Black History Month: Through the Writing of Food
I shall forever be a learner of other cultures, as learning through food and books are the most enjoyable way to start this journey.
BY: JINGSHU HELEN YAO
The theme for this month is a little hard for me to approach. As a POC and a newcomer, I fully understand the frustration of others misinterpreting or even appropriating my own culture. I shall forever be a learner of other cultures, and I wonder if I could share what I learned with those who are equally interested.
What started me off with the interest in black culinary culture was a highly rated African BBQ on Yelp. Living in the suburbs without a car usually means being far away from good food. I was excited to find out that the Suya Spot is located on Morningside Ave. and only a 10 minutes bus ride away from UTSC campus. That was the first time I tried Jollof rice and fried plantain. The spicy and flavourful suya impressed me and gave me one of the best experiences of dining out when I first came to Canada. Later on, the Linguistics Student Association at UTSC organized a social event at Lalibela Cuisine, an Ethiopian restaurant located in East York Toronto. It was such a unique experience for me since I had no idea that the food would be served on a piece of injera as if it was a plate. After getting into grad school, I lived in downtown Toronto for a short period of time and right outside my train station was Jerk King, a wonderful place for Caribbean food, well informed from its name. I used to commute for one hour and a half to work in Scarborough and on my way home in the dark, grabbing a full-packed box of rice and beans topped with jerk chicken or oxtail was a great comfort for my exhausted mind.
Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta / Image courtesy of The Writer’s Union of Canada
As a learner, I don’t have the right to speak for others’ foods and cultures. Instead, I looked into stories to seek the voices that best represent different communities. Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta connected food, identity, and immigrant experience. Set in “Little-Jamaica” Eglinton West neighbourhood of Toronto, the protagonist Kara’s experience as a second-generation immigrant is easy for most Canadians to relate to. Food and cooking played a major role throughout the story, especially in the depiction of the mother-daughter relationship between Kara, her mother, and grandmother. The title of the book, fried plantain, was one of her grandmother’s dishes that Kara likes the most. While the conflict of different values and beliefs often causes tensions between the women of three generations, plantain symbolized the family connection and unspoken love and understanding through food. The several scenes of Kara’s grandmother frying plantain and talking about Kara’s favourite food were some of the most heart-warming elements in the novel.
Culture shock, both against the white dominant community and against the Jamaican culture, is another challenge that Kara faced growing up. The theme is also shown to the audiences through the culinary tradition. The story begins with Kara finding a pig’s head in her aunt’s freezer, a bloody horror to Kara but a common practice for her family in Jamaica. The experience made Kara’s cousins treat her as an outsider, one too delicate to handle her own culture. When Kara started to retell the story to her Canadian classmates with exaggeration, she was also viewed and treated differently by her classmates and teachers, so she realized herself as an outsider for both worlds.
Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi / Image via them
If food and cooking were only elements in Frying Plantain, then Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi is a novel that is centered on culinary culture. Not only did it expose the audiences to Nigerian cuisine such as jollof rice, baked mackerel, and guava, but also traced two of the protagonists, twin sisters Kehinde and Taiye’s journeys. Taiye went to culinary school in Europe while Kehinde worked in multiple restaurants across Canada. The two sisters were driven apart by their childhood trauma, Kehinde was sexually abused while Taiye, too scared to intervene as a child, watched her sister being raped. Both of them tried but failed to run away from their past and eventually returned to their hometown Lagos to confront the truth and their feelings. Once again, food is a way of showing the characters’ emotions and relationships. The home-made meal that Taiye served her mother Kambirinachi when she came home and found about the mistreatment her mother received from the caretakers; the chocolate caramel cake Taiye baked before picking her sister up from the airport; the meals Kehinde and Taiye prepared together while dealing with the guilt and forgiveness from their childhood.
Unlike many novels, Butter Honey Pig Bread lays out the detailed process of cooking, as if it was documenting a recipe. As a reader, I could easily visualize the characters’ each action. These movements are no longer the simple practice of preparing a meal, but also a glance at the character’s internal dialogue.
As much as the stories can teach me, I am still interested in hearing from someone from that community in real life. I reached out to the friend who first introduced me to Ethiopian food and asked about her connection with the food and culture.
Illustration by Tom Jay
What are some Ethiopian dishes that you enjoy the most?
There are many Ethiopian dishes that I enjoy! From the meat dishes, I love Tibs (sautéed beef with Ethiopian spiced butter, caramelized onions, and other spices) and Ye'beg Alicha (a mild sauce made with lamb, Ethiopian spiced butter, and other spices). From the vegetarian dishes, I most enjoy Misir wat (a spicy lentil sauce made with an Ethiopian spice blend called berbere).
Could you share the experience of cooking traditional dishes, or is anyone in your family good at cooking them?
I have not had much experience cooking Ethiopian dishes myself, but I hope to start practicing soon! However, I have been blessed with a lot of family members that are incredible at cooking traditional dishes. Through observing them, I have learned that many of the cultural dishes require a lot time and expertise. For instance, good Doro wat (spicy chicken stew) can take a very long time to make! Ethiopian food is made with patience and love, I think that is what makes it so special! Also, Ethiopians are not shy with their spices and that is part of what makes our dishes so unique and complicated to make. Most dishes incorporate a variety of spices such as berbere (spice blend), spiced butter, garlic, onions, turmeric, ginger, and the list goes on and on.
Do you often introduce the dishes to people from other cultural backgrounds? How did those experiences make you feel?
I have introduced Ethiopian food to a majority of my friends and it has always been a fun experience. In Highschool, I invited a large group of friends over to my house and my mom and aunt cooked a variety of Ethiopian dishes for them to try! In University, I recommended an Ethiopian restaurant to go to for a club event and they all tried it for the first time. We love sharing our culture with people from other cultural backgrounds! Most Ethiopians consider our culture to be a part of our identity. As a result, sharing parts of our culture, including our food, make us feel closer to those we are sharing it with.
Is there any term for ingredients or cooking techniques that you find hard to explain in English?
Not ingredients per se, but injera can sometimes be a little hard to explain to those who have never seen or tasted it. I do not think that calling it a type of sourdough flatbread is a sufficient description. It is quite unique in how it looks and tastes, so when people ask me about it, I usually tell them that they will not truly get it until they actually taste it.
Do you feel more connected to your culture and language through the food?
Definitely! Food is a very important component of our culture! A lot of our traditions incorporate food in some way. Even the way that we eat our food encourages bonding and friendship between people as we often eat from a common large plate and occasionally feed each other (gursha). Cooking the food itself can be a bonding experience, as family members are often seen in the kitchen cooking together and through this practice the younger generations learn the traditions from the older generations. In addition, as the birthplace of coffee, Ethiopians have quite elaborate coffee ceremonies that also create an atmosphere that encourages bonding and dialogue.
