0:00

Hey everyone, you're listening to Code Switch.

0:02

I'm B.A. Parker. Now we're

0:04

at the end of another calendar and to wrap

0:07

up the year, we're going to share an episode

0:09

from 2023 that made me

0:11

think a little differently about

0:13

food and cooking. And

0:15

I'm not even that into cooking. It's

0:18

from Lori Lizaraga and our beloved

0:20

Karen Greeksby Bates, and

0:22

I'll let them take it from here. Our

0:26

story today is a smorgasbord,

0:28

not of food, but

0:30

about food. So it's only right

0:33

that we start there with food, Karen. Everyone's

0:35

got a favorite. What are yours? Vietnamese,

0:38

Chinese, Korean, Cuban, hamburger.

0:41

Whoo! She has

0:43

those ready to go. How about you, Lori? I'm

0:46

a little pickier than you, I think, Karen.

0:48

I have favorite dishes more than whole cuisines,

0:51

but top spots for

0:53

me go to soup dumplings,

0:55

empanadas, gumbo, black chicken,

0:57

and rice. Just like any

1:00

rice cooked anyway. Ooh, I'm with

1:02

you on the rice. And now

1:04

I'm hungry. Girl, same. I also

1:06

love how diverse our favorite foods

1:08

are. We name cuisines from literally

1:10

all over the world. Unplanned. I

1:13

didn't expect that. I did. Here in Southern

1:15

California, we eat the world on the regular.

1:17

Mmm. I could eat the world right now.

1:22

There is a point to this

1:24

cruel exercise. And actually, our answers

1:26

emphasize it. Because it's easy to

1:28

take the variety we have access to in

1:30

this country for granted. But

1:33

what we eat and cook tells the

1:35

story of who we are, where we

1:37

come from, and how we relate to

1:39

each other. So, Karen, for all

1:41

those different cuisines you and I just listed, you

1:44

would think that we'd have just as many

1:46

diverse voices in food media and publishing. But

1:49

which ingredients and dishes are popularized,

1:51

and which chefs are bolstered, has

1:53

been filtered through a super narrow

1:56

lens of an industry dominated

1:58

by mostly white, mostly white. mostly

2:00

male decision makers. And

2:02

those decision makers aren't at all representative

2:04

of who is actually behind the authentic

2:06

variety of food we enjoy in this

2:08

country. For decades, it's

2:11

been women, immigrants and

2:13

women of color especially, who have

2:15

shaped the way you and I

2:17

eat today. I

2:22

could have written about 30 women. I could have

2:24

written about 100 women. There are so

2:26

many immigrant women throughout American history who

2:29

really changed the way America thinks

2:31

about food and talks about food even today.

2:34

That's Mayuk Sen. His book, Tastemakers,

2:36

is a group biography that focuses

2:38

on seven immigrant women in the

2:40

20th century whose cooking has influenced

2:42

the way we eat. Without the

2:44

work of these seven women, words like stir

2:46

fry would not be part of the American

2:49

lexicon. And the way a lot

2:51

of Americans learned about stir fries back

2:53

in the day was through cookbooks. We

2:55

got curious about what people in other

2:57

countries ate and how they made it.

2:59

And it's not like cooks could just

3:01

post their delicious and original recipes to

3:03

Instagram or monetize their cooking expertise on

3:05

their own, right? Back in

3:08

the day, publishing a cookbook was one of

3:10

the few ways they could establish their authority

3:12

in the food world. But the

3:14

women Mayuk wrote about were immigrants, many of

3:16

them home chefs. Voices of the

3:18

food world had really been shutting out. They

3:20

had to come to this country

3:22

and navigate a very heavily gate-kept American

3:25

food establishment just to have their voices

3:27

heard, just to publish their own cookbooks,

3:29

just to open their own

3:31

restaurants. And those sorts of challenges are

3:34

part of the story of American food.

3:37

Part of the story of American food, part

3:39

of the story of American life, and

3:41

part of the story of American publishing,

3:43

for sure. I mean, I was there

3:45

working in publishing in the 70s, and

3:47

it was very white and very male-dominated.

