Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, the Rockefeller Center, New Stand Studios, joined as usual with uh John here in the booth behind me. How are you doing, John? Doing great, thanks. Yes.
Yes. Got uh Joe rocking the panels. Joe Hazen, what's up? Hey, how are you guys? Happy holidays.
And happy holidays to you as well. Uh live in Vancouver Island, not Vancouver. We got Quinn. How are you doing, Quinn? Hey, I'm doing good.
Good, good. And uh together again in Los Angeles, we have Jackie Molecules and Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. What's up, guys? Hi. Hey.
Hello. Hey, and uh, we're gonna go back to our normal format. Like last week we had Jacques Papin on, and we were gonna do our like introduce our guest at the beginning and shoot the breeze like we've been doing. And his assistant was like, he'll hate that. But this week, she's like, she's like, he doesn't want to hear more than one person talk at once.
We're like, okay. But this week's not like that. So uh our special guest today is Tanya Hopkins. How you doing? Food the food grill.
Uh you know, there's a food grill. We're gonna talk a lot more about what you know, what she does in general, but welcome to the show. First time on. Thank you for having me here. Yeah.
All right, so now this is the part of the show where we just shoot the breeze about what happened last week or whatever. In the world, in life and life, in food. So who's uh who's got who's got something who's got something good? Who's got John? You got something?
Food wise? Foodwise no. I heard that so this is gonna be John's first year as uh like the the chef running a restaurant, all right? Oh, right. Congratulations.
Temperance, Temperance wine bar. And uh everyone should go. Uh, even though I have not gone since he took it over. Because well known, I'm a bad person. Nastasia's gone multiple times.
Multiple times. And you enjoyed it, right, Stas? Yeah. I thought it was great. I wish you would go, Dave.
I was gonna try to go, oh, whatever, man. Jesus. Anyway, uh so my point being though is he fell into the trap of not closing the place on New Year's Eve or Christmas Eve, but also not selling it out. Uh oh. So now just gonna be there.
Oh, it's a loop of in majority. Yeah. It's not my decision to make, unfortunately. It's the owner's. So have to abide.
Yeah. Live and learn. Well, I hope that on New Year's Eve, at least, John, that you do not come by your name honestly in the back of house. And after you make like however many canaps you gotta make for the revelers, that you just start pounding champagne. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. At least there's that access to cases of champagne. Yes, especially. I would hope so. What about uh what about over there in LA?
Any uh any interesting food products, food things, non food, anything going on in Los Angeles that I should be aware of? We had an absolutely terrible meal at some bar. I had the worst burger maybe I've ever had. Oh, talk to me about how bad your burger was. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.
Describe the burger, describe it, please. Okay. I ordered medium rare, right? Okay, okay. How thick is the burger?
How thick is the burger? That makes a difference. Maybe an inch? So like an inch, maybe? Thick burger.
Okay. No. Well, no, it's maybe less than an inch thin. You're not gonna get medium rare. No, it was gray.
You know. Okay, okay. It was gray. Right. It tasted like defrosted freezer ice.
It was like it tasted like water. Nice. Yeah. Nice. It's really, really bad.
And I have a pretty like low bar for a bar burger. And I'm not expecting the world out of it. No. It takes a lot for me to be like this bar burger is terrible. Now now, uh, did you what what did it have uh cheese on it?
It did. It was uh cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onion. Yeah. And still no flavor, huh? It was just a very sad looking burger.
I think Seth took a picture of it, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'll put it in, I'll put it in the Discord. Yeah, put it in the Discord. Put that put that stuff out there.
I want to see Jack's sad, sad, sad burger. There is something incredibly sad. I remember when uh I used to occasionally be a uh judge on at the finals at the French Culinary Institute back when that existed. Yeah. And it was always like interesting when students somehow simultaneously over and undercooked it.
You know what I'm saying? Come on. It's well, well, yeah, you cook the hell out of the inside. You you hammer the hell out of the inside, but the outside still doesn't have a like any sort of crust on it, and yet it's not moist. It's not like you steamed it.
It's dry on the outside, it's just there's no crust. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And the inside is uh the inside is a I have a new I have a new burger theory recently. You know how everyone's like all about crust now, all about smash, all about crust, all about thin, and they double up on patty.
That's like you know, whatever every five years, whatever it changes, whatever. It doesn't matter. Yeah. I do believe though, that you need to use a more flavorful meat if you're gonna use a thick patty. Because you do get a lot of that inside burger.
I like, I like a nice flavorful meat. You know who makes a good meat? Our friends, uh Edwards Age Meat. They do make their hamburger meat. Now that I had their hamburger meat, I don't know that I co-signed his name for it, Beef Crack.
It's a little bit, it's a little bit not appetizing. Well, in my opinion. I'm not like uh you know, like as someone who was a kid in the 80s, like I never understood crack becoming something that you want that was like a positive attribute. Except for the addicts. Right, but that's the whole point.
In other words, like, in other words, like I was never for crack as a positive attribute. My brain was on the whole other definition of crack. I didn't even know that's what I always assume that's what it was. I think it's the addictive nature to it. No, no, no.
The body part known as Oh, the butt crack. Yeah, beef crack. Like the didn't even enter my own. Thank you. And then, like, even worse, was there any sauce on the sad little burger?
Because like any special sauce? Oh. No. Was it a sauce jazz? Yeah, an unsalted sauce.
That's the other thing. Like, if a burger doesn't have salt on the outside, what is it? It's horrible. You know what? What about places that serve bar food but don't put salt out?
Well, because usually it's already salty enough. It's already trust. Yeah, but I don't trust the food. I don't trust people. Are you saying you trust people, Tanya?
Not really. You know this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I want to trust people.
That's my first move until, you know. Yeah. They immediately give me reason not to. Yeah. By tasting it.
Yeah. So, Stas, you were also there. Yeah, I was there. What did you want? Uh baked baked quesadilla.
Baked quesadilla. How was that? It was not so good. It was a bad left. What?
Oh, yeah. And then we got then we got 10 $10 pretzel bites that were like these little soft pretzel squares that looked like they were microwaved and it was just bad. But the confusing part is it was like a nice room in a nice part of LA. Yeah, you wouldn't think it would be this bad. It was very confusing.
Wow. Oh, LA usually has really good food. That's to me, it's underrated. Yeah, so but the company was God, right? You're like, it's we had a good time together.
