A Master Chef’s Take on Food, Culture and Community | Marcus Samuelsson | TED

20,929 views ・ 2024-06-19

TED


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00:03
Thelma Golden: Hello! It is so fantastic to be here with the TED community,
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and here with you,
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Marcus, here in Chelsea, at Hav and Mar, to talk about Food for Good.
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So I'm so excited for this conversation
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because there's never a moment where your story
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and the way in which you think about food isn't inspiring.
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So let's start with your story.
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How did you get here today?
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Marcus Samuelsson: Yeah. Well, first of all,
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I'm extremely excited to be part of this dialogue,
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and also to be with you, Thelma, dear, dear friend of mine,
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but also somebody that I admire in all things culture
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and sometimes food.
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I value your opinion on food. Yes.
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TG: I appreciate that. It's not my expertise, though.
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MS: No.
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TG: It’s your space.
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MS: Yeah.
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You know, I was born in Ethiopia,
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and I realized I always start with that.
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But like all our journeys, it's not linear.
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I was adopted, and my mother and I, and my sister, we had tuberculosis.
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And she took us
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from this tiny village to the capital,
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but not only to the capital, to the hospital,
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where she passed away, but we survived.
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So that walk of 75 miles with two kids ...
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TG: Little kids.
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MS: Little kids.
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I always ask myself, what did we eat?
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And my sister and I, we talked about this constantly.
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She never thought about what we ate.
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I say that because I think our journeys as people,
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even before we start thinking about it, can have impact on food.
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So I realized that, after asking a lot,
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it must have been this chickpea flour called shiro,
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which is really a porridge.
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So my journey on food starts somewhere there,
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on that walk from Abrugandana to Addis.
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I think we had dried nuts,
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chickpeas, dried injera,
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all things that are great when you travel
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and you can kind of just bring with you.
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We would consider them snacks today,
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but this is something that you eat throughout the continent
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as -- it could be your daily meal.
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Once I got to Sweden, you know,
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and I went -- just an eight-hour ride.
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I went from being Kassahun Tsegie, which is my birth name,
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to Marcus Samuelsson.
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I traded injera, shiro and berbere for herring, salmon and mackerel.
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I still don't know which one I like the most.
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But the big influence for me on food was my grandmother.
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And my mom was a decent cook,
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but my grandmother was an amazing cook.
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TG: Grandmother Helga.
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MS: Helga. Absolutely.
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And it wasn't just what we ate,
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but it was how she perceived the seasonality
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and how a food existed in her space.
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So there was always a foraging season of something.
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There was always a pickling and preserving time.
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TG: What did she preserve and pickle?
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MS: Mushrooms. Herring.
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Berries. Apple jam.
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The plum was always --
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The plum jam was always by the plum that had fallen down.
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“You’re a fool. You got to know this.”
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That's what she told us.
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You can't give away the plums that have already fallen down.
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They were for us for plum jam.
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Something you had to know.
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But the plums in the tree that were really nice
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you can give to the neighbor over here, for example.
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There were rules with what food we gave away, what we kept.
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So anyway, food existed at early days,
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never around luxury, but more around, this is what we do.
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I don't remember buying a lot of food with my grandmother.
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Of course she went to the store, but not with us.
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Most of the time it was food that we made,
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the craftsmanship around food.
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TG: And it seems like in the home of your grandparents,
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there was also a deep respect for nature.
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Right? Like they were living deeply attached to the land.
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Can you talk about that
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in terms of the way you continue to think about space and land?
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MS: You know, the funny thing with my grandparents,
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Sweden wasn't directly involved in the Second World War,
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but it impacted it.
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And they grew up very poor.
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So all the things that we put on our social media today,
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"I'm going foraging upstate," or "I'm pickling and I'm doing this."
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Those were necessities.
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She didn't cure her salmon because she thought it was a better taste.
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She did it because she had to.
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She didn't smoke her mackerel because it was the new way to get a taste.
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It was a necessity to keep it three, four, five days longer.
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That cod soup on the third day, you know what I mean?
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That was to stretch the meal.
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So nature became the free kind of whole food, if you want.
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And if you didn't use it, you weren't smart.
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So just understanding food from that level
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was not around restaurants.
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It was always around just food
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as something that was part of what you did.
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You know, then ...
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Again, being adopted, when you think about identity and food,
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early on, all the food that we had was Swedish food.
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Coastal Swedish food, because that's where we grew up.
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Eventually, as I started to have weekend jobs in restaurants,
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it was kind of French Swedish food.
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But my identity around where I was from
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and where does Ethiopian food fit into this
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was kind of lost on me.
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And I always, when I share identity in conversations around other creatives,
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chefs of color, artists of colors, creators of colors,
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the identity around their own identity and the work,
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it's almost always a search
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where you kind of go in and out of ideas that are traditional,
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and how do you go back to your food.
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Where do you see yourself in food?
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And I never saw or had the conversation
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around Black food or the identity around it.
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So for me, I went to art.
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You know, my biggest, sort of,
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idols at the time were Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
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I was like, how can this young artist live and exist in the world of art
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and link street and gallery?
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And that for me, if he could do it, maybe one day I could do it in food.
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TG: Right. As a chef.
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So thinking about food memories, I know you have some spice here.
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Can you talk about, you know,
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what it means to think about food as a way that you understand your journey,
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your identity?
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MS: Mhm.
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Well, I think when you think about Black food,
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particularly with the continent in mind,
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it's almost three chapters.
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The first chapter is the origin where most of our food came from.
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We were early on the continent of, you know, trading food,
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traveling with food.
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A lot of the grains, like I have here --
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I have teff, one of the oldest grains in the world,
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or fonio, for example -- old, old grains.
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You think about things like shiro, turmeric,
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za'atar or berbere,
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throughout the region of Africa and northern Africa, East Africa.
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Food in terms of -- it was currency.
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Spices were currency.
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These incredible markets of Marrakech or Cairo,
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these were trading places.
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And so much of the identity and so much of the food
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came from the continent.
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Then, when colonization happened,
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all the great food that comes from the continent,
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we now have to start thinking about through a European lens.
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And this still sticks with us, right?
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When we think about a great coffee,
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we hear it through a French roast or Italian roast
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versus its origin of Ethiopia, for example.
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When we think about a great Belgian chocolate, you know,
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we don't think about it that the cocoa bean is from Ghana.
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It's not until the last five-ten years where we're kind of reshaping that,
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but obviously through all things food today --
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it's such a major machine, it's such a major economy.
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So over the last 100 years,
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we’ve been taught that the great chocolate comes from Belgium
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and the great so-and-so comes from France.
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Getting that identity back,
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this is what I think present and future work is about.
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If we think about good food,
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it has to be linked to its origin, identity
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and how do we rephrase this and reshape this,
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that the origin of the place actually gets acknowledged.
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And we're going to come back to that.
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The other part that obviously Black food from the continent
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has gone through was --
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You know, when I was growing up,
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the way people talked about food from Africa
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was very often through famines.