3:49

I mean, Laurie, think about madmen

3:51

only with books. Ugh. And

3:55

it's not like it's gotten so much

3:57

better either, Karen. A diversity study by

3:59

a multicultural book publisher. surveyed like 22,000

4:01

press and publishing staff, and of those who

4:04

responded, 76% were white. In

4:08

2019, and even if

4:10

you are one of the very few POC authors

4:12

who managed to get through that gate, you're

4:14

going to be asked to do more than cook. You're

4:16

going to have to get personal. My sense

4:19

is that publishers really clamor

4:21

for food writers from marginalized

4:23

communities like immigrant female cooks

4:26

to really regurgitate any traumas

4:28

that they may have had

4:30

and their personal stories for

4:33

wide consumption. But there's

4:35

one chef Mayuk wrote about who didn't do that

4:37

and really kind of paid the price for it,

4:39

Garin. Julie Sonney took a very

4:42

different approach. She was very methodical and just

4:44

said, this is what classic Indian cooking is.

4:46

I'm going to show you the techniques behind

4:49

that. I'm going to show you the equipment

4:51

that you need, and then we will go

4:53

from there. I will not regale you with

4:55

stories about my childhood. So it was a

4:57

sort of rejection of this impulse. And

5:00

the thing is, Julie Sonney was a renowned chef.

5:03

In the 80s, she was reportedly the first

5:05

Indian woman to leave the kitchen of a

5:07

fine dining restaurant in New York ever.

5:10

And that still wasn't enough for her

5:12

to succeed to the fullest, standing on

5:15

her expertise alone. I would

5:17

absolutely say that Julie's decision

5:19

to reject any sort

5:22

of memoristic impulse in her writing

5:24

probably prevented her work from really

5:26

having the longevity across generations that

5:28

it truly deserves. Boy,

5:31

I'm just shaking my head over here. Why,

5:34

Garin? Well, it

5:36

all just stands in such stark contrast

5:38

to someone like Julia Child. I mean,

5:40

she's a name everyone will recognize. She

5:43

Did rise to fame with a

5:45

super dense two volume cookbook 20

5:48

years before. Julie Sonney would try

5:50

to do the exact same thing

5:52

with her own cookbook. Come on,

5:54

somebody. She's connecting these dots. Because

5:56

Look, My Yuk wrote about Julia

5:58

Child in his book too. Karen?

6:00

Really, why shouldn't an immigrant?

6:02

Or a woman of color. Oh. That's

6:04

exactly why As an American, Julia

6:07

Child became an icon of French

6:09

cooking. But. Her same became something that

6:11

actual immigrant chefs had to exist in

6:13

the shadow of. I notice how

6:15

often so many of these women

6:17

were called the Julia child of

6:19

their respective countries or regions of

6:21

origin. And less the clear Sam

6:24

we are not knocking Mrs Child.

6:26

I love her and her achievements.

6:28

their legendary but the publishing industry

6:30

and food media world have the

6:32

power to choose whose work and

6:34

whose reached guess the Julia Child

6:36

reception. It seemingly the only differences

6:38

between who Gets forgotten and whose

6:40

is to become the gold standard

6:42

nail on the head gear and

6:44

and my you even to get

6:46

a little. Further, You know that?

6:49

May have been a comparison the provoke some

6:51

flattery to whomever was on the receiving end

6:53

of it decades ago. yet today to my

6:55

mind at least has really a to serve

6:58

quite badly as rhetorical crops because. It's.

7:00

Almost as patronizes to be some anaconda

7:03

sense to them and simply says that

7:05

you know for you to have any

7:07

legitimacy at all, you must be compared

7:10

to Julia Child. I

7:12

bring it all up because Julia Child does two

7:14

things for us here. She. Makes the

7:17

case that Americans weren't put off by

7:19

foreign food or intimidating recipes. In the

7:21

sixties. Much of a career was built

7:24

on both, and she's an example of

7:26

how receptive American audiences can be to

7:28

fellow Americans, right? Which

7:30

is why I wanted to talk to a

7:33

contemporary American chef and cookbook author about what

7:35

it's been like for her in this industry

7:37

all these years later. When.