That's all that matters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
I mean, look, I have to say this. Like, it like at this point in my life, like, I love like good food, but like if the food is solid and the company is good and the atmosphere's okay and the and the servers aren't like actively making me angry, like by being mean to me or like actively not bringing me like the one thing that's gonna make the food taste good when it tastes like garbage now. Like if that's not happening, I don't it it's all fine, but like if it sounds as bad as what you had, it's kind of like that's a whole nother level. But was it bad enough to be funny? Yeah, it was, it was, it was.
It was the presentation was really funny too. It was just a sad burger on a plate with nothing else on it. Uh that's kind of a win then. That's kind of a win. I've been to places I would agree.
Yeah. I've been to places that were so bad that it was hilarious until the bill came. And then I'm like, oh yeah, that kind of happened to us too. Yeah, that's true. All right.
What about you, Quinn. You got any good food stuff going? What about your did you taste your fancy olive? So, Quinn, I don't know if you're gonna mention this, Quinn. I don't know if I'm blowing your your world up here, but apparently, I did not know this.
Quinn, where is your the fancy olive oil that you have from? So, off of Vancouver Island, there's an even smaller island called Salt Spring Island. And apparently they have an olive grove there. And there's a company that makes very expensive olive oil. But like how many bottles they make a year?
Like three. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you have one at the end. A few hundred.
Now, last time I spoke to you about it, you hadn't tasted it. I uh I put a call in to Captain Oily, Nick Coleman. He's like, I've heard about it. I want to taste it. I want some of this oil.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he doesn't talk like that, but yeah, but yes. But like for the purposes of storming. So yeah, you need to talk like this. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So uh so what does it taste like, Quinn? How is it? I haven't tried it yet. What the hell, man? Come on, Quinn, keeping it around the house.
It's it's a perishable item, my friend. I know, I know. Drizzle, start drizzling on anything. Yeah, yeah. Toothbrush.
I mean I'm I'm you know, it's not, it's not uh it's it's not gold bricks. You don't keep it. You you eat it. By next week, it'll be tasted next week. All right, so next week we have no tangent Tuesday, and Quinn will tell us about his uh his uh greasy, his greasy, greasy tastes.
And uh John, you wanna uh talk about uh joining the Patreon who's coming up? Yeah, well, before I mean, and mentioning that, uh, any Christmas related questions need to be got in by next Tuesday, and the way to make sure that Dave answers those on a no tangent Tuesday is to become a member at patreon.com slash cooking issues. Uh you get a bunch of great benefits with that, like joining the Discord, interact with a lot of our members. You get discounts at Kitchen Arts and Letters, discounts from some of the people that we have on the show. Um, yeah, different membership levels.
So give it a join and uh get your questions in. Yeah, and if you're listening live, call in too 917 410 1507. That's 917 410 1507. All right, so uh I have a little food. I have a little food stuff this week.
I am now so like are you like Tanya, are you a mixer person? Do you like mixers? Like not like parties, like like physical machines mixers. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Like stand mixers.
You know, I'm not that fancy. I'm a great cook, but I'm like old school. But you know, I can appreciate it if if it's required. Why? Well, I I I got a new mixer that's okay, okay.
And you want to talk about it? And you'll talk a little bit, a little bit. So, like, so I grew up KitchenAid, right? So my mom had like from like I think maybe she was like giving it when I I don't remember her without it. Right.
So it had to be like somewhere. It was before we moved to New Jersey, so it was before 1973 or four, right? That weird yellow 70s yellow. Oh, I that mustardy yellow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like light mustard, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh old tilt, the tilt head one. You know what I mean? Not like the one where you crank the bowl up and down, the one that's like smaller that you everyone used to have in the bowl, like clicks and snaps. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They made the it was well, those were well made. Yeah, I mean she she used that thing up until like 2010 or something like this. And the and it still worked fine. It's just, you know, whatever. They made money.
So that she got a new one eventually. I don't know. Isn't it called TV Yellow? It's called TV Yellow? I believe it's called TV Yellow.
Because Because yellow was one of the only colors that actually popped on black and white television. Oh I know that uh the Lone Ranger shirt was light blue, not white, because light blue looks whiter than white does on black and white TV. Or maybe it's maybe it's like the way that the cameras registered. I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know anyways. Back to TV. TV yellow uh Kitchen Aid. Yeah, for all of you that care. Really, really bad color gamut on old school TVs.
I remember how crappy TV was. But I watched the hell out of it. Well, there's a lot of ta channels today making money playing all that old nostalgic stuff. So how crappy was it, Dave? I mean I mean, you know, it's what TV was TV, man.
Did I need to see every Gilligan's Island 25 times? Need is the is a debate. Yeah, I but we did. I you know. Yeah, like the shows that were like what what what uh what what TV market did you watch when you were a kid?
Philadelphia. Oh major metro South South Jersey. Okay. But you didn't get you didn't get 11. Did you get Channel 9 W R that making it?
They were like the later ones to Yeah. Yeah. Because it was like UHF and VHF and Yeah. I kind of, yeah. Yeah, I was always like the my memory in the New York market.
So kids watched Channel 5, which became Fox Later, and Channel 11, which was WPIX. And so it was all the shows that were on those two things. So like Scooby-Doo, What's Happening, you know, Gilligan's Island. Gilligan's Island, Flintstones, maybe. Yeah, that came on at like five, though.
Okay. What what time are you talking about right now? I mean, like, I would, as soon as I got home from school, I would turn on my only friend the television set. Yeah. And have that thing going.
Xers, the the life of the ex, the Gen X growing up. Yeah. Yeah. And I was an only child until I was like uh 16. So like Oh my god, me too.
Oh, really nice, yeah. What? TV, my best and only friend. Same. Yeah.
Same. Yeah. Here we are. Yeah. Fat a lot of good that did us.
Anyway, uh, so anyway, so I grew up Kitchen Aid. Right. Right, right. I'm like back to kitchen. Yeah, yeah.
This is how this is how we work here. So I grew up kitchen aid. And uh the new ones, like they're really powerful and they're really big, but they really, really piss me off. Like they throw flour everywhere. Like uh last year, so Booker, my my older son Booker, he like started liking to make cakes.
He would make all of these freaking cakes out of the milk bar cookbook, like uh all these tozy cakes, he would make these things. But then whenever he make icing, because he does not care, he's autistic, he does not care. So he'll just put all the powdered sugar into the kitchen aid and go, boom! And then it's really fun for him, I would I would think it sounds fun. I mean, how much fun was it cleaning it up?