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So this identity around food was just something
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that we could help through aid.
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It's not the only way, of course, that we engage in food in Africa.
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So it's all of this misconception of one experience
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that we as creatives, as chefs today,
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almost have to share and keep telling the story
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in order so the value proposition from the receiver, wherever they are,
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sees this through the right lens.
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But also in the continent.
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Why would I go into food today if there's no value proposition?
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But if we value cocoa beans and the value of a coffee farm,
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that talent stays in the continent
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and says, "Hey, this is as valuable as working for Microsoft."
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TG: Mhm. Mhm.
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And it seems, you know, the name of this talk today is "Food for Good."
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But it seems that that narrative shift has been a part of your work
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as a chef from the beginning.
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So how did you become a chef?
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And maybe while we're saying that, do you want to eat?
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MS: Yeah. Let's bring in some food. Yeah, absolutely.
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TG: So I hope this audience --
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I wish you all could smell and see all that is here.
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But, Marcus, let's talk about what we're having.
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MS: Well, we’re going to have --
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a simple dish
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that all hints and links back to the continent.
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And I think when you think about modern Black
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and modern food throughout the continent,
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it will taste and look something like this.
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This is a restaurant food.
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If you eat locally anywhere on the continent,
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it will be much more regional and not so much fuss around it
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the way we do as chefs.
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But here you have a seared bass that we dip in teff flour.
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So again, the grain from Ethiopia. But again just a light touch.
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We use a fermented corn puree, which is eaten all throughout Africa.
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Whether you call it, you know, you think about ugali in Kenya,
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pap in South Africa,
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or almost the way we think about grits, right?
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So corn is such a big key to us.
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I'm just going to --
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have a little nice salsa that we use -- cucumber.
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Simple textures.
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In the salsa we have beautiful
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couscous, right?
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These are all things that --
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why not throw in some fresh herbs on top,
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and a little bit of berbere oil, just to drizzle.
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But again, always thinking about, when I plate -- positive-negative space,
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really creating these dramatic colors.
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And, you know,
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my Ethiopian family will be like,
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"How come you don't put more food on the plate? What is this?
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What is this negative space for?"
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But as we evolve into modern, exciting food,
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this is how --
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If you go to Accra today, Addis today, Lagos in a restaurant,
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in a modern restaurant,
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this is a similar dish that you could smell, eat and taste.
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Doesn't that look good?
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TG: It's fantastic.
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MS: Alright, you know what? That's yours. That's for you. That's all you.
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TG: Thank you.
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So, Marcus, can you --
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I want you to answer the question first of how you became a chef.
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But then I want you, as you've hinted, and as I know this dish represents,
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for you to talk about this idea of modern Black and what that means.
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But start with first how you became a chef.
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MS: Well,
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I’ve only had two major passions in my life: cooking and playing soccer.
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And I was completely shocked when I didn't become a soccer star.
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But I took the same energy of training and working hard
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into the food game.
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Thank you, thank you.
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TG: It’s delicious.
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MS: It’s good, right? Yeah.
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A little fermented corn with some couscous.
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But I learned a lot of, you know, around --
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Being black in Sweden,
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for me, the blessings of being Black in Sweden were really about
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clarity on my options.
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Clarity of being a kid that had to pursue excellence right away.
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It gave me clarity.
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When my other co-chefs signed out,
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I'm like, I'm not even started yet.
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So that clarity gave me experiences, and I got scholarships early on.
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I traveled to Japan, just lived with a family.
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I didn't know what umami was,
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which you have umami in this dish, until I went to Japan.
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I got a scholarship to live in Switzerland for two years.
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Completely game-changing experience,
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operating food at a hotel in French and German,
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and being 19, 20 years old.
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So I was like, "Oh, I belong."
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Once I knew that I could do this abroad on multiple languages,
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I'm like, let's go three-star Michelin.
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And it took me a year to get to France, to a three-star Michelin restaurant,
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outside Lyon, Georges Blanc,
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and I realized, like, this is going to be my life.
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But I noticed
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there were Japanese kids there working,
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there were mostly European kids, even some South Americans.
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But no Black.
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And anywhere -- from dining room to in the kitchen. Nowhere.
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TG: So front of the house, in the kitchen -- no.
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MS: None. So for me, it was really about --
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where do I fit into this, as a young kid?
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And it was very clear.
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It told me that -- you know, one day my chef said,
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"What do you want to do?"
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I said, "I want to open a restaurant such as yours."
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And he just looked at me and said, "It's not possible.
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There will never be a restaurant
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owned by a Black person with those ambitions
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supported by a customer."
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And I said, "Well, I can't lower my dream or ambition."
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He said, "I don't know what to tell you.
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You can work in a restaurant, but can never own one."
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And that jump-off point really became a driving force
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for me to leave,
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and eventually come to the United States and New York City,
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and who knew what would happen,
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but I just knew that I could add value.
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I've proven it to myself and to my family.
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And that's how I got to New York.
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TG: Mhm. Mhm.
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And when you got to New York,
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in many ways,
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that seems to be also where you began thinking about the kind of food journey
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and the food stories, and the food narratives
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that you wanted to be involved with.
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I've always imagined deeply
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the way in which you represent hybridity in such a fantastic way.
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You think about the ways in which you have brought
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the many pieces of your life and your culture together in food,
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but also the way you've been curious,
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in traveling the world, to see and engage with food.
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So can you talk about hybridity
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as a way to talk about your concept of modern Black
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and the way in which it’s evidenced in these plates?
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Tell us about --
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MS: Well, when I got to New York,
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I was also extremely fortunate
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because --
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I was cooking and met other Black creatives.
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And little did I know that these creatives would be, you know,
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icons in their industry 15, 20 years later or ten years later.
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And to have the opportunity to be inspired and break bread,
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and drinks with people like --
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Meeting Julie Mehretu, fellow Ethiopian.
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Being an artist, young artist, in the mid-90s,
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having the opportunity to talk to you.
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Meeting people like Sanford Biggers.
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They weren't in my field, but they were on a journey
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and they were never linear with their work.
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I remember a night with Sanford.
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He's like, "I just came back from Russia."
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I've been to Russia.
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"I went to Japan."
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Well, I worked in Japan. And he did it as an artist.
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And his work, coming back, with these incredible trees,
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18:01
and it was his true Black version of himself,
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but through a lens that was worldly.
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And wait a minute.
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I as another Black person that is not linear, is not --
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It's my version.
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And meeting people that have had similar journeys,
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but yet very different, in different expressions,
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just inspired me so much.
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But also being around music,
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like being around, you know, Tribe Called Quest, for example.
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You know, Jarobi that was in the band, then left the band for cooking.
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So being around these people that were similar in age,
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18:43
doing, talking about a modern Blackness that obviously had roots in Africa,
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but also in the migration,
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but also in music and art, almost combining.
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What would that taste like?
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And coming to America where you thought,
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you were told all Black food was southern food,
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what we know as soul food,
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and I love southern food.