7:39

I wrote in Dns. A very intentionally

7:41

put on the cover Recipes and

7:43

stories from modern American family because

7:45

I did not want the book

7:47

to be put in like the

7:49

international section that's Free A Prisoner.

7:52

And. Guess what? They still put it in the

7:54

international section And so many books Thursday even though

7:56

it's that American on the cover. She the food

7:58

reporter for the New York. Time and

8:00

the other multiple cookbooks. And

8:02

seat is American born and raised just

8:05

up the road from me in fact

8:07

in Dallas, Texas the like a lot

8:09

of us bree as background the one

8:11

that inspired that cookbooks he's talking about

8:14

in Dns recipes and antics from the

8:16

modern American family can sounds food, media

8:18

and really brings out bad seventy six

8:21

percent right side of publishing. So.

8:26

In writing Indian S I wanted to like really

8:28

plant a flag and the grounds like this. Doesn't.

8:30

Have to be a little. The Indian. A little bit American. This

8:32

is like a cuisine into. Itself I am bird

8:34

thinking when Indian it came out like. It

8:38

feels like I'm really going against the

8:40

grain. I'm not. It's hollow sizing, Can.

8:42

Be words, I'm not in hell's I think vol

8:45

are wholly this is of a real common practice,

8:47

the at idea of a televising sort of

8:49

like visually other ring words that were not english

8:51

out like I'm not going to do that,

8:53

I'm not going to lean. Into isn't Be

8:55

and Tropes i once contributed a

8:57

recipe to a cookbook were like

8:59

they put like of photo of

9:01

Denise in the background. And I was

9:04

like what does finish has to deal with.

9:06

This. Sub the like and this is of your

9:08

airing it on and thing to just really lean

9:10

into. The A: sort of like quote unquote exotic

9:12

sized Indian tropes. I really didn't want to do

9:14

that I would like. I want the photos to

9:17

sort of capture. Our. Everyday Living

9:19

in Dallas, Texas. Growing.

9:21

Up. And now looking

9:23

back if I. Could write in

9:25

Dns and twenty twenty three. I.

9:28

Would go even further. Like for

9:30

example, I. Put little princesses,

9:32

Next. To some of the dishes like

9:34

there's a dish called study which is

9:37

this amazing dish of like turmeric and

9:39

yogurt and chickpea flour and it's just

9:41

delicious. And I wrote like in parentheses

9:43

turmeric yogurt. Soup but. To.

9:45

Me: That's a sort of sales to capture

9:48

what's the dish is. it's just it's me.

9:50

You. Know in adequately using the English language

9:52

which could never adequately describe what guard he

9:55

is which is not really a soup, not

9:57

really it's do but sort of it's own.

10:00

The only thing I think one thing

10:02

that was really important to with Indian

10:04

s with centering my perspective not writing

10:06

about Indian food for a wide audience

10:08

which very much as his syrup How

10:11

many authors of color taught to write

10:13

about their food at citing. Explained.

10:15

It to someone who has no idea

10:17

what turbo record cumin seeds or night

10:19

a sub the in make it accessible

10:22

make make it accessible through the the

10:24

phrase you hear over and over again.

10:26

I wanted it to be like I

10:28

am censoring my perspective and my identity.

10:31

And. You are welcome to

10:33

come along for the ride. And if you

10:35

don't know what something is, google it because.

10:37

You. Know the reality is that people of

10:39

color have been asked to step outside

10:41

of themselves. Our. Whole Lives. Yeah

10:44

I'm so why can't why people do it

10:46

too easy to their you would go further

10:48

but but then did that feel like you

10:50

are really pushing boundaries and did that make

10:52

it a challenge to get Indian is published.