First of all, my kitchen is like just like just equipment everywhere, stuff everywhere. And like all kinds of nooks and crannies and stuff and like open storage, right? Because my which my wife hates, she's an architect. I'm like, I'm not gonna open a door to get a bowl. I'm not gonna do it.
I got a bowl I'm using all the time. And also all my bowls same size, right? So I'm like, I'm like, I have a stack of bowls all the same size, and then another stack of bowls, all a different sizes. Because I'm not about lifting one bowl to get the other bowl. No.
No. That's not you I hear you, man. Yeah. So, anyways, so he puts the powdered sugar in, goes, boom, and like, skoosh. It like, it like uh volcano, like a powdered sugar volcano.
Or like a like a World War I like war movie, like a mine, like boom, just like powdered sugar everywhere. And I was like, I hate this. I was like, I I like legitimately hate this. And also the new kitchen aids, and for those of you that like have Kitchen Aids at home, Kitchen Aids fine piece of equipment. Uh the new Kitchen Aids, right?
The none of the beaters touch the bottom of the bowl. Yeah. Did they used to? Yes. In the 70s, they worked, the small one, but the bigger ones.
I can remember that clicking, that noise. Yeah. But now, right? They're like, but there's an adjustment. There's an adjustment screw that you can make, but you can't make the bowl go up far enough.
So everyone has these fancy kitchen aids. And what do we all do? We grab the freaking bowl with our hand and we like jam it up into the beater to get good contact. Why? And then, God forbid, you make like uh a stiff dough like a pasta dough, right?
Mm-hmm. You can't walk away from that thing because kitchen aids, you know, much like you know, much like your son's about to be uh Joe, like to walk. And then they're like right off the counter. A kitchen aid will walk right off the counter. Uh anyway.
What's the moral of the story, Dave? I moved to Bosch, which is German for a couple of years. Oh, okay, different brand. Different brand. So there's three, but everyone here only uses Kitchen Aid, right?
But in Europe, there's two others, right? And some uh in the US, right? Bosch, which I liked for a couple years, started to take me off for different reasons I won't get into. I've just moved, I've gone Swedish. Oh, oh.
And karstrum. And so far, I really like it. Are the have the clouds open or the harps playing or the angels singing? I only just got it, but I really like it. I really like it.
So far, no mess. Open bowl. You can stick your hand in it without getting your hand mangled because of the way it operates. It rotates the bowl. Oh.
It rotates the bowl. But do we have contact? Is there contact? There is three, two, one contact if you watch that show growing up. I'm talking about the series.
Yeah, no, it's it's good. Uh I know more to report on later, but yeah, yeah. But I was gonna say the moral of the story, new isn't always better, is it? Right. Well, the latest greatest.
This Swedish one, they've been making it the same exact design since 1940. Since 1940. They just you just made my point. Yeah. Because you kept the the word you kept saying with the KitchenAid, the new, the new, yeah, the new one, and it's like, but the moral of the story is new ain't always better.
Right. Well, yeah. But I mean, that's just you know, I know that's like anti-capitalist of me and anti-consumerist of me, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Yeah. Well, the only thing problem with this old ones is that the is that everyone everyone wants to be semi-pro at home, so they make larger batches of things.
They think they want to be semi-pro. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so that's my that's my food story of the week. So it's not even food story, it's equipment story. Okay.
Equipment to make food. Yeah. Also, I got punked into buying a I got punked into buying a West Bend potato chip factory by one of our listeners. I want one of those, I think. See, I'm I'm I just got punked.
It just sounds great. So it was made in the 90s, like 1993, right? And and the engineers must have been just like high, right? Because it's it's a machine. Who needs it?
It's a machine like roughly the size of a toaster, yeah. And you put like two cups of oil into it, and then get this. It has a chute on the top, and you you stick a just a just a potato one potato into the chute. One potato, not two potatoes. I mean, if you wait.
And then you sit there and it slices the potato, drops the potato in the oil, moves the thing around, then lifts it and like dumps it out of a chute. But get this four chips at a time. Okay. But it keeps doing it. Okay, I was gonna say, but if the intervals, if it's like, yeah, and then you end up with however many chips, one potato.
Yeah, yeah. And then you see you stick another one in top, but I was like, this is the nuttiest thing ever. So I got one. Is it faster than running to the corner store to get a bag of chips? Oh, hell no.
No, no, no, no. Well, but I mean, it like the principle of it's interesting because um, you know, honestly, like the problem people have with potato chips is they put too too many in, and then the temperature drops, which actually theoretically shouldn't be a problem, but you need your temperature regulation just right so that you get all the moisture out before they burn. Anyway, so like we'll see whether it's any good. The problem with it is, Tanya, that it has no mechanism for salting it. Well then Right.
So the thing is like, what am I? Because I need to be salted hot. Wait, wait, but also what am I supposed to do? Yeah, supposed to salt every four chips, salt every four chips? You're supposed to be on the ready with a little ramekin of you know, chef salt.
You do the the chef salt thing. That's what you're supposed to do. It's also I saw some videos, they're loud. They're like four chips. Uh like if I ever have a party again, if I ever do a party again, we'll just have it out there running.
You don't hire a chip steward or chip facilitator. But it's yeah, it's like 30 or 40 levels below. Uh you ever watch the old Belshaw donut robots, like the Mark Four Donut Robot? That's that I have. You ever go to like a you remember you know you go to like um you you go to like uh a pick your own joint and they have like those apple cider donuts, they have a little machine going chub boom chub boom chub boom chub boom chip boom if you say so.
Anyway, so like they make all different lengths, right? But the the one that I've always wanted, they make one I think that runs off of a 110 outlet. It's about yay big, so like a yard and a yard, yard and a half long, about you know, meter and a half for you Euro folk and uh or everywhere else in here. Everywhere and it's like a long like oil trough with uh with a donut doser, like a plunger thing, and it just sits there and goes boom boom boom mm-mm and puts those little apple cider donuty things. Donut holes or like actual donuts?
No, like the like well, they make ones that'll do full size, but usually the these ones do the minis, like a hole in the donut, like I remember the donut? Yes, yeah, yeah, like that size. And so like, and then like they float along the oil on this little conveyor, and then the conveyor has like um like a little like a little trough that flips and it flips the donut in the oil and then keeps conveying it and then lifts it up on a conveyor and then drops it into where they're dry, and then you just keep eating the keep eating the donuts. But where's the glaze? Where's the powdered sugar?
Where's that step? That again, you just need to do that. So, like what some people would do, they build a like a rotary carousel that comes off of it, but it's more money, right? That comes off of it, and then they sometimes they have like powdering or glazing units off the edge of that. But uh, Jason Rhodes, the artist back in the in the 90s, he put one into a uh uh an art exhibit once.