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19:06
But it wasn't the only story that we could tell, right?
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19:10
When I went to a Haitian restaurant that I loved in Brooklyn,
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there was djon djon rice, there were pikliz.
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19:17
When I went to a Jamaican restaurant,
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there were these incredible foods,
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19:21
like ackee and jerk,
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19:24
not telling the story of the migration.
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19:26
And I loved both.
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So being here in New York showed me that Blackness doesn't have to be one way.
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19:33
Yet through food, the way the media received it,
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they wanted to see us through one way,
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1960
19:39
which is very often that when you don't have a majority culture,
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you can accept a minority culture through one lens.
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TG: Mhm.
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Right. Tell us about this dish.
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MS: Well, I think
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one of my favorite things to eat
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is beef tartare.
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The beef tartare of this dish
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has really origin in my wife's tribe Gurage,
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where you make a warm beef tartare.
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And --
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this is really what you have here.
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It's a warm beef tartare with some fresh cheese,
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20:19
some pickled onions
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20:22
and dried injera bread again.
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So we're just going to have you --
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1960
20:29
taste that with a little more berbere oil.
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And --
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Food, modern food to me should be both tribal and modern.
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4800
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TG: Why?
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MS: Because that’s how we live our lives today.
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When you think about identity culture,
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20:47
you can't talk about the continent not thinking about tribes.
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The tribes are kind of the base.
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20:53
And then art, music, dance, spirituality,
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4720
20:58
it comes out of that.
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21:00
You can be one tribe and you can have many spiritualities.
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21:04
But in terms of dress code, food, culture,
399
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4160
21:08
how you celebrate weddings --
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21:10
are all done through that structure.
401
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2200
21:13
So I'm very much inspired by the tribalism in Africa.
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21:18
It doesn't behold me to one is better than other.
403
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21:20
But when I ask a fellow African, where are you from?
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21:23
And he or she might say Nigeria or, let's say, Senegal.
405
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5800
21:29
Second question is: what tribe?
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1840
21:31
If I were to ask a European person, like, where are you from?
407
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3600
21:34
Say, England.
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2160
21:37
OK, then I would ask: what city?
409
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2200
21:39
Maybe third, I would ask, what soccer team do you like?
410
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4000
21:43
Which is a form of tribalism.
411
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2480
21:45
But when it comes to the continent, the tribe directs so much what we eat,
412
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5600
21:51
when we eat it and how we celebrate it.
413
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2160
21:53
So that's kind of the core here with work of this festive dish out of the Gurage.
414
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6080
21:59
And then we bring in the --
415
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22:02
these chips do not exist that way.
416
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2280
22:05
So they're long. They're static.
417
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22:07
TG: Can you talk about these chips?
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22:08
Because I think that's, you know,
419
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1600
22:10
a perfect example of the kind of hybridity.
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2320
22:12
So you're interest in teff
421
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22:15
that then has led to a thinking about how to use it,
422
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3880
22:19
both in ways that honor their tradition culturally,
423
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3360
22:22
but also make it new.
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22:24
MS: It's --
425
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22:27
One other thing you have to be as a Black creative,
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22:30
you have to be your own cheerleader, your own Flavor Flav.
427
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3400
22:33
Because there's nothing out there
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22:35
to tell you you're heading in the right direction.
429
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2600
22:38
When you see terms,
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22:40
"I just had this great Italian dish,"
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1800
22:42
or, you know, "The way they do their French cooking over there
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22:45
is amazing."
433
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1320
22:46
We don't have those reference points coming to us through media.
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4160
22:51
So you have to actually create it yourself.
435
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2480
22:53
And sometimes you don't know if you're in the right direction,
436
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3160
22:56
so then you have to create this friendship
437
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3680
23:00
and colleagues that are really helping and part of the editing process.
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4480
23:04
But when I eat teff from the most sour fresh form,
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5000
23:09
I always think about, what would this be like, dried.
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2520
23:12
And then you start seeing teff chips coming up,
441
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2240
23:14
like, what if I stretch this?
442
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2400
23:17
What if this looks a little bit more like an Alvin Ailey show.
443
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6160
23:23
Like the way the ballerinas stretch.
444
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3360
23:26
What if I would look at the structure of a Julie Mehretu painting,
445
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3560
23:30
where it's, like, stretched, you know?
446
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2440
23:32
So this is kind of the duality.
447
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1840
23:34
When I listen to Burna Boy,
448
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23:39
or when I listen to, let's say, Fela Kuti,
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5680
23:45
I --
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23:47
see the linkage together.
451
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23:49
It's not so much one was done in the 80s or 70s
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23:52
and one is done in the 2020s.
453
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2480
23:54
It's I hear the tonality of both, the linkage.
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3720
23:58
Same thing with food.
455
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23:59
And that's why music and art is such a good guidance for me.
456
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24:03
Because art, great art, it's past, present, future.
457
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5400
24:09
Great music, it's past, present, future.
458
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24:12
And with food, if we don't know our past,
459
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3360
24:15
how are we going to know if it's delicious or not?
460
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2800
24:18
How are we going to know the reference point?
461
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2160
24:20
We know this in French cooking and in Italian cooking,
462
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2800
24:23
but we don't know that about the continent.
463
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24:25
And that's what we're here to unlock.
464
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2160
24:27
And how would you know what's good food
465
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2000
24:31
if you don't even know the past and the present?
466
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3000
24:34
TG: So let's talk about Food for Good.
467
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24:36
What does that mean for you,
468
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1400
24:37
and why is that such an animating sort of idea
469
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24:41
in the work that you are doing, in your own artistry as a chef,
470
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24:45
in the restaurants that you’ve created, in the world,
471
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24:48
and the ways that I know you're interacting
472
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24:50
in thoughts around the future of food and the ways in which we understand them.
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3880
24:55
MS: Well there's several.
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1360
24:57
The first is I want young Africans to feel
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25:02
like this is a field you can go into.
476
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25:05
This is a field that has value.
477
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25:07
This is not just a labor of anonymous laborers
478
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3040
25:10
where there's no value proposition on the other end.
479
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3280
25:13
So if you're a young cook in Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria,
480
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4600
25:18
this is a field that -- we got you.
481
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2040
25:20
And there's an arch.
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25:22
And here's what these traits looked like.
483
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2640
25:25
But on the other hand, too,
484
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25:26
is what can we from the West learn from the continent,
485
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4440
25:30
eating based on a spiritual compass,
486
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3000
25:33
knowing how sometimes to fast,
487
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3000
25:36
holding off certain animal protein.
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25:39
Thinking about how to break fast.
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25:41
How do we celebrate that?
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25:43
These are all things that we need.
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25:45
I mean, we have the crisis here
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25:47
in terms of, you think about
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3440
25:51
eating too much red meat,
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1320
25:52
we're thinking about, you know, green and the environment.
495
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25:57
So we are all collectively in need for eating better
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26:00
and having better systems within food.
497
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26:03
That is all linkage.