10:55

What was challenging was selling the

10:58

book. Actually, I'm. I

11:00

heard a lot. That. We've

11:03

already published in Indian Cookbook. In

11:05

that crazy we've. Already published one

11:07

Indian cookbook. Therefore, we've hit our

11:09

Indian cookbooks. I wish it were

11:12

crazy for yeah, it's not. Like

11:14

this is a country of billions of people

11:16

and enormous diaspora around the world. But we

11:18

published or one Indian cook books that were

11:20

good, right? We can publish ten cookbooks about

11:22

Pasta. But. Only one about Indian

11:25

food and that booked into well so therefore

11:27

we're not can be taking another chance. That

11:29

was the market that I was entering. And.

11:31

That made it really hard and one thing I kept

11:33

saying over and over and meetings. Is like. Would.

11:36

Billions of people be making it all

11:38

subs the and wrote the. For. Dinner

11:40

every night. If this was look for

11:42

a of food to make and put

11:44

on the table. Might like yes of

11:46

course in every cuisine there are quick

11:48

week like recipes and there are the

11:50

project recipes and ideas. Food is no

11:52

different that there seems to be. This.

11:54

Divide that. Oh like. You.

11:57

Know western recipes, are

12:00

easy, quick weeknight, simple

12:02

food, non-western recipes, can't

12:04

be simple food. And

12:06

that was really disheartening. I think, you know,

12:09

the concept you're describing is conflating

12:11

unfamiliar with inaccessible

12:14

almost. And

12:17

that is a difficult habit or

12:19

way of thinking to try to break

12:21

or to try to convince someone that

12:23

those things just aren't the same.

12:26

Do you feel like in terms

12:28

of presenting your identity, Indianish was

12:31

helpful in that process of helping

12:33

to sort of get to this

12:35

place of going even further today

12:37

with who you are? Oh, 100%. When

12:41

India just came out, I didn't

12:43

have a huge platform. I had

12:45

just joined Bon Appetit's video team.

12:48

I really had no idea how the cookbook

12:50

would do. And

12:52

I would go to these cookbook events and

12:55

I would meet not only Indian

12:57

Americans, but just other, you

13:00

know, members of diasporic

13:02

communities, just being like,

13:04

yeah, this book like directly spoke to

13:06

me. It like directly spoke to how

13:08

I feel every day when

13:11

I like listen to

13:13

Bollywood music and I listen to,

13:15

you know, top 40 hits. Were

13:19

you thinking of a larger

13:22

audience that is white or that hasn't, you

13:24

know, ever really been interested

13:26

in or cooked in their own kitchen, Indian

13:28

food, or were you trying to talk to other

13:31

families, other women like

13:34

yourself? At the time, there

13:36

was a very wide swath of people who

13:38

found Indian food delicious, but very intimidating. Yeah.

13:41

So it was like, I want to target those people. And

13:44

what I found is that there

13:46

was an equal number of people

13:48

who loved Indian food, didn't grow

13:51

up with it, wanted to make it at home,

13:53

but didn't know like where to

13:55

begin, or how to make

13:57

recipes that didn't require them to like. buy

14:00

like a hundred spices, toast

14:02

them, grind them in a spice grinder, and

14:04

then you start the recipe. And then

14:06

there were also just as many people

14:09

who grew up in households where

14:11

they were making bassy food.

14:13

Their parents just never taught

14:15

them, but they crave these

14:18

flavors. But, you know, immigrant moms, they're

14:20

like a little pinch of this, a

14:22

spoonful of that. Like they're not writing

14:25

down recipes. You're describing my mother to

14:27

a T. I'm completely familiar with that.

14:31

Why write a cookbook at all? Priya,

14:33

like any cookbook? Cookbooks

14:36

are a reflection of where the culture was at

14:38

that time and how you fit within it at

14:40

the time. And in a

14:44

lot of ways that can be really hard. There's little sentences

14:46

I'll read back from Indianish and I'll like cringe a little

14:48

bit. I'll be like, why do you describe it like that?