Oh. And at that Whitney Biennial. And I went to the Whitney Biennial, you know, because I used to be in art, right? That was my thing. Yeah, you remember uh Rhodes uh John?
John was a former art professor. Who knew? Yeah. There's no one. Remember Jason Ross really no end to your collective talents here in this room.
I show up at the Whitney Biennial and he has all these donuts with this donut machine. And I was like I was like I I was like I was like listen if you're doing this and your art is about this, I'm gonna eat this donut. And I ate one. Yeah. It was stale stale.
It was art. Well but the whole point like like as someone who's like in the art business at the time I was like the statement he's making the idea that it's precious and that I can't eat this donut is absurd. You know it's on its face absurd. I want edible food that's good in a museum whether it's art or not especially if it's art. Yeah yeah.
All right so actually so that uh that brings us to uh actual topics that we're supposed to be discussing today. Uh so I was trying to remember where I first met you. Did I meet you at the French culinary or was it one of the I think I met you before we ever were doing Mofad events at the French culinary because you used to do stuff at the French culinary didn't you? I did. Oh my goodness were you at one of those ridiculous crack of dawn meeting morning meetings we used to have to plan the fundraisers and the events to raise money for scholarships for students.
I don't remember I used to do whatever they told me to do. Goodness gracious. Yeah my friend and colleague Heather Johnston who owns Goodwine a food lovers wine shop Buxlo Brooklyn 327 Fifth Avenue between third and four wait between third and four streets yes uh we uh she she's uh an alum and I don't know. We rope each other into things all the time. I rope her into like Mofad needs wine for the thing.
Which we do, we always do. She wrote me in for this uh the French culinary needs people to help with the thing. But I'm not a mourning person, and we would had to go to these meetings at like I'm not I'm not exaggerating. Somewhere between 6 and 8 a.m. Like at the French Culinary Institute, and I was, you know, getting my espresso injected.
And but we we would sit around the table, and like everybody's face is a blur right now. Why? Because not a morning person. So you might have been sitting across from me at one of those. We might have met there.
I my memory is of meeting you on Bayart Street when you guys had the physical location the um in Williamsburg. Yeah. Yeah. Well, kind of Williamsburg. Oh, it wasn't really Williamsburg.
I mean, was it Williamsburg? Was it Green Point? Was it in between Williamsburg adjacent? We had Williams Point. Greensburg.
Okay. Yeah, yeah. Who knew? It was kind of like nobody's neighborhood. It was right on the edge.
Nobody's neighborhood. No, yeah. Unless you were skateboarder, in which case it was the place. Skateboard Central. There's a huge skate park right across from us.
That should be the name of the place, skateboard central. Yeah. If we had started the museum of skateboarding, oh my God. That would have been like, yeah, the place. Right, John?
Yeah, that's true. Yeah. True. Yeah. We're there all the time.
Yeah. Uh all right. So your social media moniker is uh and then of course we were working a lot together on the African slash American thing, which we'll get to. Fast forward. Yeah, fast forward.
So, like, but your your social uh media moniker is the food grio. Why don't you describe what the heck that means? Okay, all right. Thank you. Because people read that the food grio, G-R-I-O-T, and they're like, Griot, uh G Riot.
G Riot. And I'm like, the T is silent, first of all. It's uh Grio is a West African patois, creole French informed word that means storyteller, raconteur, historian, poet, musician, many things. I'm I don't the thing that appealed to me about the name is storyteller, um, keeper of information, transfer of that wisdom, making sure that things get carried from one generation to the next. And, you know, just the things I would observe in African American culture, American food culture, black food culture.
I was like, stuff is getting lost, and I we have to do something about it. And uh, you know, and also narratives, you know, being written back into the story, like it's the storytelling aspect of it, the history part of it, and the importance of making sure that um it gets transferred and continues. So I and because most African Americans, um, particularly in uh North America, African Americans have DNA from West Africa. Like if we trace our origin and ancestry, it's coming from what is present day Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, like, you know, uh, and so, and that's where this word uh comes from, and it's a word that's popular in those different nations that weren't necessarily those nations back when the transatlantic slave trade started. Anyway, that's my long answer.
De jour. I've I never answered that question the same. Well, good. That meant people have to listen to multiple interviews to get all of the different uh aspects of it. The challenge though is I, you know, I want it to be like the food and drink Grio, but that's a lot of characters for a handle, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like I'm half liquid. I'm I'm I'm as much liquid as I am solids. Yeah, a lot of the stuff that you like a lot of the consulting work you do, right? Is is cocktail-based, rum-based, cocktail base, liquid base, liquid.
All the all the boozes in search of hooch. Yeah, I did like a whole that's another one. Someone get that right now. Go on Instagram, get in search of hooch. Right.
Hooch searcher. Sounds a little dirty. Well, you know, the it could work though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It could work because of that reason.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh yeah. So I'm the great granddaughter of a speakeasy owner. I read that on your bio. Crazy.
Like uh, did you did you ever get to meet her? Yeah. Yeah. She was born like in 1900. She was an amazing cook.
And um, and she's the she was the oldest of like 13 children, and the last one born in the county, uh the Maryland County that where the tobacco plantations were where our ancestors um for centuries, like since the early 1700s. Michael Tweedy, another mutual friend of ours, helped me to um trace to we're back to like, I don't know, somewhere around 1730s, um, this one particular area. So my great grandmother was the last person born there before the migration, the great migration from that upper south into New Jersey and Philadelphia. Um But is your food culture growing up still that kind of mid-Atlantic Maryland? Absolutely.
So talk to me about Maryland beaten biscuits. What do you want to know? I don't know. Like make-beat who beat the biscuits. Can we make some?
Do they can they taste good? The last manufacturer stopped making um 10 years ago, I think, or something like this. Like the last put like like cottage industry group of people. I've I've never I've tried to make beaten biscuits, but they probably suck, and I don't have a target because I didn't grow up eating them. So I don't know whether the ones I'm making are any good or not.
Ah, there you know. There you go. Do you like them? I mean, here's the thing. As opposed to a deep southern beaten biscuit.
Full disclosure, I can't even eat that many biscuits. Turns out I have a modern wheat issue. Oh. Yeah. Not celiac, but you know, like I'm not a biscuit connoisseur.