498
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26:04
Both for the environment, but also for our own body and health.
499
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26:08
So much of the world's superfood is in Africa.
500
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3440
26:11
We talked about fonio and teff,
501
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2200
26:14
but there are many:
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26:15
amaranth, moringa and so on.
503
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2720
26:18
So with everything else,
504
1578140
1960
26:20
with technology or with other modernity,
505
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3520
26:23
we go into depth of finding the origin, honoring the origin,
506
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4600
26:28
and then that forms us to move forward.
507
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3520
26:31
In food, we have taken food from Africa
508
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26:34
without actually paying enough respect and tribute back.
509
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26:38
And why should anyone value their land and properties
510
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26:44
when there's no value proposition on growing these things?
511
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3600
26:48
Even in the most high-tech food we can think about today,
512
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3240
26:51
let's just think about something like a Beyond Burger
513
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4920
26:56
or Impossible Burger.
514
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2040
26:58
Well, a lot of those modern patties are based with chickpeas.
515
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4600
27:02
Well, Africa got some of the largest,
516
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2560
27:05
it's one of the best places in the world with chickpeas.
517
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2640
27:08
So if you're a chickpea farmer today in Africa
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2720
27:10
and living off two dollars a day,
519
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2440
27:13
to get the right value proposition off your teff, off your chickpeas,
520
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4440
27:17
maybe you can live on 20 dollars a day.
521
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2560
27:20
Doesn't sound like a lot, but it's game-changing for that family.
522
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3080
27:23
So there's a value proposition in all the different steps,
523
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3280
27:26
but it's also something here that we can learn.
524
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2440
27:29
We want to pay the right price. We're talking about that constantly here.
525
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3520
27:32
We want to make sure that we honor where it comes from.
526
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4480
27:37
And we also want to eat gooder, more delicious.
527
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3520
27:40
And we don't know how delicious it is
528
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27:42
until we kind of go through all the options and how it got to us.
529
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5720
27:48
TG: Your work has been a lot about just opening people to new flavors
530
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4200
27:52
and allowing, in your restaurants, you're constantly experimenting
531
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3480
27:56
in bringing these flavors from Africa, from the world,
532
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4000
28:00
you know, in these incredible collisions often.
533
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28:04
And that's where for me, it always seems the base of your artistry is.
534
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3600
28:07
Being able to sort of think about how to put things together.
535
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4040
28:11
MS: Yeah.
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1440
28:13
TG: Why?
537
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1920
28:15
MS: Um.
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1880
28:17
First of all, I think I've been extremely blessed
539
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2360
28:19
by having, you know, my family and mentors around me.
540
1699620
5520
28:25
Family members, non-family members that said,
541
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2120
28:27
"Hey, you know what? We're going to bet on you."
542
1707340
2800
28:30
And I met some of the most amazing people in food,
543
1710180
3800
28:34
like Leah Chase, that broke barriers when it comes to dining in America.
544
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5160
28:39
Color barriers.
545
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1600
28:40
And when you meet someone like Leah,
546
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2480
28:43
that own Dooky Chase in New Orleans,
547
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2960
28:46
only been in business for 83 years
548
1726340
2280
28:48
and still going,
549
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28:52
it wasn't so much about the food.
550
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2360
28:54
I mean, her restaurant is really about -- is a gathering spot.
551
1734780
4040
28:58
But civil rights movements,
552
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3080
29:01
opportunities like myself being here in this country,
553
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3920
29:05
that opens opportunities for Black chefs across the world.
554
1745820
3680
29:09
So if I've got an opportunity to travel and live out my dream,
555
1749540
4280
29:13
I have to kind of bring people into this space
556
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29:16
and open up other opportunities.
557
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29:19
So food -- I think food can get even better
558
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4080
29:24
if you invite more people to the party.
559
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29:26
For so many years, a chef had to come from France or cook French food.
560
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4360
29:30
It had to be a man and sometimes, almost always angry.
561
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29:33
Well, that's a small, slim space to look at greatness.
562
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4880
29:38
Why not open it up?
563
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29:40
I love food and I love dining,
564
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29:42
so why not open up the door and make it more inspiring for a larger scale?
565
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4600
29:47
You think about the World Cup
566
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29:49
or you think about big things that we want to celebrate, NBA,
567
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3680
29:53
it's better because of the larger pie as part of it,
568
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29:57
not better because it's narrower.
569
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29:59
So I love food, I love my trade, and I know we can do better.
570
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4240
30:03
So when I have an opportunity to open a Red Rooster or Hav and Mar,
571
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30:07
open kitchens, closeness to the guests and who cooks it.
572
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5040
30:12
If the customer wants to come up
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30:14
and talk about, you know, what they liked and didn't like,
574
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3320
30:17
if they want to create this close relationship with the chef,
575
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2920
30:20
watching a chef on a journey, like we have here,
576
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2560
30:22
incredible Fariyal that, you know, origin in Ethiopia,
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5480
30:28
but also lived in America for a long time.
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2960
30:31
If you want to talk to her,
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30:33
well, she's right there.
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30:34
Before, when I started,
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30:35
kitchen was this hole that you were never supposed to peek into.
582
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3240
30:39
And it was anonymous label.
583
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30:40
Same thing at Red Rooster.
584
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30:44
It's an open space that -- it's a back and forth --
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30:49
that you can have a dialogue.
586
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30:51
And I think that food gets better
587
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30:55
the more people lean in,
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30:57
not better because it's held in a certain zip code.
589
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3000
31:00
TG: Mhm.
590
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1600
31:02
And so really I want to ask you about --
591
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2600
31:04
you have restaurants all around the world.
592
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31:06
But I know Harlem is very close to your heart.
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2880
31:09
Close to our heart.
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31:11
And so can you talk about the inspiration that Harlem is for you?
595
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4480
31:17
MS: Harlem is truly everything.
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31:20
I think about Harlem as the Black Mecca for culture.
597
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31:25
It's the place where, if you're an author in South Africa,
598
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5240
31:30
you want to come to Schomburg or have a dialogue with the Studio Museum
599
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5240
31:36
to show your work.
600
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1760
31:38
If you're a singer, you know,
601
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2760
31:40
like Tems in Nigeria, or for the world,
602
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2840
31:43
she's going to come to the Apollo and perform.
603
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3920
31:47
So it becomes really through its history and generations of intellectuals,
604
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4840
31:52
and incredible people like James Baldwin and Maya Angelou,
605
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4520
31:57
and the list goes on and on.
606
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1680
31:58
And the other thing that Harlem has, institutions do matter.
607
1918700
4600
32:03
We have them both in people and in buildings.
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3160
32:06
Just within a five-minute walk or ten-minute walk
609
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3440
32:10
you can go from the Abyssinia to YMCA,
610
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4720
32:14
to Schomburg, to Apollo, to the Studio Museum.
611
1934740
3240
32:18
But you also meet the people that work in there.