14:51

Or why do you say it like that? But then I'm

14:53

like, you know what? That is a snapshot of that period

14:55

of my life and where

14:57

I was and how I

14:59

thought about my identity and

15:01

food. And so in that

15:04

way, I think cookbooks will

15:06

always be important because of course we

15:08

have like social media, which is a

15:10

very dynamic platform that

15:12

is constantly changing. But there's a

15:14

real permanence to cookbooks that

15:17

I think makes them really

15:19

important cultural artifacts that I don't

15:22

think will ever sort of go out of style.

15:24

And I think for that

15:26

reason, I'm really glad I documented my

15:28

recipes in that way. Priya

15:31

Krishna, thanks for your insight. We appreciate

15:33

you. Thanks for having me, Lori.

15:38

Coming up, how cooking authentically is

15:40

about so much more than the

15:42

ingredients or technique of a dish. You

15:44

know, for me, like every dish has a soul

15:46

to the dish, has a spirit, has a

15:48

history. And as long as that stays intact,

15:51

I feel very strongly that everything else

15:53

is flexible. Stay with us.

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and taxes, race and football in

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2023. And we're excited

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17:37

Thank you. Lori.

17:41

Karen. CodeSwitch. We've

17:44

been talking about how food and cooking is

17:47

this incredible way of expressing identity.

17:50

Right. Through cooking, through

17:52

owning restaurants, through writing and

17:54

publishing recipes. And for

17:56

a long time, people of color in the

17:59

food industry have had to. jump through the

18:01

hoops of a tightly gate-kept publishing world. Which

18:03

has really been dominated by what's accessible

18:06

to a Western

18:08

audience. And all that led

18:10

me to our next guest. Von

18:13

Diaz is a journalist who writes about the foods

18:15

of her native Puerto Rico and of her life

18:17

in the American South. And

18:19

Ruimah Seel is a restaurant owner

18:21

and former community organizer who's written

18:23

about foods of the Arab diaspora,

18:25

including the breads of Syria and

18:27

Palestine. We talked

18:29

about what really makes a recipe representative

18:31

of who they are and where they come

18:34

from. And Ruimah said it's

18:36

about so much more than a list of

18:38

ingredients and techniques. You

18:41

know for me like every dish has a soul

18:44

to the dish, has a spirit, has a history,

18:46

and as long as that stays intact, I

18:48

feel very strongly that everything else is

18:50

flexible. And I say this because

18:53

that's how people have evolved over the course

18:55

of time. Like I think that for

18:57

the immigrant experience, for Arabs, the foods

18:59

that they remembered when they left in

19:02

the, you know, 60s or 70s

19:04

has evolved, right? No one

19:06

family has that authentic way to

19:08

make that recipe. Everybody has

19:10

a different spin on it based on what's

19:13

available to them. So why not be

19:15

flexible? You know, you don't have pomegranate.

19:18

What is another thing that's tart and that you can put

19:20

in there? Like I don't think that there's anything wrong with

19:22

that. And in fact, the

19:24

dish becomes better over time when

19:27

people discover these things. Also

19:29

there's this conception that cuisine

19:32

is not adaptable, is not flexible.

19:34

In fact, it is very adaptable.

19:36

That brings up the word that

19:38

I'm afraid to use because you

19:40

may all throw something at me

19:42

virtually. It's the A

19:44

word. It's authenticity. Von, you had

19:47

a very funny quote

19:49

somewhere I think in the introduction to

19:51

your book where you said, Puerto Rican

19:53

cooking is Puerto Rican because I made

19:55

it. What

19:57

exactly does that mean in terms

19:59

of? of maybe challenging

20:01

the reader a little bit about

20:03

what they think they know about

20:05

where you come from,

20:07

what you cook, who you

20:09

want to eat it. Yeah. Well, I

20:12

love this question around authenticity because

20:14

it leads to a series of

20:16

other interesting questions, right? Like

20:19

authentic to whom, right? And

20:21

under what conditions? When

20:24

I taught food studies at UNC, I

20:26

would often ask my students to

20:29

think about who the authenticity

20:31

was for, right? Who

20:33

is the consumer of that authenticity?

