ribs, Parmesan risotto, brown butter rutabaga, and roasted green beans with a honey Dijon vinaigrette and red wine reduction. What I quickly found out though is that the tweet that I was seeing over and over again on my timeline was not her original post of her dinner (below).
Rather it was a tweet that Chef Jaya wrote in reaction to backlash that she was getting in regards to her food. Rightfully so Chef Jaya defended herself against just a few of the comments that were left on her original posts; some of those being:
“where’s the rest of it.”
“3 bites of food I cannot”
“All those words just for that!”
In her comments Chef Jaya commented on how, “eating from the dollar menu has affected the black community”. That is where I believe the flood gates opened and where the avalanche of comments stormed down on Chef Jaya from Twitter, specifically #BlackTwitter. (You can see tweet that below.)
Now I do not know Chef Jaya personally, but in the time that I have followed her through social media I have never seen her to be someone who puts down any group of people. What was taken as an attack on the black community I took as more of a comment on how our culture has engrained in us that the value of food is in the quantity of food on your plate and not the quality.
I don’t believe that is anyone’s fault for valuing the quantity of food they can get for a dollar. The black community has always for the most part not been as well off as other races in the United States. I don’t want to turn this into too much of a economical/social disparities blog post.
Where I believe that the backlash came is that her comment about “dollar menu… black community” came off to the majority of Twitter that she was looking down on the black community from a pedestal. Once again I’ll say that I don’t personally know Chef Jaya, but I don’t see her comment as an attack. Where Twitter assumed that she was calling the black community poor, impoverished, and ghetto I assumed that she was speaking about the systematic eating habits that have been passed down to us by those before us.
Where I truly feel like the damage is being done is to up-and-coming black chefs who cook food that may not be common to the majority of black the black community. These chefs have to then make a decision; do they cook what they truly want to and fear that their restaurants are not dined at by black people or do they change their desires and cook what the general black community has always been comfortable with and accustomed to seeing on their plate? I think that we are at a time now where the former is overtaking the latter. I believe that we are at a time now where young black people, not just young black chefs, are breaking away from accepted societal norms and taking steps to truly find their identities.
Trust me when I say that I am not immune to this either. I love fine dining, but it’s not something that I do all the time. I enjoy a meal off the dollar menu, an oven baked pizza, or frozen meal just like anyone else. My father grew up on a farm in Southern Louisiana and has always been a meat and three person; for him the value in food is very much tied to getting a good full plate of food at a decent price. I’ve tried to go to more small plate and tapas style restaurants with him and my mom, but he’s never really grasped the idea of ordering a bunch of small plated of food and sharing them as a table like my mom has. That’s what makes me believe that real change in food culture in the black community will come with the younger generations, and older generations that are open to change.
This change cannot happen though if the black community does not stand behind these black chefs who are striving for change! Chefs like Chef Jaya, Chef Todd Richards, Chef Angela Davis, Chef Dominique, Chef Kenneth Temple, and so on need our support so that they can work to to continue to change the culture of food in the black community. Will it be easy? No. Will there be tension? Yes. Can you help by supporting them and other black chefs? YES!!! We can all support these black chefs and others by not criticizing them when they go against the norms that the majority of us as the black community are accustomed to.
How do we change this? What do you think? Where would you start?
I hope that this blog post in some way has opened the eyes of others to the conversation of food culture in the black community. If I have helped to start or continue the conversation then I’ll feel like I’ve done my part.
God bless,
Ben
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