612
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2640
32:20
So all of the people of Harlem,
613
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2480
32:23
the institutions, informed me, really,
614
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3560
32:26
before I got to Harlem, like, this is a great place.
615
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3000
32:29
This is where great Black culture comes from.
616
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2880
32:32
And now it's our job to take that to the next level,
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3480
32:36
to both aspire and inspire the next generation.
618
1956140
4640
32:40
And there's a Harlem everywhere:
619
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4480
32:45
in Berlin, in Cape Town.
620
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3400
32:48
And some places are obvious,
621
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2320
32:51
but there's also a Harlem in Tokyo.
622
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2080
32:53
There's also a Black identity in São Paulo,
623
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3720
32:56
in these cultures where we think about it,
624
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2120
32:59
or in Mexico,
625
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1240
33:00
but sometimes also where we don't think about it
626
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2480
33:02
because there's people of color that have creative, of course, ambitions,
627
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4160
33:07
but they need a focal place to see, where can I show and tell?
628
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4680
33:11
And Harlem is that place for me.
629
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2080
33:13
TG: Mhm. I could keep talking and keep eating,
630
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3040
33:16
but I want to get to some of the questions
631
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2080
33:18
that this incredible audience has offered here.
632
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5040
33:23
I'm just going to move this over a little bit. OK.
633
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3560
33:27
George would love to know how your philosophy differs
634
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4280
33:31
or has similarities with the Slow Food movement.
635
2011820
3560
33:35
MS: I think there's a lot of crossover
636
2015420
1840
33:37
and a lot of the people that I admire, like Aliya, for example,
637
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2960
33:40
were part of the Slow Food movement when it started.
638
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2480
33:42
And I think that we,
639
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3640
33:46
they're all about figuring out
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3960
33:50
originality and broadcasting that, an identity around food,
641
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6400
33:56
and broadcasting that to a larger audience.
642
2036860
2760
33:59
Because if you think about Native American culture,
643
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4000
34:03
if you think about native culture from Africa
644
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2480
34:06
or native culture from South America,
645
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2040
34:08
there's a lot of incredible cooking
646
2048220
3680
34:11
and pickling, and preserving,
647
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2560
34:14
and nature-driven things
648
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1400
34:15
that we still actually trade off from today,
649
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3360
34:19
whether it's barbecuing, whether it's smoking,
650
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2760
34:22
or whether it's jerk,
651
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1800
34:23
that we still work off today,
652
2063900
2320
34:26
but we're not giving enough credit to the origin.
653
2066260
2880
34:29
Why should that be, you know --
654
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1680
34:30
TG: Authorship.
655
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1000
34:31
MS: Authorship.
656
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1040
34:32
Who gets to tell that story, who gets to share that story.
657
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3040
34:35
Authorship, right?
658
2075940
1720
34:37
We live in a time of AI where you can search for all that stuff.
659
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3880
34:41
But if we don't talk about that and document that,
660
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2400
34:44
it will never show up on AI,
661
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1600
34:45
and therefore what people are going to think about
662
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2360
34:48
as the most reliable place
663
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2640
34:50
is not reliable.
664
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1280
34:51
So I think it's having these incredible, respectful,
665
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5520
34:57
but also past, present, future-looking organizations.
666
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5440
35:02
It's important that we do bring up origin, authorship, identity,
667
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6200
35:09
because if you don't have value around that,
668
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35:12
why should the next generation opt in?
669
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2440
35:14
There's so many things you can be part of. Why food?
670
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3080
35:17
And we have to make our case and make it much more inclusive.
671
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4600
35:22
So we get --
672
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2280
35:24
to become a place that strives and people feel like, I’m part of that.
673
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3960
35:28
I want to be part. There's a place there for me.
674
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2360
35:31
TG: And they want to be in it in ways that are positive.
675
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2760
35:33
MS: Absolutely.
676
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2360
35:36
TG: Here is a question, one here, from Les.
677
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5640
35:41
"I have a nine-year-old daughter,
678
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1880
35:43
and we have an amazing variety of foods where we live in Uganda.
679
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5120
35:48
What do you advise as a good way
680
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2840
35:51
to build a healthy life and diet for her as she grows?"
681
2151740
3080
35:54
And I know you have some very deep personal experience with this.
682
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3200
35:58
MS: First of all, I see you Uganda,
683
2158060
1920
36:00
I know ugali, we just talked about it, second time we talk about ugali here.
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4760
36:04
That's amazing.
685
2164780
1280
36:06
Which is one of the staples in Uganda and Tanzania, and Kenya as well.
686
2166100
5280
36:11
I think if you can, variety of your food.
687
2171420
5560
36:17
So bringing in seafood when you can to that diet,
688
2177020
3840
36:20
bringing in a blend between animal proteins,
689
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3960
36:24
so it's like, it's not just red meat,
690
2184820
2560
36:27
it’s not just meat that has been braised for a long time.
691
2187420
3360
36:30
So you have different types of cooking methods that goes into that.
692
2190780
3880
36:34
And of course, vegetables and grains.
693
2194660
3200
36:37
You know, having --
694
2197860
4080
36:41
like a couscous salad that we --
695
2201940
1760
36:43
or a cracked wheat salad that you bring in tons of vegetables into.
696
2203700
5720
36:49
So I think the variety of your diet,
697
2209460
2600
36:52
and then maybe, you know,
698
2212100
2720
36:54
I think the key for me is really flexitarian,
699
2214820
2800
36:57
where you are vegetarian-leaning,
700
2217620
5000
37:02
and maybe bring in meat two days, three days tops a week.
701
2222620
4800
37:07
TG: But how would you do that? Like with her nine-year-old?
702
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2800
37:10
How do you do that with children?
703
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2200
37:12
MS: There's no age limit to that, you know.
704
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2080
37:14
Trust me, Zion and I, and even Grace --
705
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2120
37:16
My son Zion is seven, almost eight.
706
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2280
37:19
TG: And your daughter?
707
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1280
37:20
MS: Daughter Grace, we cook all the time,
708
2240380
2320
37:22
and very often it starts with "no."
709
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2840
37:25
But what Zion loves is going with me to the market
710
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4960
37:30
and picking out ingredients.
711
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2160
37:32
So really bringing in the children early in the process.
712
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3880
37:36
Maybe two days before you're going to cook, on a Thursday,
713
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2720
37:39
I say, "On Saturday we're going to go to the market,
714
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2480
37:41
and we're going to meet Jim, our fish guy,
715
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2360
37:44
and he sometimes throws in an extra piece of fish.
716
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2560
37:46
Could be swordfish. Oh how exciting."
717
2266820
2600
37:49
So it's not on Saturday at 9 o'clock because that might be too early.
718
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4000
37:53
It's really about building the week around that.
719
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4160
37:57
Or if we go upstate, you know what?
720
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2680
38:00
The pumpkin growers are amazing.
721
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2040
38:02
And really talking about it early.
722
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2320
38:04
You got to make food cool to any age.