20:36

Who needs for something to be called

20:38

authentic Chinese food, authentic Puerto Rican food?

20:40

I doubt it's the people themselves, right?

20:42

I don't personally look for food because

20:44

someone has told me it's authentic. I

20:47

eat the food and decide for myself

20:49

whether it feels like, you know, to

20:51

use something beautiful that Reem said, can

20:53

I detect the soul of the dish,

20:56

right? Is it in there? And again,

20:58

to the question of authentic to whom,

21:00

right? There is only one, there

21:02

is only one, the circumstances

21:05

that created me include a lot

21:07

of hybridized cultures. Puerto Rico is

21:09

a place that is African,

21:12

indigenous, Spanish, American, and

21:14

more at this point.

21:17

So does my authenticity

21:19

require all of those things to be

21:21

represented in a dish or is my authenticity

21:24

more about the quality

21:26

and the freshness of the sofrito

21:29

that's used as the foundation for

21:31

the beans, for the sauces, for

21:33

the stews? And I

21:36

also piggybacking on something

21:38

that Reem said, food

21:41

is alive. Cuisines are

21:43

alive. If you don't adapt them,

21:45

right, if you don't change the

21:47

ingredients, then it's not living, right? It's

21:50

not evolving. And there are a

21:52

number of things happening in our world today that

21:54

require that we evolve our cuisines,

21:56

right? Climate change is upending

21:59

everything we know about. Agriculture, year in

22:01

and year out, or things. that that

22:03

that don't grow that use to there.

22:05

Are a lot of interesting potential

22:07

ingredients that we're finding to be

22:09

really resilient to climate change that

22:12

folks are starting to grow. So

22:14

now some things will be replaced by

22:16

other things. Am the United States? Forgive

22:18

me for using her tiger. It's cliche,

22:20

but is a super melting pot, right?

22:22

There are people from all over the

22:24

planet that live in this country, and

22:26

those of us you get to live

22:28

in big cities live side by side

22:30

with one another. When I lived in

22:32

Brooklyn, I lived in Flatbush, which was

22:34

a heavily. Caribbean neighborhood and so

22:36

the culture, the the foods ingredients

22:39

that I would encounter. Were like

22:41

twenty: Jamaican, Dominican, Black American. you

22:43

know, just general American rights when

22:45

I lived in East Harlem in

22:47

New York, heavily porta Rican and

22:49

and so on. I live in

22:52

Durham, North Carolina. Now there is.

22:54

A large Asian community here I encounter isn't

22:56

ingredients that I used to. Have

22:58

a hard time finding and so in

23:00

order to keep the cuisines alive which

23:03

again I think we should, we should

23:05

adopt them because why not make things

23:07

better? We have to keep playing like

23:10

we have to keep experimenting. I don't

23:12

think. It serves cultures or

23:14

cuisines to be orthodox about

23:16

them. When you cook book

23:19

is called Arab be A

23:21

did I pronounce it correctly

23:23

which means Arab Woman? What

23:25

was your intention with that?

23:27

Especially with this relationship. With.

23:29

Authenticity. Yeah.

23:34

It's kind of in a playful way. It's it's

23:36

the spirit and was. I'd like to do everything.

23:40

I'm as you know as a child

23:42

of immigrants growing up in a very

23:44

suburban. Predominantly white, I was always

23:47

the up other for a I

23:49

was having. That explain for myself and

23:51

always put in the box so. i

23:53

basically reclaimed a my identity

23:56

the title really is a

23:58

reclamation of my narratives And

24:00

it's a way to take everything

24:02

you think about when you think

24:05

of the Arab women and then open

24:07

this book and have it all turned up on

24:09

its head, right? Take every trope, every stereotype.

24:12

That's really what I wanted to do

24:14

with this book. Obviously, there's also a

24:17

reclamation of the Arab women's

24:19

spirit, you know, as the

24:21

carriers of the culture, as

24:24

the folks have always had to

24:26

be up against these systems of

24:28

patriarchy. It talks about basically the

24:30

intersectionality of my identity that I'm

24:32

not just Arab, you know, I am a

24:34

woman. I'm a person of

24:36

color in this country, right? I

24:38

am an organizer that has organized for

24:41

many years in black and brown communities.

