Plate by Plate

MARCH 2023 by Dawn Johnson

POWER OF THE PLATE: The South Side and South Indian Cuisine

The windy city breeze that flows from Lake Michigan flows through the segregated neighborhoods of Chicago. The undeniable clusters of ethnicities in neighborhoods like South Shore, Oak Park, and pockets of Edgewater reflect a long history of Chicago’s zoning discrimination. From one vantage point, these clusters consist of authentic and dynamic cuisines, preserved foodways, and fresh markets within walking distance. On the other hand, these distinguished neighborhoods perpetuate the weaponizing public policies of housing discrimination, redlining, and food deserts. While these deeply seeded policies and the after-effects remain concrete, exposure to new cuisine can be a conduit for breaking racial and segregated boundaries. 

From working as an interpreter on a previous sugar plantation to the urban environment of Chicago’s streets, the exposure to the detrimental effects of sugar consumption and production for Black Americans is vital. 

“Though Black labor no longer plays a role in producing sugar, sugar still plays a role in the lives of Black people. Among all Americans, added sugar has been linked to growing rates of certain chronic illnesses, including those from which Black people suffer the most. African Americans are more likely to eat poorer-quality, processed foods with high amounts of added sugars.” - Nikkole Hannah Jones 1619 Project 

I heard once that you can only go as far as your vocabulary. To contend, you can go even further as the knowledge of food on your plate. Begin to imagine a cuisine expansion program for South and West side residents starting with the juxtaposition of South Indian cuisine and the South Side.  

On a 12-block strip from 67th and Stony Island to 79th street, there are 2 Dunkin Donuts, 7 fried chicken restaurants, and approximately 20 fast food restaurants collectively. Not to mention, the abundance of corner stores and gas stations that have a greater presence of hostess cupcakes and peach rings than healthy options. Without accessibility to a car, these neighborhoods are hubs for diabetic and cancer-inducing products. So what does combatting this reality look like with less accessibility by foot and a lack of constant exposure to a healthy environment?   

To travel from the South side to the Edgewater neighborhood, take the red line to Sheridan and Loyal then hop on the 155 towards Devon street. When you see the shop windows of embellished sarees and vibrant dupattas (garments and scarfs), you’ve arrived. 

Udupi is a vegetarian South Indian restaurant named after the city of Udupi. The city of Udupi is located along the coast of the Arabian sea in the Southwest Indian state of Karnataka. In this plant-based cuisine, nutrient-rich ingredients such as chickpeas, tofu, and lentils are staples. Antioxidant-rich legumes, nuts, grains, and seeds are skillfully seasoned with essential spices like turmeric and curry leaves. According to Dr. Sheil Shukla, an internal medicine physician, and cook, a lot of the ingredients in plant-based meals are foods packed with phytonutrients, protein, and fiber.

“Certain compounds in tofu, known as isoflavones, are associated with a lower risk of developing heart disease. Even further, curcumin, the key phenol in turmeric, has well-known anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties.” - PlantBased India

To challenge the taste, family members and I made our way to the Edgewater restaurant. 

For an appetizer, we had fried lentil donuts, accompanied by savory sambar & fresh coconut chutney. Lentils are a superfood containing fiber, potassium, folate, and iron. The low-salt appetizer is more satisfying than the sugary Dunkin' donuts. The typical Dunkin’ donut contains dextrose ( added sugar), soybean oil, whey, enriched unbleached wheat flour, and guar gum ingredients. Not including the dairy allergies and trans fat baked into each convenient bite.   

America runs on Dunkin even though our bodies can not afford to.  

Following the appetizer, several entrees of Kadai Paneer, mixed vegetable pakoras, and chutneys challenged our tastebuds and pronunciation. Our waitress graciously interpreted the ingredients in the Gujarati dishes. We took it upon ourselves to even google the geographical origins of the foods. The variety of spices, onions, vegetables, potatoes, and tofu left us full before finishing half of everything. More importantly, ingredients like fiber, healthy carbs, folate, and fruit-based chutney satiated our appetite without saturating our bodies with high sodium and unnecessary sugar. 

