Jon Gray - Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen

Ghetto Gastro
Black Power Kitchen

Jon Gray, Pierre Serrao,
and Lester Walker

With Osayi Endolyn

Foreword by
Dr. Jessica B. Harris

Photography by
Nayquan Shuler
and Joshua Woods

Artisan Books
New York

To our families, especially
our mothers: Denise,
Roxanne, and Elizabeth

To the communities
that nurture and inspire
us, and to our ancestors
who blazed the trail

Peace to the Gods
and the Earths

DR. Jessica B. Harris

Food is often taken to be a neutral topic of conversation, something to talk about with colleagues or strangers while avoiding the contentions that may come with deeper topics like politics or religion. But in the African American world, food has always been a difficult subject: one that brings with it a history of struggle and strife, one that can evoke generations of want and decades of pain.

The story of food in the African American world has always brought with it a subtext of fight: the fight for land rights, for parity and equity, for dignity within a profession that was traditionally relegated to those of African descent until it became lucrative and then was snatched back with the door slammed in the faces of those who had labored long at the stoves and had a foundational hand in the creation of food that is now acknowledged worldwide as American. This tale of food and Black Americans is now being told by a group of young men who are fighters: warriors in the struggle to reclaim a culinary heritage and affirm its proper dignity and its proper place in history.

I do not remember when I first heard about Ghetto Gastro. It was several years ago. My initial thought was Interesting name; I wonder how they put that together? As time went by, I heard more mentions of Ghetto Gastro, but they were usually in the realm of art or some type of performative occasion: They had presented at an event or launchedsomething at another. It was only recently that they came fully into my ken as bona fide members of the culinary community. After finally meeting Pierre Serrao, Jon Gray, and Lester Walker, I leaned in and began to listen. And what I heard made me feel as though I had some spiritual children on a planet I didnt know with whom I had miraculously reconnected.

Black Power Kitchen is a book that explains those connections. In its pages, the members of Ghetto Gastro and writer Osayi Endolyn set out what is a culinary manifesto about the nature of Black food. The introduction, Food Is a Weapon, is a call to arms and an explanation of the fight that is inherent in their push-the-envelope name. The book goes on to remind readers of the battle that food has been for Africans in the United States and indeed in the American hemisphere and the world. The authors begin by centering us in their place; and their place is and will always be the BronxNew York Citys most urban borough. (And I say that as someone who was born in Queens, lived in Manhattan for two decades, and can currently claim more than thirty years in Brooklyn!) They walk us through the streets and into the mom-and-pop restaurants, pizza parlors, delis, and bodegas and present an array of the boroughs food in detailed recipes with evocative headnotes that let us experience the tastes of their part of town.

From there, they take us on a stroll through the magnificently named Durag Diplomacy, continuing the culinary journey throughout the African diaspora, and then double back to give us a look at Black American culinary history. On the way, they present us with notables who, in insightful interviews, add to the total picture. We hear from, among others, Nigerian chef Michael Elgbd of TN in Lagos, writer and filmmaker dream hampton, Black Panther activist Emory Douglas, and Thelma Golden of the Studio Museum in Harlem. Each conversation expands the notion of Black food by mapping out the interlaced threads of culinary history in the African diaspora in the American hemisphere. The dialogues combine with the recipes to help redefine the terms African and American in a global context and then place the cultures and their foods on the table.

Many will have difficulty defining the book, although why books need to be categorized is beyond my comprehension. Black Power Kitchen begins as a cookbooka compilation of wonderfully detailed recipes that are mainly plant based and allow the reader to sample the foods discussed. But from the first pages, it is apparent that it is so much more than a cookbook. Black Power Kitchen is perhaps first and foremost a love song to the Bronx, but it is also a treatise and a travelogue, a history of Black people and food, and a challenge that is both culinary and cultural. It adds serious schooling by presenting difficult truths about the current state of food. Theres hard talk about the lack of food availability and access in our communities and reminders about the abysmal food of the prison industrial complex, along with thoughts on diet and health and a plea for making healthy foods more affordable and available. However, the book doesnt end with this serious and necessary information. Black Power Kitchen also reminds us that while the road may have been stony and the journey arduous, while there have been many food fights along the way, it has not been without joy. The joy of family and friends and the stops along the way for relaxation and celebration are all acknowledged, as is the need for self-care.

In Black Power Kitchen, the Ghetto Gastro collective has created a work that contains a world, one in which the past, the present, and the hope for a better future are expressed through food and folks, recipes and reminiscences. This is what the culinary warriors are fighting for. Its a work to read, to cook from, to contemplate, and to savor.

We are Ghetto Gastro . Welcome to our Black Power Kitchen.

Lets first deal with what usually needs to be dealt with. Our name makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Its not our intent to polarize for the sake of ceremony. In fact, we were all young boys when we learned that our existence itself could be polarizing to folks who didnt know us. Ghetto is used as a derogatory term to dismiss and separate cultures from their mainstream counterparts. Ghetto is used as a way to cue discomfort, to cue the Other. When that unknowable thing is over there, you dont have to deal with it, you dont have to be with it. Thats what ghetto is supposed to dodehumanize.

You recognize this unsettling feeling because you might not be sure if its polite to say the words Ghetto Gastro. (You can and we hope you do. Watch out, though, say it three times fast and we just might run down on you. Ya dig.)

You feel this discomfort because you might have worked tirelessly to get out of the ghetto, surviving difficult circumstances to create a more sustainable life. Or you might wonder why someone would be proud to claim an identifier that could sound off-putting to outsiders. You might already have a sense of what were up to but might question our credibility. We get it. Its wise to be suspicious. Ghetto has been whitewashed and commodified, used for gimmicks and a particularly Americanized performance of Blackness. (You can look to projects like