24:43

So my food reflects Oakland as much

24:45

as it reflects Palestine. It's all these

24:47

things. I'm wondering

24:49

if either of you, or both of you,

24:52

are finding that cookbook

24:55

editors are more receptive

24:57

to this kind of

25:00

360-degree treatment of

25:04

culture when it's joined with

25:06

culinary things. I'm wondering

25:08

if even now you're finding editors

25:11

pushing back maybe a little

25:13

going, hmm, that might be a

25:15

little too assertive for

25:19

being able to get your books out here. You

25:21

know, you want the widest possible audience. I

25:24

can offer two very different perspectives

25:26

from two very different book processes

25:29

that may actually reflect a change

25:31

over time. So my first book

25:33

was published in 2018, and

25:36

it took me two years to get that

25:38

book sold. And I was

25:40

told not so delicately that there

25:43

really just wasn't that much interest in Puerto

25:45

Rican food. And so

25:47

I did feel like I was

25:49

rowing upstream quite a bit with

25:51

my first book. Today, I

25:54

actually find that I'm being

25:57

actually asked to push into that

25:59

space. I have editors coming to me

26:01

very directly like can you push a little bit

26:03

further into these ideas around colonialization

26:05

or even the question that you're

26:07

asking Karen right what is authentic

26:09

what makes it authentic right. And

26:12

I think there is a new landscape,

26:14

and I will say at least from

26:16

my perspective with my forthcoming book. The

26:19

only places where I still have to

26:21

like kind of butt in is

26:23

when folks suggest ingredients that

26:25

are just completely

26:28

inappropriate. But for example, there's a recipe

26:30

that has sugar cane in my forthcoming

26:32

book, and that gave some folks pause.

26:34

When we got into the editorial and

26:36

I was like y'all can pause all

26:39

you want. It is a

26:41

staple ingredient for the Caribbean and so if you

26:43

are a person who doesn't have access to sugar

26:45

cane maybe that's just not the recipe for you

26:47

to make. Right, like it doesn't

26:49

have to be for everyone to resonate.

26:53

There is an evolution of what

26:55

you know how much harder is

26:57

it for you all, because you

26:59

are these intersectional identities. I

27:01

think that being a woman,

27:04

being a woman of color, and like

27:06

where social justice is the end thing

27:08

you can get really tokenized in that

27:10

process and so for me

27:12

it was really important, all the way through

27:14

the creative process that if I

27:17

could smell tokenization, I would

27:19

have it out right away. I'd

27:22

be like, nope, we're not putting that, you

27:25

know, I wanted everything to come from

27:27

a place of power. Because,

27:29

yeah, this is this is documented

27:31

history and I want other

27:34

women to pick this up

27:36

and see themselves reflected in it. So

27:39

I wanted my book to speak to a

27:41

mainstream but I didn't want to be in

27:43

the white gaze, so to speak, as this

27:45

sort of rags to

27:47

riches brown girl story of like, even

27:49

she can make it in the food

27:51

world. You know,

27:54

women are the keepers of culture, everywhere

27:57

on the planet. And

28:01

I will agree that

28:03

despite women being the domestic

28:06

ones, you know, the folks that take care of

28:08

the home, that take care of the family, we

28:11

don't have proportional representation,

28:14

probably in any field. Cookbooks

28:16

certainly are among them. I

28:20

also know that despite my positive

28:22

experience with my current book process, the

28:25

folks making decisions at the highest level,

28:27

particularly for major publishers, like the ones

28:29

that Reem and I are working with,

28:32

those spaces do continue to be white.