723
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3520
38:08
Whether you're a child or someone working in an office,
724
2288340
3000
38:11
you got to find a way to engage,
725
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3600
38:15
and really talk to your children about it,
726
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4200
38:19
and not just presenting the food, cooking the food --
727
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2880
38:22
include them in the process.
728
2302180
1360
38:23
TG: Mhm. Thank you.
729
2303580
2480
38:26
This is from Dana. We're sitting in Hav and Mar.
730
2306100
2760
38:28
And the question is, "How do you create the vibe in all of your restaurants?
731
2308860
4200
38:33
There's always a good vibe in a Marcus Samuelsson restaurant."
732
2313100
3000
38:37
MS: Well.
733
2317180
2200
38:39
I would say one of the great things about Black culture and African culture
734
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6000
38:45
is that regardless of the moment,
735
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6520
38:52
the energy is always high.
736
2332020
2080
38:54
It's always lit.
737
2334140
1840
38:56
Whether -- you know, if you've never been to a funeral in Africa,
738
2336020
5520
39:01
it's hard but it's always through music.
739
2341580
3520
39:05
So that level of joy,
740
2345140
1720
39:06
that is truly in and of Black culture.
741
2346860
5000
39:13
You see it in our music, see it in our culture.
742
2353100
2600
39:15
That's something I want to share with our audience.
743
2355700
2760
39:18
It's not just for -- its of Black culture, but it's for everyone.
744
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3960
39:22
When you enter the space of Red Rooster,
745
2362500
1920
39:24
it's a celebration of --
746
2364460
1560
39:26
Maybe you weren't welcome at other places.
747
2366060
2080
39:28
Maybe you had the question,
748
2368180
1320
39:29
will there be Black people seated at the table?
749
2369540
2280
39:31
Will there be a Black server?
750
2371820
1480
39:33
All those silent questions that we, Black professionals ask ourselves.
751
2373340
3680
39:37
Will this server come to my table?
752
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1880
39:38
None of that will happen at our restaurant.
753
2378940
2280
39:41
You are here as a guest and we're going to celebrate you.
754
2381260
3800
39:45
We start that off with high-level energy,
755
2385100
3280
39:48
because this might be the only time you come to one of our restaurants,
756
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4080
39:52
we want you to have that experience.
757
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2240
39:54
So that is baked in the cake,
758
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2600
39:57
have to be --
759
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1320
39:58
TG: For all the spaces you create.
760
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2440
40:01
MS: All the spaces. Absolutely.
761
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40:03
TG: How do you start the process
762
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1880
40:05
of thinking about how you get to that?
763
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3440
40:09
MS: Well, I’m very slow in my process.
764
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40:11
You know, Red Rooster took eight years.
765
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2280
40:13
Hav and Mar took four years, which was fast.
766
2413820
4280
40:18
But it starts very often through artists,
767
2418140
4920
40:23
you know, like here we have the luxury to talk to you,
768
2423100
3600
40:26
but also through our dear friend Derrick Adams
769
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2680
40:29
that has made these bespoke, incredible Black mermaids work here.
770
2429420
5480
40:34
And Derrick and I, we stood here,
771
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2960
40:37
in an empty location here in New York,
772
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4240
40:42
and we talked about water --
773
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1520
40:43
I knew that was an important part --
774
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2160
40:45
and the dual identity, Nordic and Africa,
775
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4200
40:50
and he came back and said, it should be about Black mermaids.
776
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2920
40:53
Once he had the mermaids,
777
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2480
40:55
then that decided the shape.
778
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2800
40:58
It wasn't just Derek hanging his art.
779
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3040
41:01
Derek's identity and his thought process
780
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2400
41:03
around the mermaid
781
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1320
41:05
has been the leading force of creativity for us as a restaurant.
782
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41:10
So going into space,
783
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2600
41:12
knowing that you don't have all the answers,
784
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2160
41:15
but working with incredible, talented people
785
2475140
2840
41:18
that think about it from a different lens, but with a similar goal.
786
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5000
41:23
TG: So real collaboration in creating that.
787
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2000
41:25
MS: Real collaboration, yes.
788
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1800
41:26
TG: Yeah. So from Fernando,
789
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3000
41:29
"How can chefs navigate the delicate balance
790
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2760
41:32
between culinary innovation and cultural preservation,
791
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5080
41:37
especially in light of controversy surrounding the interpretation
792
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3520
41:41
and adaptation of traditional dishes by foreign chefs?"
793
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41:45
MS: I think that, first of all, an amazing question.
794
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3240
41:48
Very hard space.
795
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41:50
I think that when you create,
796
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2720
41:52
you have to separate home food, traditional food,
797
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4080
41:57
and restaurant food.
798
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1520
41:58
You have to think about restaurant as Broadway.
799
2518580
3240
42:01
You're putting on a show.
800
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2000
42:03
You're coming from a place
801
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1960
42:05
that the chef
802
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1640
42:07
and that restaurant's identity
803
2527460
1560
42:09
decides where you're going to go in this play.
804
2529060
3360
42:13
A restaurant is a gathering spot
805
2533540
2880
42:16
where you're talking about what you've been inspired by,
806
2536460
3640
42:20
what do you want to share.
807
2540140
1760
42:21
It's not a place à la a museum
808
2541900
4040
42:25
or a library where you're kind of trying to preserve and present.
809
2545940
5080
42:31
It could be,
810
2551060
1360
42:32
but the restaurants in the way I think about it,
811
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4200
42:36
it's not from
812
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3000
42:39
the authentic point of view of only originality.
813
2559660
3840
42:43
I want to respect where it came from,
814
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2160
42:45
but I also want to show, we are going through this process.
815
2565700
3240
42:48
That's why I talk a lot about Black modern.
816
2568940
4120
42:53
It's not a place where it's only backward.
817
2573100
5080
42:58
That's why I think music is so amazing
818
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2520
43:00
because it allows us to see a new version,
819
2580740
2480
43:03
hear new versions.
820
2583260
1720
43:05
It's still of the continent, it's still of Black creatives.
821
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6160
43:11
And music throughout has helped us to understand this.
822
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3120
43:14
You know, like you think about gospel to jazz, to R&B,
823
2594380
6040
43:20
to funk, to hip-hop, to Afrobeat.
824
2600460
4520
43:25
It's all sounds that come out of Black culture,
825
2605020
4680
43:29
that is out of joy and out of all the moments sometimes
826
2609700
3960
43:33
when we go through tough times.
827
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1560
43:35
But it guides us through and I think the same with food.
828
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3720
43:39
But there is evolution --
829
2619020
1680
43:40
and it's almost like a five- to a ten-year peg around that.
830
2620700
3080
43:43
Same with food. We evolve.
831
2623780
1440
43:45
We can be both tribal and tech.
832
2625260
2960
43:48
We can be --
833
2628260
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43:49
because I feel like as a Black, modern individual
834
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3200
43:52
living in the world,
835
2632740
1280
43:54
living as close to Addis, Stockholm, Frankfurt to New York.