By indulging in vegetarian cuisine, the servings of fruit and legumes curbed my sugar cravings without spoiling my appetite. 

The overarching idea is the ability to promote healthy conversations and awareness supported by available options that can propel radical dietary shifts. So for African Americans who suffer the most from the overconsumption of sugar and food deserts, I submit an introduction to a new plate, new culture, and a new adventure through food exposure. That exposure can take place through community programs and tailored curricula. Fostering conversations over the table can ignite exposure to new ethnic foods and tear away racial misconceptions. Throughout the decades of segregation that have produced more separation than education, we can reclaim power through the plate as an educational measure.  

“ It is not enough to be white at the table. It is not enough to be black at the table. It is not enough to be 'just human' at the table. Complexity must come with us - in fact, it will invite itself to the feast whether we like it or not. We can choose to acknowledge the presence of history, economics, class, cultural forces, and the idea of race in shaping our experience, or we can languish in circuitous arguments over what it all means and get nowhere.” - Michael Twitty, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American American History in the Old South

SUGAR BABY

APRIL 2023

“ Give me some sugar baby !” 

Every kid watching the proud family can recognize the multiple meanings of that phrase. Sugar Mama, pennies down to ride grandmother, is a depiction of the humorous, sassy, and blunt grandmother figure that we may have experienced growing up. Whether an aunt or church member I can recall many direct exchanges of wisdom and small acts of love through a piece of sugar. The sugary exchange in the form of a caramel candy twisted in a golden wrapper seemed louder than the church choir at all the wrong moments. Those nostalgic exchanges of sugar followed me into adulthood. 

 My childhood memories and enlightenment on the production of sugar converged at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Within the walls of the Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora exhibition, stood an installation made of spears, wooden stands, and various shades of sugar. At first glance, I observed the disks known as “panelas” and recalled Kara Walker’s A Subtlety exhibition with a 75-foot sculpture made from Dominos sugar in 2014. These 25 skewered panelas stood roughly 6 to 7 feet tall. The shades of brown, green, and white visualized the multiple stages of sugar from dark molasses to bleached white table sugar. The stools connected traditional Chinese and African woodwork. The Yoruba spears that stabilized the totems of sugar were sharp like the serrated leaves that hang from the sugar cane plant before harvest. In one installation, I observed the global exploitation of sugar from West Africa to Cuba to China, and Louisiana.

Before the Civil War, there were roughly 1,291 sugar plantations from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. In 2023, the remaining sugar cane fields contribute to Louisiana’s $3 billion industry of sugar. From 1800 to 1975, enslaved individuals, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers worked the sugar plantations in Louisiana. 

From South Louisiana to the Chicago exhibition, the inextricable history of exploitation and sugar I thought I knew expanded even further. From 1847 to 1874, Cuban planters imported over 140,000 Chinese workers to the island. ( Not including the individuals who did not survive the voyage.) Under contracts, the emigration of Chinese laborers known as “ Liber Emigracio China Para La Isla De Cuba” fueled the exorbitant demand for sugar production. In the 1900’s governor Charles Herbert Allen exploited the island of Puerto Rico using land grants, tax subsidies, water rights, and forced foreclosures to build his sugar empire in the American-occupied territory known as The American Sugar Refining Company. By 1930, the American Sugar Refining Company and Charles Allen dominated 80% of the agricultural land for sugar. Today we know this company as “Domino” sugar. 

The domino-ting history and political power behind major sugar companies have always been and continue to be at the detriment of lower-class and black and brown communities. Especially in food deserts pervaded with refined-sugar products.

The quotidian social determinants in food deserts include marketing ads for fast food, unemployment, poor nutrition awareness, and even limited educational opportunities that widen the gap of inequity. The overconsumption of sugar is a battle from a political and social standpoint, that leaves generational scars on the health of lower-class citizens. So how do we combat these deeply seeded food inequities that can be traced back to slavery and perpetuated by healthcare systems that prioritize profits over people?

I.N.C: Immersive Nutrition Curriculum 

By imagining a practical approach to eradicating diabetes, the first approach involves nutrition classes that incorporate budgeted grocery lists, partnerships with local farmers, and quarterly field trips that expose students to ethnic foods. By partnering with non-profit organizations, additional funding can be provided by grants, rather than the dependency on school budgets. 