28:34

And there do continue to be a

28:36

lot of men that like, there's

28:40

an expression in Spanish called a

28:42

chingona. Which

28:45

hopefully, yeah, I mean, like, you know,

28:48

for folks who haven't heard of that,

28:50

right, is like a badass woman. Like

28:52

a tough and hardworking person

28:54

who is confident. That's sort of like

28:56

how I translate that term. And

28:59

I think that part of what I've

29:01

been seeing is a lot of us

29:03

in this space insisting, right, we are

29:05

the keepers of culture, we don't have

29:08

to do it this way. My

29:10

culture is incredibly expansive and

29:12

has lots and lots of intersections

29:15

with other things. I am not

29:17

one thing. It's like, I'm

29:19

not just a woman and I'm not just Puerto

29:21

Rican. I am, you know, created of multiplicities.

29:26

And I am seeing that widely in the field.

29:28

I'm seeing a lot of

29:30

really like wonderful brown women who

29:32

are body positive, who are insisting

29:34

right that like you can be

29:37

a fat woman and a

29:39

cook, and no one should think anything

29:41

about it or judge you for the way that there's

29:43

like some really interesting things going on in the space that

29:46

I think do reflect some work

29:48

that's being put in and also reflect

29:50

the ways all of our,

29:53

you know, myriad black and

29:55

brown communities are deeply woven

29:57

into the fabric of American

29:59

society. and at this point, inextricable

30:01

from it. If you could wave a

30:03

magic wand or a magic whisk or

30:06

whatever it shifts you,

30:09

what would you change if

30:11

it was in your power

30:14

about how books by

30:18

people who look like me are produced

30:21

and are sent out into the

30:24

world to succeed? I

30:26

wanna see more imprints that are owned

30:29

by people of color, started by people

30:31

of color for people of color, because

30:34

I think the people at the

30:36

top are still sort of making the

30:38

decisions and are the gatekeepers to

30:41

our cultural narratives. It's gonna be really

30:43

hard for us to have resources to

30:45

tell our stories and to tell them well. I

30:48

think only when the people

30:50

who share kind of cultural

30:52

experiences with you that

30:55

everybody gets to benefit. How about

30:58

you, Don? If I had

31:00

a magic, we'll say it's a magic cleaver.

31:04

You are Tingona. Yeah,

31:08

to change something. I

31:12

think there needs to be a concerted

31:15

effort to be doing reconnaissance

31:18

amongst communities that are underrepresented.

31:20

A lot of times, the

31:22

excuse that folks give

31:24

for why there isn't a person

31:27

of color in the running is

31:29

that they didn't have that many

31:32

applicants. It's like, well, okay, if

31:34

we wanna be truly restorative in

31:37

this world, if we want to engage

31:40

in practices that lead to justice,

31:43

then we need to go out into

31:46

communities that are underrepresented and

31:48

get to know these talents. There

31:50

are, and this is still true to

31:53

the state, abysmally few editors of

31:55

color at major publications, like the

31:57

ones that Reem and I are working with. And

32:00

it shows right. It puts a lot of

32:02

own ass on. The writer to

32:04

represent right and to do

32:07

an excellent job. So yeah,

32:09

my, my magic cleaver would

32:11

would lead to some concerted

32:14

efforts to get to know

32:16

the colon airy talent that

32:19

may. Be. Hasn't made. It

32:21

gets does there you know there are the. Future.

32:26

Of lean fine. Thank you very very

32:28

much for your time and for your

32:31

insight and for years said humor and

32:33

for your book been a pleasure thinks

32:35

he'll think he so much. How.

32:39

Amazing with those women care A I could

32:42

listen to them all day. Me too. But

32:44

at this point Laurie I'm focused on eating

32:46

snap meeting someone with us. he would send

32:49

the kids yes but I should point out

32:51

that all the books we talked about this

32:53

a link for those in the show pit

32:55

take a look ending right where we began.

32:58

Hungary. Yeah. And.

33:08

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episode was produced by our intern

33:45

Olivia Too Cozy and Just Come.

33:47

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and a big shoutout to the

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rest of the codes which Fam

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Christina color Courtney Stein has yet

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Lopez seems need the the motors.

34:00

Sean, Kumari De Verrajan,

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Leah Denella, B.A. Parker,

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Gugspie Betts. Call your granny. See

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ya.