For Black History Month, we feature Real Food Reads authors that explore food and Blackness, healing and pleasure.
Food is a powerful way to open the door to conversations and action around many other issues because food intersects with so many aspects of our identities and our society. From racial and environmental justice to land rights and economic equity, food is an important pathway to imagining the world we want. But food is also about pleasure, healing, and connection.
It is uncovering your history through the foods your ancestors grew and ate, it is discovering the dishes that make your body feel nourished, it is learning someone’s story through the food they share. We see this connection to pleasure clearly in the work of our Real Food Reads authors who write at the intersection of food, health, sustainability, and Black identity. These authors, farmers, chefs, and activists tie the history of Black people’s relationship with food and land to the joy and healing necessary to create new ways of being in the world that value Black bodies, cultures, and communities.
In community and solidarity,
Tiffani, Tanya, Christina, and Anna
Read the full issue of the Real Food Scoop
Header image: Lazarus Lynch, author of the Real Food Reads book Son of a Southern Chef, eating his mother’s saltfish. Photo by Anisha Sisodia / Son of a Southern Chef.