My friend Carla, who I'm gonna see after this, you might know Jeff Carlaha. She is a biscuit expert connoisseur. Um, and she makes amazing biscuits. She's even made me some amazing gluten-free biscuits that taste delicious. So sorry, Dave, I can see the disappointment in your eyes that I'm not gonna be able to do.
I just want like someone to help me out. I 3D printed a biscuit docker to try to get the right shape on the freaking because you know you gotta beat them, form them, dock them, cook them. That sounds like a eat them. Popsaw beat them. Yeah.
Beat them, form them, dock them. Uh-huh. I don't know. I don't know. Print them.
You gotta print them. Print them. Uh so what else from Maryland? What else, what else? Like, give me some more mid-Alttic.
Because I don't really want to tie my family, like my my dad's whole side of the family is uh Baltimore. But Balomo. Right. Like he went to uh he went to Polly uh and you know, whatever, Glen Burney. They ended up moving out to Glen Burney, whatever.
But the point being, you know, when I was a kid, my grandparents lived in Columbia. So like that area, right? But uh I don't really know much about the food culture there other than like a big thing. It's the birthplace, it's the birthplace of American cuisine, sir. I mean, arguably that whole Chesapeake Bay area, the so that's the Maryland side.
The other part of my family is the Virginia side. So between Virginia and Maryland and all that history there, uh, it's always interesting to me that it's never quite I serve it up as such, but it's never quite been served up as the important region that it is. And when I first got into culinary history, I was going into the deep south, down into Mississippi to the Southern Foodways conferences and you know, trying to rediscover myself and my people and my culture and my food. And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. This is not the origin point.
This is later along the timeline in terms of of um uh the this the real to me, the essence and significance, the profound impact that Southern cuisine has had on um the development of fine dining in America, particularly coming out of the Chesapeake Bay, Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Virginia. We're talking um the star person being, you know, coming out of Monticello, Chef James Hemings. Right. And you s you were the one of the co-founders of the of the James Heming Foundation. James Hemming Society.
It was originally the foundation, now society, who influences Edna Lewis, Chef Edna Lewis, a century and a half later, born in a neighboring county. Right. Really? I did not know that. Yes.
So her people are descendants of like the Madison um plantation area, whereas the Hemings are part of the m the Jefferson. And so that's fascinating, right? How someone born in 1765 influences someone born in what year was that in a Lewis Bourne? She comes to ne to New York in the 30s. I think she was born in like 1916.
Um, whatever that math is, 1916 take with but her style, this this like Virginian French fusion style is directly a result of the ripple effect effect of James's culinary education and training that he did of the Monticello chefs and the neighboring um plantation chefs that also were impacted by that style that defines that region and then works its way north as restaurants become effective. Right. Well, that you know, so uh I know like a big part of you know when we we talk about the scholarship, and I'm gonna get to independent scholarship in a minute because I remember one time we were out at drinks and talking about how like independent scholars get the get the shaft. Out there without a net man. I'm sitting here listening, taking notes to you guys as Patreon uh tips.
I'm like, oh no to self. I need to do that. I remember you're like you were like one. So like it's it's nice if people want to hear what I had to say, but how about getting paid somehow? Yeah, how about like how about you know it's uh because honorarium is like code word for here's five dollars or a hundred dollars, which is equivalent to five dollars today.
But yeah, yeah. Well, when John was an adjunct, he's saying it's not much better, like even if you're like formally, you know, within the uh supposedly like the you know, the embrace of academia, you're still hosed, right? I was in the union and everything's $2,400 a class for a whole semester. What? Yeah.
$2,400 for the semester. For the semester. One of one of my classes, I had 100 students. But John that grading. John, you get the imprimatur of the university.
Yeah, yeah. Isn't that its ownerable? It was a privilege. And a privilege. Yep.
Too bad we don't live uh hydroponically or by you know solar power. I'm like, I'd like to eat some of the food that I talk about. So get this. So John's like, I'm being exploited here. I'm gonna go work for the museum.
And then he's like, he's like, he's like, and then he's like, oh, I'm gonna go work for Booker Grandes. And he's like, oh, and then after that, he's like, you know what? I'm gonna become a chef. Joke is on me, huh? John knows how to go with a big box.
Yeah. Oh, man. Never thought about it that way. Awesome. Go me.
Okay, man. We're in the same sandbox. So you are not alone. Yeah. Oh my God.
Okay. Uh so, but uh, I know like uh one of the subjects that you know was interesting when we were first sitting around trying to figure out what the African slash American exhibit was going to be, is this whole fact that all of the kind of professional cooks, right? Or most of the professional cooks, and like a lot of where that comes from, like high-end American cooking hospitality, hotels, catering, all black, you know? And it's like somehow when cooking became cool, that got written out. When it became an actual profession with prestige and honor and salary, whatever, compensation celebrity compensated celebrity status because there are early chefs, America's uh first celebrity chefs, which I don't like to use that term applied to enslaved people who are have no agency for themselves.
Oh, they were celebrity chefs, because that kind of makes us think that, oh hell, cool. Like, no, but they were the most famous, you know, well known were uh James Hemings, Chef James Hemings and Chef Um Hercules Posey, owned by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned uh James Hemings until James Hemings negotiated for his freedom. He he he was involved in his own emancipation, which happened in 1796. And then like what but uh no one knows exactly what happened to him after that, right? Or like it's yeah, it's a mystery.
Yeah, they say the story goes that he it was death by suicide, but Chef Ashbell McElveen, the founder of James Heming Society and the living foremost expert on um the details, the research of James Life, who, you know, in Paris, he's done research in Paris and here and the States for for years, he's got other theories. He doesn't believe it was suicide. And so let's trace that like a little bit further because uh, you know, I wish uh I wish I uh you know knew about or could have gone to this to this dinner. So like really rich northern industrialists all used to hang out in Saratoga Springs. Right.
And the people doing the cooking there, also black folks. And there's been a couple of good scholarly works on kind of the hospitality industry in Saratoga in the in the 1800s. But someone who lived in Saratoga and then came down to cook, who I didn't even know about, uh and and Northup, you know, then you do this whole meal, re you know, reconstructing something actually in the mansion up in uh right, you know, I used to like my mom was is uh was a doctor at uh Columbia. I was like two blocks from the Jumel Man Mansion growing up, I spent at 168th Street and the hospital, like chilling whenever my mom was doing stuff. And like I never even went over to that mansion.
I never even saw it. And so you do this dinner reconstructing like a meal that she would have cooked because she was a like professional cook, like sometimes in Saratoga and sometimes there. And so we all, you know, we hear obviously, you know, 12 years a slave, blah blah blah. She was she was the one left behind to do the work when he got stolen when he was a few. Well, she was doing she was already doing that.