836
2634060
5120
43:59
It's not --
837
2639220
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44:00
When we present our restaurant in Addis, on the 47th floor --
838
2640500
4840
44:05
TG: Which opened when?
839
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1280
44:06
MS: In November of 2023.
840
2646660
2840
44:09
It was never about serving traditional Ethiopian food.
841
2649540
3680
44:13
That building by itself is such a beacon.
842
2653260
2440
44:15
So it's really telling Ethiopia, here's where we're going,
843
2655700
3400
44:19
and you are part of this journey.
844
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1600
44:20
And the young chefs cooking in this kitchen,
845
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2440
44:23
they are also part of that journey.
846
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44:25
Come back three years later, you're going to see them out in the world.
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44:29
TG: Thank you.
848
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44:32
From Patrick, "What's your basic rule
849
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44:34
for how to combine the breadth of ingredients
850
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44:37
to end up with an interesting meal."
851
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44:41
MS: Well, I think it's not about forcing the interesting.
852
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44:44
It's really -- one of the beauty of being a chef is that the craftsmanship,
853
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44:50
just the basic fundamental,
854
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1960
44:52
takes a long time.
855
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44:54
And that's the beauty, because you have to do it a lot.
856
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44:57
Once you have the basic fundamental of cooking,
857
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45:00
now you can mix and match the way you understood,
858
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45:05
which is both traditional and has a level of uniqueness.
859
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45:09
But without having that -- that's why I feel sorry for young chefs
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45:13
that are so fast, just want to push through it.
861
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45:17
That's not where the great craftsmanship is going to come from.
862
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45:21
It's going to come from repetition.
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1920
45:23
You know, when you look at amazing artists,
864
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45:27
even amazing filmmakers,
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45:30
some of the best work is somewhere between 70 and 80.
866
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3960
45:34
You know, you think about Scorsese still making incredible movies.
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45:40
And I look at amazing artists.
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4200
45:44
It’s not because how fast you’re running when you do it,
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45:49
the better you get at your craft.
870
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45:51
So for me, it's about being passionate
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45:53
and being fascinated at the craft at the same time.
872
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45:56
Through the blend of passion and fascination you will evolve.
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46:00
And if you evolve, great stuff will come.
874
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46:04
If you only want to get there fast,
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you can have hits and it could work for a moment.
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46:10
But you have to constantly fall in love with your craft.
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46:13
Constantly be curious about yourself and the craft,
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46:17
and the team that you want to kind of build around you.
879
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46:22
And I, you know --
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my father was a tribe leader in Ethiopia,
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46:28
watching him engaging with the tribe, not understanding the language,
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46:32
but understanding how, watching how he moved people,
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46:36
fascinating to me.
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46:37
TG: Yeah.
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46:39
Yes.
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46:41
How do you -- from Kat.
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46:42
"How do you define your personality through your dishes?"
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46:48
MS: I don't think there's separation.
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1920
46:49
I mean, I'm the most fluent when you taste my food.
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46:57
But I never were -- maybe it's because I've been an immigrant six times.
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5120
47:02
Language. I always mix them up.
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2600
47:04
Sometimes it could be German. Sometimes it could be Swedish.
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2880
47:07
Sometimes it could be English, of course.
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2080
47:09
But if you want to know who I am, taste the food.
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TG: I think also, if I might answer this,
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I think your dishes also give us a view
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47:21
into the different aspects of your journey.
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47:23
MS: Yes.
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TG: In different moments in the decades that I've known you.
900
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47:27
Your interest in certain ingredients, in dishes you've made
901
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4760
47:32
really have been an indication of a moment
902
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3480
47:36
where you've been exploring and investing,
903
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2720
47:38
thinking about the past,
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1760
47:40
but also thinking very much about the future.
905
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3360
47:44
You know, I think now, some of these plates
906
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47:46
remind me a little bit,
907
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47:48
of maybe a hint of something that you made 20 years ago.
908
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3280
47:52
But then I also know it's a hint of something you're going to make
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47:55
20 years from now.
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MS: Oh, absolutely.
911
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1320
47:58
And that's the joy of being in a place
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48:02
where you can trust the craftsmanship,
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48:04
but also being introduced to new things and new ways.
914
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4520
48:09
When I go to the continent of Africa,
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48:12
I'm still learning how to eat in a new way.
916
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48:16
Like if you speak to anyone from Ghana or Nigeria,
917
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48:20
even more Nigeria than Ghana,
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48:22
I would say, swallow.
919
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Swallow is a whole way of eating
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that is so clear to anyone that is Nigerian.
921
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48:28
And if you don't know how to do it,
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48:30
people are going to laugh at you and talk to you about it at the table.
923
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48:34
I learned that maybe at 35, and I've been cooking and I was like,
924
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3320
48:38
what if swallow would have been from France?
925
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48:40
It would have been something we've been taught in cooking schools.
926
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48:43
So again, like,
927
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48:45
food, dining culture
928
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3120
48:49
has so much breadth and depth.
929
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3040
48:52
You know, we learned how to eat with chopsticks
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48:54
when Japanese food became popular to the world.
931
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48:57
So there's still new ways of eating, not just new ways of cooking.
932
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4760
49:02
And I can't wait.
933
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TG: To see some of those emerge.
934
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Yeah. Alright.
935
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49:08
We have time for a few more questions.
936
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There's so many great questions here,
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and I want to thank everyone for these fantastic questions.
938
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Someone asked, "I love how you mentioned that cooking is an art.
939
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3720
49:19
What are your must-have tools as an artist chef you can't live without?"
940
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4520
49:24
And I'm not sure if this question are meant quite literally tools,
941
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49:27
but I'm going to say any tools, not just the literal tools of cooking,
942
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49:30
but what tools can't you live without?
943
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49:32
MS: I think they're very different for each chef.
944
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49:34
For me, it’s really about protecting your sense of flavors.
945
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49:41
So for me, I'm very sort of cautious about what I eat.
946
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4560
49:45
Like for example, I would never smoke.
947
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49:49
Not because I think people who smoke are bad people.
948
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49:51
It's just I protect my sense of flavor.
949
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49:53
TG: So that's a tool.
950
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1280
49:54
MS: No, no, it's the tool. Right?
951
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2400
49:58
Being curious.
952
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1280
50:01
The day I stop thinking about food in a very primal sense,
953
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4400
50:05
the day I don't enjoy that,
954
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2280
50:08
I should quit.
955
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50:09
So keeping that, those are tools for me that are --
956
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50:12
you have to keep the joy in there and you have to be curious,
957
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3840
50:16
but you also have to protect your body
958
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1920
50:18
in a sense that you can't operate on that high level.
959
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2600
50:21
Right? Yeah.
960
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1800
50:23
Iron-cast pan -- great.
961
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50:26
Great with a good spatula.
962
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1960
50:28
When I look at the great cooks that I've been around,
963
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2480
50:31
Leah, my grandmother --
964
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50:33
they were never defined by the tools.