A second approach is to amplify the artistic skills of students and the community episteme to create marketing ads within neighborhoods. By engaging in this interdisciplinary approach toward marketing and visual arts, students will be able to ideate in order to combat the marketing programs of major fast-food conglomerates. 

Finally, leveraging the AI technology of social media by incorporating representation through social media influencers can increase engagement. By amplifying social media influences such as vegan Tabitha Brown, esthetician and nutritionist Shani Hilian, and educator Kora Johnson, students can have exposure to the sustainability of healthier lifestyles. By leveraging social media combined with a community-centered approach to education, non-profit organizations can increase awareness and accessibility for I.N.C: Immersive nutrition curriculum. 

The awareness and accessibility to healthy options is a public health initiative to address the intergenerational battle of sugar consumption and Type 2 diabetes.In a world of technology where teens and adults have the propensity to consume more from social media, we can leverage the resource for healthy options that target high-risk neighborhoods through this scaffolded & community-centered approach. The struggle against overconsumption of sugar in Black and Brown neighborhoods is a fight for education and an emerging generation. 


Elaine Brown, the first woman chairman of the Black Panther Party stated, “educate to liberate.” Liberation from the continuation of diabetes, exploitation, and for children to have the capacity to critically think about what they consume. 


A TASTE OF EXPOSURE

JUNE 2023

A TASTE OF EXPOSURE

PART 1

“ Her sole determination was to survive; mine was to replant my rotten roots.” - Elaine Brown 

From harrowing circumstances in Yorktown, North Philadelphia to the constant yearning to live beyond the complaints of her single mother, Elaine Brown was born into an environment that did not nourish her aspirations. 

Before the age of 13, Elaine was knowledgeable of street gangs such as The Youngbloods and the Terrible Toasties in Philadelphia ghettos. Elaine was even violated at the house party of a close friend by gang members of the adolescent Youngbloods. The following group, the Terrible Toasties, was a girl gang that paraded their aggression by assaulting girls who were considered light-skinned, had long hair, or “good” hair. Both forced Elaine into an environment of survival, as she refers to her and her closest friends as “ The Girls Who Don’t Take No Stuff.” 

Long before she would step foot into a piano lesson for children’s programs or write articles for the Black Panther movement, Elaine was the only child of her single mother whose nurturance revolved around their survival. From Yorktown to James Weldon Projects, to the Topia, North Philly Elaine carried the burden of her environment that was an echo chamber of poverty. When Elaine is exposed to the truth about her negligent father who was considered a part of a more elite group of African Americans, it only fueled her desire to be immersed into a world that resembled the families of her rich Jewish girlfriends. Torn between spectrums of Blackness, social hierarchies of respectability, and a constant digression to new environments of poverty, Elaine’s identity is weathered by her surroundings before her first period. Even more so, the dissonance between her white school and her block only seemed to bruise her perception of self and her familial origins that she could not uproot. Every wall of her environment exhibited incentives to leave her life in the projects behind and encouraged her desire to be a part of a different world. 

“ I have been a kind of recluse for some time though when I reflected on it I was not withdrawn or shy. I was simply not part of any of the worlds in which I live. I was mostly a disingenuous player.” 

By 1967, the same girl who struggled to balance herself between two worlds re-entered the world of young girls who reminded her of herself in the Jordan Downs projects. As a talented writer and pianist, she invested back into the young girls of Jordan Downs by teaching piano lessons. Yet, her service to the girls' group did not satiate her guilt that lingered for never looking back to a community of girls that reflected her younger self. This acquaintance with her younger self was the nascence of her participation in the Black Panther Party. 


Less than 10 years later, Elaine was chosen by Huey P. Newton as the leader of the Oakland Chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1974. Every exposure Elaine Brown had before her selection as a writer and leader, equipped her with the fortitude, skills, and adaptability to carry the responsibility passed to her. So what does the world look like when we invest in our youth by exposing them to a kaleidoscope of cultures, languages, and educational opportunities outside of their neighborhoods? What does a Taste of Exposure look like for young Black men and women whose bodies have yet to reach the infinite possibilities of their minds?