He that's part of he he is uh abducted, stolen um while she's away. She's she's a highly sought-after, very highly skilled uh technique chef. I don't know if they would have called this black woman a chef in the early 1800s. Uh, but she was in high demand for, you know, high up people in government and business. And it was the season that that she was, you know, had to do these fancy estate dinners and things, and and he was a fiddler and a carpenter.
He had like they had multiple, they all they worked, they both worked. She had always worked. And he was kidnapped when it eighteen forties, right? Somewhere around there. So in that region, in that area.
Yeah, because his book comes out in 1852. Um, so yeah, somewhere like yeah, late 30s, early 40s. But um, part of why she ends up cooking in the Jumel Mansion, the woman, um, what's her name? Madame somebody. Yeah, but uh which I didn't know this.
Turns out she married Aaron Burr. I yeah. Crazy. Crazy. There's so many dots to connect, like the layers.
Right. When he was old though, he was old. Old. It's like later. It's not like it's not earlier in Burr.
Well, I read like he had the he had the fancy pedigree, even though he had shot Hamilton, but she had the money. And so they thought it was like she had no pedigree, which is why she was like called herself Madame somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but she had the mansion. And yeah, Jumel was her first husband or one of the husbands.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she was a regular in the Saratoga Springs and loved the food and the and and so forth and wanted that that level of cookery in her mansion for entertaining and dinner parties. And Ann Northup was desperate to try to play a role in trying to um find help her husband. So she being in New York City was advantageous to Anne to for different um abolitionists and advocate allies who were gonna help to find Solomon Northup. And um and so she comes with this woman to to live for a couple of years and cook in the mansion.
So when I found this research out, and then I was like, oh, the mansion is still there and it's going strong. They have a functioning kitchen. And like, you know, I was like, hey, I was like, hey, I just discovered all this research that I'm doing, and you know, any interest in recreating uh me. They were like, yes. I would have hoped that that would have been a uh ongoing thing.
I mean, it was people are still talking about this thing. But they only did it once, I would love to do it again. Invite me, I'll you know first of all, the tickets were cheap. Uh yeah, they were tickets were too cheap. They were too cheap.
It was a lot of work, a lot of work, man. It was 10 it was ten dollars. I looked it up. It was ten dollars to like go on the tour, which is like fundamentally free, right? And then it was sixty-five dollars if you wanted the like multi-course, five course wine paired, you know, soup to nuts and salad and cake.
Yeah. How was the how was the dinner that was a funny? It was delicious. And I actually we recruited some students from ICE, I believe, to help. I'll forgive you.
But the fact that we're talking about this, uh, and we could do things again in real life, everything doesn't have to be virtual. Let's do this. Let's do this, man. Let's make it happen. Sure.
But you know, I I don't know who's in charge of the mansion now. The, you know, it might be new new management. New people. New people we gotta make friends with. All right, let's just uh talk about something else uh before we get into the reason why I desperately wanted to have you on right now.
Okay, but wait, wait, wait. Did you know that the guy, potato chips, just to connect the dot to something earlier, and became this portal to all these amazing uh chefs and cooks. Uh the guy who invents the the the black chef guy who invents the American potato chip. Right. Have you done more research on that?
Because you told me that you were like still working on it like years ago. Like I don't know what the current theory of operation on the Saratoga potato chip is. Yeah, the black guy named George Crumb. Pun intended, his name is George Crumb, uh, in in the 1850s, uh, comes up with he's credited for creating the For popularize No from for making that. Well, okay, so what I heard was that there was a butthead guest.
Right. Who's like, not crispy, not crispy not thin enough, not crispy enough. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's the Saratoga, that's the Saratoga chip, right?
He like so the chef, Crum, is like, how about now? He's like, no. And every chef knows this eventually. Chef's like, F you. Right.
I'm gonna hammer these sons. Yeah. And then he's like, yeah, like. And he comes up with this like delicacy at the time that we now, you know, have as a snack food. There's a theory that it might have been, there's some people who are saying his sister was involved, or like there's a hidden black woman in the scene involved and helping him.
Is that why we didn't go harder on the story in the thing? Because I remember there being some sort of some kind of block or some kind of I don't remember what the block was. Well, there's just not the data. It's so you have to be like a detective. Like it's so hard to get to the bottom of a lot of these stories.
But you know, also histories were written out. Yeah, people just were not included. Yeah. Also, like for me, the personal, this is like, you know, personal in in museum in general and like origin stories in general, is that like most origin stories are at best embellished. It's like who made it who made it popular, who made it popular?
What's the group of people that's the group of people, not necessarily like the one authority? We have a way, right? Of doing that in this culture, like this one person. Right. And it's like, is it ever one person?
Because there are always there's always other you know what I mean? So like I always get like whenever whenever like something is traced back to an individual, I'm like, okay. You know what I mean? Like you're suspicious. A little bit, just because uh, you know, I I understand it, like, you know, I and obviously all of us like in the hospitality industry, we understand that to sell something you sell a person that people can understand and people go buy that, they buy the personality.
But it's never true and someone's getting hosed. You know what I mean? Like right. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know. I remember making potatoes just by hand. I didn't have your fancy contraption. Yeah. I was up at Molly O'Neill's uh she had used to have this uh incubator for food media people, and we're up there in Renssorville, New York, not too far from Saratoga.
And I got inspired to to make uh that was the you know, we all had to kind of do something that before we got out of the program. And I was like, I'm gonna make potato chips by hand. Yeah it was pretty good. Well so that what is your what is your do you have a technique for potato or do you want technique? All right.
Yeah. I mean I could I'm one of those intuitive I'm one of those old school come from a long line of professional cooks in America. And you just learn from watching and learning and multi-sensory and you know Edna Lewis talks about that when she writes recipes. They're kind of a yeah but I mean you know if I thought about it I could tell you some technique but make sure the oil's hot not too hot. Well yeah you don't want to burn like the look look look I want are you thin or are you thick?
You know uh what are you asking Dave? Chips. Okay. All right. Or crisps as those weirdos call it in the UK I know which came first the crisp or the chip I don't know.
Chip come on and a French fry in on what planet is a French fried chip. In in the UK planet in the England in for the Brits. Yeah but if you think about it why would that be a chip? It's not chip shaped. Exactly it's ridiculous.