965
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3560
50:36
When I go to Ethiopia and we run,
966
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4200
50:41
even if we send tons of shoes,
967
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1640
50:42
the kids never wear the shoes
968
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1480
50:44
because they protect them for good days, not running.
969
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3160
50:47
And I got my new Nike's, Adidas, whatever,
970
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4040
50:51
and still they're like 30 yards ahead of me.
971
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2360
50:53
And looking back, it's like, are you coming?
972
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50:56
It's never, for me, about the tools.
973
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50:58
TG: It's more talent than tools.
974
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51:00
MS: And it's also
975
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51:02
the love of the craft.
976
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1520
51:04
So for a home cook,
977
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2760
51:06
eat your food,
978
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2040
51:08
eat out,
979
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1880
51:10
and keep that love of curiosity, and stay hungry.
980
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3560
51:15
TG: Alright, for our last question,
981
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51:17
I know there are so many more that we all want to ask,
982
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3280
51:20
but tell us what food, ingredients, cuisine is inspiring you now.
983
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51:26
What would you send us all to think about, look at and taste?
984
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5000
51:31
MS: I would say, wherever you are in the world,
985
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4200
51:35
support your local Black restaurant.
986
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2960
51:39
Follow a chef of color in your neighborhood
987
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51:45
or outside your neighborhood.
988
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51:47
Because through that lens you will learn new things.
989
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51:51
And it doesn't matter if you're of color or not
990
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51:54
because if you want to know about the mystic,
991
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51:58
about djon djon from Haiti,
992
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1960
52:00
it's not going to be through that major platform that you read it.
993
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3440
52:03
It might be through that local restaurant,
994
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2360
52:06
and you are missing out if you have not had djon djon.
995
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4560
52:10
If you want to know about what's happening in the underbelly of cooking,
996
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6440
52:17
that then becomes the pop culture,
997
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2920
52:20
follow the chefs in your community,
998
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52:24
support them.
999
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1280
52:25
You know, Chef Maame,
1000
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2280
52:28
there was a line cook with us for years at Red Rooster,
1001
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2760
52:30
she moved back to Ghana in order to come back
1002
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3000
52:33
and start a food conference called Black Women in Food in DC --
1003
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4360
52:38
sold out, by the way --
1004
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52:40
today is coming back to Red Rooster to do a pop-up.
1005
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2640
52:43
Now that 360 for me of her coming back,
1006
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4160
52:47
I mean lived in Harlem in Little West Africa, as we call it,
1007
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4240
52:51
on the 116 Street on the West Side,
1008
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2640
52:54
working at Red Rooster,
1009
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52:56
taking that experience, going back,
1010
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2000
52:58
opening a restaurant
1011
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52:59
where former Rooster staff had actually worked in,
1012
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2720
53:02
and then coming back to America through a conference that she created,
1013
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6480
53:09
and in order then tonight to do a pop-up,
1014
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53:11
that for me is truly understanding
1015
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5600
53:16
connectivity.
1016
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53:18
Watching her evolve as a great chef and as a contributor in the food space,
1017
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53:23
that is really what inspires me and keeps me going.
1018
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4280
53:27
Things like that. Chefs like Maame.
1019
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1720
53:29
TG: Yeah. Well, I think in many cases that's possible
1020
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2640
53:32
because of the inspiration you've given so many chefs
1021
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53:34
to understand how they can root in culture,
1022
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53:37
how they can use their ancestry, the places they are from,
1023
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53:41
the places they've been as inspiration,
1024
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1880
53:43
and also bring some of the many ways
1025
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2720
53:46
in which our cultures show up into the space of restaurants.
1026
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53:50
I mean, you know, so much of your work has provided that path for so many.
1027
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53:55
So what's a word of inspiration that you give to young chefs?
1028
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53:59
What would you say to them?
1029
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54:01
MS: Absolutely.
1030
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54:02
TG: As a way to give them the charge.
1031
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54:04
Because your inspiration, of course,
1032
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1800
54:06
was instigated by someone saying to you, you cannot do this.
1033
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54:10
And here we are now, you know,
1034
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54:12
after decades, where you have done this to --
1035
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2520
54:14
you know, James Beard Awards, and a memoir, and TV shows,
1036
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3760
54:18
and restaurants around the world,
1037
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54:20
and cooking for presidents and musicians,
1038
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54:23
and, you know, the whole world --
1039
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54:24
MS: And art curators as well.
1040
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1800
54:26
TG: And art curators as well.
1041
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54:28
And you've done this so deeply throughout the world.
1042
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3000
54:31
What would you say to a young person now who comes and says, how do I do this?
1043
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54:36
MS: A, welcome to our community.
1044
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4160
54:41
You will always be busy.
1045
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2440
54:43
Stay curious.
1046
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54:45
Learn the craft. Learn the craft.
1047
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54:49
Keep cooking, keep cooking.
1048
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54:53
And then -- I literally, like I mean it --
1049
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54:58
stay hungry.
1050
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55:00
Write your food.
1051
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55:02
Both write your food and cook your food.
1052
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55:05
Even at its worst stage, it's a starting point.
1053
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55:08
I've written so many, I cooked so many bad dishes
1054
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3520
55:12
before I get to the good dishes.
1055
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55:14
So for me, it's really understanding the past
1056
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55:17
and learn the history,
1057
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55:18
learn the craft,
1058
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55:20
keep cooking and stay curious.
1059
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55:22
Because if you do all that,
1060
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55:25
somewhere you will learn about yourself
1061
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1880
55:27
and the joy of breaking bread,
1062
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55:29
and the joy of doing bad dishes.
1063
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55:33
Because if you do ten bad dishes,
1064
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55:34
that 11th time, that might be a great dish.
1065
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55:38
TG: I think that's a great metaphor for any creative pursuit.
1066
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55:41
The ability to stay curious, stay hungry,
1067
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55:45
keep allowing oneself the opportunity for failure.
1068
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55:48
Because, as you say, that 11th dish,
1069
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55:51
that 11th try is then where the joy is.
1070
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55:53
Marcus, thank you so much.
1071
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1320
55:55
MS: Thank you so much.
1072
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55:56
TG: Not only for this fantastic meal, this fantastic conversation,
1073
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4320
56:00
but also for the great opportunity you've given us all
1074
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56:04
to learn so much about food and culture.
1075
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56:07
MS: And I want to say thank you to Thelma Golden
1076
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56:10
for being here, as always, here at Hav and Mar,
1077
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3800
56:14
but literally here for us in the TED community.
1078
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56:16
And thank you to the TED audience for giving us this platform.
1079
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3720
56:20
We really appreciate it.
1080
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1400
56:22
And I'll see you here at Hav and Mar, or at Red Rooster,
1081
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3800
56:25
or anywhere where our paths may cross.
1082
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4040
56:29
Thank you so much for having us. And stay hungry.
1083
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2320
56:32
[Want to support TED?]
1084
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2640
56:34
[Become a TED Member!]
1085
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1680
56:36
[Learn more at ted.com/membership]
1086
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