-QUOTIDIAN


The Intangibles of Reparations

JULY 2023

In 2019, Ta-nehisi Coates author, professor, critic, and visionary contributed to the necessity of reparations while reminding political leaders of the seemingly forgotten contributions both traumatic and triumphant of African Americans. The single garment of America’s history cannot be unraveled without the acknowledgment of the first ship that arrived across the Transatlantic to the legacy of convict leasing that continues to sew America’s fabric of exploitation. 

As a native of Chicago, blessed with the exposure to my Southern roots in Louisiana, I’ve observed various levels of poverty in Black communities that cannot be categorized as simply “low income” neighborhoods or “ food deserts”, but as Harvard socialist Robert J. Sampson notes, these places are “ ecologically distinct.” The Case for Reparations 

Amidst conversations with several colleagues from the West side of Chicago and Oakland, California, we identified the following characteristics that stem from growing up in these ecologically distinct neighborhoods.

  • How the relationship between people and their environments impacts our mental health and survival methods long after leaving the environment

  • Accessibility and knowledge of nutritious foods when surrounded by fast-foods

  • Hyperawareness and anticipation of violence

  • Survivor’s remorse

  • The incessant disregard of consistent and quality infrastructure investment on the South and West sides

On this Juneteenth I urge you to imagine what the intangibles of reparations look like.

  • Prioritized communication between city officials decisions and existing Black communities. 

  • Allocation and accessibility to ancestry tests

  • The beautification of vacant lots and investment literacy resources

  • Spaces for leisure and botany

  • High quality accessibility to mental health services 

What do the intangibles of reparations look like to you?

SOIL by CAMILLE T. DUNGY

PART 1

SOIL by CAMILLE T. DUNGY PART 1

ARCHIVE HOUSE MUSIC SERIES: THE QUOTIDIAN VANTAGE POINT

Every distinct musical experience at the Archive house has been an unforeseeable transformation of my taste in music.

“ I'm interested in, what happens when you stay.” Theaster Gates

Baredu Ahmed has executed an ongoing monthly series of musical performances that breathe life into the unprecedented site of musical activation. The archive house lives on the Dorchester block and is a beautiful piece of architecture assembled from repurposed barnwood. The site lives within the Greater Grand Crossing community rather than outlying, along a strip of community gardens, local schools, and African American residents. In what would ordinarily be a living room space, Baredu has sought out and kindled the talents of an array of musicians, singers, poets, to create an inferno of improvised duets. Most recently, the cello performances of Lia kohl and Spencer Tweedy as well as the electronic affirmations of Brown Calculus. The distinguished archive house is an architecturally inviting and intimate home that widens the scope for preservation, performance, and musical movement.

On the evening of October 18th, musicians Lia Kohl and Spencer Tweedy played together for the first time in the jazz reminiscent front of 6916 S Dorchester. Tweedy invited the audience to partake in his array of instruments including cha cha nuts, drum brushes, and handbells.

Kohl began by accompanying her cello by thumping against the wall with her elbow. She immediately exercised every bodily limb as a part of her improvisation by beating her arm against the wooden beams creating a rhythm as she plucked up and down the strings evoking an ominous yet curious introduction. The extraordinary usage of the smooth cello’s top as a beat before the stroke of her bow captivated the front row audience and cast down our pre-existing ideas of the limited utilization of a cello’s bow. The audience witnessed the build-up of her crafty musical intelligence with the staggered entry of her synchronizer and kazoo. All the while, Spencer Tweedy carries the sounds of brass drums and cha cha seeds that creates a progressing synergy between the two.

I could not help but imagine how these musical instruments are an example of the infinite possibilities that stem from our finite minds when we use every tool that is within our reach.

In the construction of the home and the selection of the artist there is a beautiful craftiness that comes from drawing from seemingly dissonant factors, talents and instruments that create this synchronous aura and this beautiful experience that exposes every audience member to a space that they will never see again. The preservation is only held in the memory of our presence. Where each audience member becomes a conduit for preservation.

The stewardship of our imagination makes way for creating more robust houses.

-Dawn Johnson