Because they're their English is weird. Yeah I mean even like wood chips aren't shaped that way. Not like you know chips are chips. Yeah yeah yeah they're just trying to confuse us. Yeah it's unpleasant it's unpleasant yeah linguistic for it on purpose.
Yeah it's not any digress to me the issue is is so like I I've I've done so potatoes obviously have uh some sugar in them, right? Especially like the ones that we have we can't store them well enough to make sure that well like literal like sugar so that they they they get too dark. And so a lot of people don't like their potato chips too too dark. Is that from the sugar? Yeah.
I didn't know that. So it's like, so like one of the things you can do, you can soak them in some acid, and then they'll taste a little bit of acidic. Well, yeah, and it'll leach out some of the sugar. Okay, right, right, right. And so then you can you can cook them a little bit longer, make sure you get the water out without them getting too dark.
But so that I I ran all of these tests, right? All of them, all of them, all of them. And then I did the old school kettle where you're just like chop, chop, chap, chap, chip, chap, chop into the oil. And Dax is like, these ones taste more like potatoes. I'm like, like fried protection.
I'm not allowed to curse my. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas like he's like, when you taste them side by side, the ones that are just soaked don't have as much potato flavor because you soak that stuff out. Oh, because the put yeah, the flavor's gone. Yeah, I'm all about the flavor, man.
Yeah, don't take my flavor away from me. I like uh I like a thin chip. I'm just gonna be honest. I usually don't, I'm usually like I'm thick all the way, all the way. I'm consistent, you know.
I'm I'm a thick chick. But for the chips, I like a good thin chip. You ever have the actual Hawaiian? Like a little air bubble in the chip. Oh, yeah.
You ever have the actual Hawaiian Maui ones in like the glassing paper that like they they like they don't ship? Yeah, the ones that you gotta go to Maui. Yeah, yeah. I've never been to Maui, but I've had whenever someone goes, they bring them back for me. Oh, I'll bring that up.
They're very good. I wish I could make that chip. Those are good chips. I met some Hawaiian chefs recently at the beard house. Oh, yeah.
And um Leah and Wong wasn't there, was she? She's in Hawaii. You've been in Hawaii for a bunch of. No, I didn't meet her. But and my my family's on the West Coast, and we go to, you know, I I tag along to Hawaii.
I'll probably look them up. Maybe I'll I'll, you know, see if they can hook us up. Never been to Hawaii. Yeah. My wife was born there.
She hasn't been back yet. What? Uh huh. That's another conversation. Yeah.
Uh, all right, so uh a couple things before we get, we have a couple questions from the listeners we got to do, but I want to talk about you have a show every Sun every Sunday? Every Sunday. Every Sunday, savory and sweet on W-U-R-D, the word radio. Word radio. And that's out of Philly.
It's out of Philadelphia. Yeah. So uh now the sad thing is is that you they only put up clips. They don't put up the whole thing. I couldn't find the whole thing.
They usually they put up your chef's interviews. They do? Yeah. Okay. I mean good job looking out for your own.
If you're following the food, man, and you go to my Link Tree, I I post the most recent uh episode. The full one? Yeah. It's like a like a two-hour show or something. It's just a two-hour show.
It's about to be a one-hour show. Actually, as of this last Sunday, it's now a one-hour show. All right, so you want to say what the I mean, like again, I only got to listen to the chef interviews, but do you want to talk about what the what the show is about there? Or about the radio station in general? Sure.
Yeah. So W U R D, their tagline is progressive Black Talk Media. Philadelphia's Progressive Black Talk Media. It is one of the only 100% owned and operated, family-owned black talk stations in the nation. I believe there are maybe three.
It's the only one in the state of Pennsylvania. Um I live in New York, but I went to college there. It's a whole story. Uh and they have uh yours truly hosting their first ever, the first food show. And it turns out uh in the scheme of things, it is the first, you know, it's 2022, and black people are still like, I'm the first and only, uh the first uh what is the first day?
What am I what's my point? Uh weekly broadcast dedicated to food, history, and culture from a black perspective. Uh uh, but inclusively. I like to connect the dots to other cultures. And you you should come on my show.
Heying, you know? Okay. Sure. Yeah. But that's the my tagline is food history and culture.
And I talk with chefs, I talk with mixologists, I talk with food sciencey people. I just talk with, depends on the topic. I try to keep it like December is bartender appreciation month. Did you know? What?
I did what? What? Uh uh well, you know what? You know what you should do? You should go out to people's bars and appreciate them by giving them money.
By paying for just give don't even get a drink. Just give money. That's when you put the money on the bar and walk out. That's when we used to make all of our money. Oh, right.
You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. It's like uh, you know, and you're you're about to go real dry, you know, like you know, Jan Feb's never as good in this city summer's never as good because everyone leaves. Yeah, what's with the dry jam? I I caped the whole try of January.
But yeah, I gave you a shout out, you'll see it on the post. I was like, it's bartender appreciation, but I'm gonna talk to Dave Art. Appreciate him because that's one of your many roles. And you should you should appreciate your bartender. Absolutely.
In my opinion. Yeah, I mean, I'm a home mixologist. I don't get to another, I'm you know, another reason I'm in the same sandbox as you, I make a mean drink, but in the house. Yeah. So like nobody's putting money on my kitchen counter for the drink I just made for this.
What if you did that? Maybe someone came over to your house and you're like pay up. Yeah, like a jar, like a tip jar in your house. I have a tip jar on my late tree. It's empty.
Hit hit everybody, anybody, everybody. All right, but here's the news I saw, and I feel I'm a little bit like usually what I like to do before someone comes on is see and or read whatever they're doing, but I can't because it's not available yet. What? What are you talking about? This new Food network thing that you have coming out on December 26th.
You have the whole series coming out. It's Food Network celebrates Kwanzaa with a new series, the Kwanzaa menu, hosted by you, Tanya Harkins. And so like how many episodes is it? They they they basically are like you have to wait till the 26th. We're not gonna tell you Squat Pola.
It leaked for like a few hours on I think Thurs last Friday, the episodes were like out there for the world to see accidentally. So you missed that window, didn't you? Yeah. So talk to me about what's happening here. First of all, also like I know Squat about Kwanzaa.
So talk to me about what the show is. Okay, so what's going on? So big picture, it's part of a um a series that Food Network started doing, I don't know how long ago, of um I call you know, their I call it their ethnic series, the where they take a holiday like uh Lunar New Year or Diwali or Juneteenth. I think they have four others. I think Kwanzaa's the fifth or the sixth of this series, this and it's called the the whatever the holiday is menu, right?
So the Diwali menu, the Lunar New Year menu. This one is the Kwanzaa menu. The last one was the Juneteenth menu. And so Kwanza, a non-religious cultural holiday, is seven days long. So there are seven episodes.
It's seven days because the Inguzo Saba, the the seven principles each day that you're supposed to kind of reflect on. And uh it's great because it's a great lead up to the new year. So instead of like the New Year's Day, and because the last day of Kwanzaa is the first day of the new year. So the last day is on the first of January. The big feast night is on the 31st, which is the same as New Year's Eve.
So it's a holiday that was created in 1966 by a pan-Africanist scholar out in California, Long Beach, California, named Dr. Melena Kerenga, who is still an African Studies professor, maybe the head of the department, not maybe, actually, with all respect out there in the Cal State. But maybe. Yeah, maybe. Teaches stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, and so it developed this holiday in 1966. And it it uh, you know, slowly over time, um, it's something that was created, you know, out of African American culture, for African American culture, but it was inspired by uh it's a creative thing, he describes it as a creative synthesis of these ancient harvest rituals and festivals that would happen throughout Africa, and um, and it's designed to be celebrated throughout the the uh diaspora, right? So the Caribbean, the South. Uh a lot of people are like, do you have to be black to celebrate Kwanzaa?
It's like, no, but you know, was it was it designed, you know, for a people that kind of historically, you know, this system was intended to take everything from. And I don't say that bitterly, I'm just you know, it's just a matter of fact, the people were brought here to be to to work and to be disconnected from language and history and all this stuff. Culturally erased. Right, exactly. So this is a an infusion back in, you know, um, to a culture that was erased or attempted to be erased, right?
So um right. So each day, you know, there's a different principle. It starts off with unity on the first day. The last day is Amani, which is faith, Kiswahili language, because we don't have like African Americans, we could be we could be coming from so many different ethnic groups and other and religions and languages. We you don't know.
I mean you can do a cheek swab today and get a idea and estimate of you know where your people are from but it's such a mixture because then we're also uniquely American because that once we get here's other things that happen you know whether it's um mixing with uh the Europeans or and or the Native Americans I'm you know saying that nicely I'm looking at your face like your ch my choice of mixing well uh you know when you have something that is like 55, 56 years old, whatever it is and do the math on the fly like is there a built-in kind of food culture part of it now? Like or like how so how do you build a menus around it? Like what what's going on? Funny you should ask. So when they asked me I think it was back in 2004 somebody uh Andy Smith who writes all these books he's an editor he was doing a project for Oxford encyclopedia of food and drink in America and they were like hey Tanya is any food associated with Kwanzaa and I'm just like of course there is and I believe Dr.
Harris, Dr. Jessica Harris had already written her Kwanzaa keepsak book. There was some stuff out there that people had you know put together because it's based on you know harvest rituals and the first fruits, there's, you know, there's a basket of fruit, all this stuff. But it's like, is there, you know, when you look at the the official printings from Dr. Tranga, it's like, yeah, like what is the menu?
What's the food? And it's kind of not there. And so luckily, I was able to through my my parents are educators connected to the the Cal State system. I was like, hey, can one of you guys like connect me so I can talk to Dr. Karenga and ask him about that?
And they were like, oh, maybe. I don't know. Let's see. And they made it happen. And I was able to interview him.
It turns out I'm the first. I know I'm sounding on the floor. No one has to. Nobody had asked to ever talk. So that's another thing.
I got to sit down and talk with him about food. And he's a lot of people aren't foodies. And he's not a I wouldn't define him as a foodie. But so he, so at the end of the day, he was, you know, very great informative conversation. But I went to the floor.
Did you interview him on the show? No, I no. This was like, I interviewed him, like it's like on a cassette tape, like on a handheld recorder from when I was, you know, writing my my Oxford encyclopedia. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And um, you know, I found it.
I found the the cassette and was able to put it into a podcast episode 15 years later. But um turns out there is no set menu. There is no, but there are certain principles, you know, you want to draw from different cuisines throughout the diaspora, you know, the African continent, as well as, you know, then the Caribbean, Jamaica comes to mind, places that have really interesting um cuisines, really, and the American South, of course, and and all that kind of stuff. So so it's a really creativity is at the core of Kwanzaa. Reinvention for people who had to reinvent and continue to reinvent ourselves culturally.
It's um it's very inspiring. I love it. I think it's an excuse to try a different uh to try different foods. African Americans have not historically been exposed to African food or to food outside of um what is you know narrowly defined as soul food um in general for the most part, right? So to me it's a great in to kind of discover a broader sense of oneself, a bigger connected to something bigger than yourself through food.
And so people can start looking out for that on the 26th, right? The first episode, yeah. Oh well, actually, there's an episode every day available. They're short, they're many episodes. It's food network.com.
All right, we got two questions in for you specifically. Quinn, shoot them off quick. We got two minutes. Okay, uh, I love the African slash American exhibit. What happened to the artifact and the quilt and what comes next?
Is that a question for you or for the? I don't know. All of us, I don't know. Like uh most of the artifacts were returned to the institutions. Right.
Uh I can't really say what's happening to the kitchen. We still have the quilt that's in store, just being well conserved and cared for. Uh thank goodness. All right, what's the second question, Quinn? Uh, for Tonya, what's a current issue or topic you wish more people were aware of?
Wow. Uh I just wish we um I, you know, it's why I do the work I do as a culinary historian to um just kind of I wish we all knew more of what everybody brings to the table. Yes, some groups, you know, you look at Native American and African American, some groups, you know, arguably might bring a little bit more to the table, but the point is that like who's got the worst food, Tanya? Who's got the worst food? Oh yeah.
You don't want me to go there. I worked in London for a bit. And uh English have good English have good stuff. Okay, because they know how to bring good stuff back to England. That's why they have good stuff.
Old school English roast beef. Okay. Whatever. Yeah. I like a good uh what is that pie with the potatoes and the peas and like shabbers pie?
I like a good fish and chips. Yeah, it's like the fish fries. Like it's you know. But yeah, I had fun designing that Kwanzaa menu. I it was very create.
It was my creative outlet. So I'm looking forward to people enjoying. And there's drinks. There's drinks, there's food. All right.
Well, tune in, uh, tune in to the food network uh for seven days, uh starting on uh the 26th for uh the Kwanzaa menu, hosted by our guest today. Thanks for coming on, Tanya Hopkins. This has been Cooking Issues. This was so fun. Thanks for having me.
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