PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Nina Scott 0:02
More than 100 years separate me and my great great grandmother. I'm a 22 year old rooted firmly in the 21st century. You might know me as embodied audience, engagement intern. My great great grandmother is Flora Bell Atkins Riley. She was born in Durham, North Carolina in 1912 she worked as a sharecropper, and her son, my great granddaddy, Tom, worked in the same Lucky Strike factory where I'm recording this episode. Both Flora Bell and Tom Riley passed away before I was born, but I've built relationships with them through cooking and preparing recipes that connect me to their legacy. For many African Americans like me, who are descendants of formerly enslaved folks in America, the holiday season is more than just a time to give gifts and eat delicious meals. It's a time of congregation, healing and raising spirits during extremely difficult times. While a lot of my ancestors stories were never documented, the holiday recipes I've learned to cook helped me turn back the hands of time and feel like I'm standing side by side with my ancestors. This is embodied our show about sex, relationships and your health. I'm Nina Scott, guest host of today's episode. You may have heard a recent episode about food and cultural identity that inspired me to talk to some of my close friends about how they use food to reconnect with their cultures. We are living in a world where travel is more accessible than it's ever been. Work, education and safety may prompt us to leave home. Traditions get lost to death, drama or tragedies, and among Gen Z and millennials, family estrangement is becoming more and more common, but food can be a conduit to reclaim cultural birth rights in the face of external disruptions.
Sari Ghirmay-Morgan 1:50
I feel more connected to my culture when I'm cooking with better beret and with other spices that are traditionally Ethiopian, because now that my grandmother has passed away, it is kind of as if there's a empty slot in my life for homemade Ethiopian food.
Nina Scott 2:12
This is my friend Sari, a Black American with roots in Ethiopia and Eritrea. Saudi was born in the US and grew up in DC, but we met during our time in undergrad at UNC Chapel Hill, while Saudis grandmother was still alive, she altered their traditional recipes for Saudi's diet, and even blended in some elements of American cuisine.
Sari Ghirmay-Morgan 2:31
First, when I was very young, I think I was very picky, and I was also a pescatarian. And my grandmother, she would make these really elaborate meals that took forever. It took so long, and a lot of them had chicken in them, and I couldn't really eat that. And so she would make me these kind of Americanized Ethiopian meals, like lasagna with berbera, which is a very spicy powder. And as I got older, I started appreciating Ethiopian food that was vegetarian, and I thought it was so delicious. So she would cook full, which is like fava beans and tomatoes and jalapenos. And a lot of Ethiopian food has kind of a mushy texture, especially the beans and lentils, and it's more soft, and it's eaten on spongy, fermented flatbread called inchara that kind of looks like a pancake with like holes in it. So it was very different as a child versus like as an adult. When
Nina Scott 3:36
When Sari moved from DC to North Carolina, they confronted one of the challenges of staying connected to culture through food, not having access to the right ingredients. While in DC, they were robust communities of habisha, Ethiopian and Eritrean, people that wasn't the case in North Carolina and Saudi struggle to find restaurants, caterers, or even grocery stores that carry the ingredients they need to make some of their grandmother's dishes. Rebecca, another friend of mine, experienced something similar, but her family has been able to help her keep ingredients stocked.
Rebecca Wu 4:08
So I grew up in Atlanta, was around my family, and then when I moved to Chicago, there was still a good amount of Chinese and Taiwanese heritage around me, especially through food. But then coming to North Carolina, that was a lot harder to find. And so there was one point I went home, my grandmother gave me a bunch of ingredients that she had either grown or just had, like, brought back from Taiwan. But I decided that I could cook traditional Taiwanese dishes with those ingredients. And so I did. And I remember we used to do movie nights, and I would bring some of those things to movie nights to share with my friends, right?
Nina Scott 4:41
Yeah, what sort of things did your grandmother give you?
Rebecca Wu 4:44
It was actually kind of a random assortment of things. She gave me some dried anchovies, which we use a lot, just like within different like, especially vegetable dishes. She gave me some chestnuts that she had grown, and also boiled and processed for me, and we put those. Was in don't, which are, like, these sticky rice wraps. And she also gave me some, like, vegetables and stuff that I used in that moment, haven't been able to keep them because they were fresh vegetables, but, yeah,
Nina Scott 5:10
what type of vegetables like she gave me?
Rebecca Wu 5:13
I don't know what they're called in English, but basically, like, it's Kong sings hai. So it's a leafy green vegetable cowboy who just stir fry most of the time, then also the same squash that people use for loofa, and we cook that and eat that as well. I don't talk to my grandmother super often, but I when I do talk to her, I try to ask her about recipes that she made for me when I was younger. So I'll ask, like, Oh, I've been wanting to make this thing. Can you tell me how you make it? And usually it's like too much to write down, so that I googled the recipe later, but it's nice to connect with her that way, just to ask her and hear from her how she makes those things and then do that for myself now that I'm not you know, in that environment,
Nina Scott 5:51
last year, Rebecca moved to the triangle to pursue a PhD at UMC Chapel Hill. I have loved joining her on trips to visit Asian markets as she seeks out authentic ingredients.
Rebecca Wu 6:02
When I first moved here, I lived in carboro, so naturally, there were not a lot of Asian grocery stores in the area. The ones that did exist were probably the size of this room. They were very small. And I thought at that point that the closest Asian grocery store was h Mart, which is in Cary, so it's good 4045, minutes away. And then I discovered a place in Durham that is obviously a lot closer to me. Now it's like 10 minutes from me. They have like a fresh selection of fruits and vegetables that I grew up with, and then other like dry ingredients. I also recently discovered that Wegmans also has like an Asian vegetable section that they label Asian vegetables. So I've been able to get some stuff that way too.
Nina Scott 6:42
While my friends Rebecca and Sari went from spaces where their cultural cuisine was available to having to search and figure it out on their own, my friend Britney had the opposite experience. She was raised in North Carolina for the majority of her life, but has lived all over the world because of her family's ties to the military. When they ultimately settled down in Fayetteville, North Carolina, she was pleasantly surprised to find a robust Jamaican community. It's actually home to the second largest Jamaican community in the state.
Britney Watson 7:10
My mother was born in St Thomas, which is part of the Virgin Islands, and then came here when she was younger. Her mother's from Antigua, and her father's from Tortola. And then my father is from Jamaica, Spanish town, and came here when he was a young adult. And I was born in Augusta, Georgia, and I've lived in the US for the majority of my life,
Nina Scott 7:30
while my maternal line is from Durham, North Carolina. My paternal ancestry is Jamaican. I didn't grow up with close ties my biological father, though, so I know very little about my Caribbean heritage. Brittany and I have bonded over feeling disconnected from the islands as a result of being raised in the US. We were both raised in Southern African American culture, and it can be difficult to figure out what cultures you're allowed to claim or reclaim.
Britney Watson 7:56
All throughout my life, I'm realizing that I've never really had a consistent conceptualization of my cultural and ethnic identity. I think when I was younger, I didn't really differentiate myself between being like Black and African American, because I grew up in a majority black town and I went to a majority black elementary school, so and I was younger, so I didn't really conceptualize the difference between me being a child of immigrants and the people around me, not so when I was younger, my cultural identity was very much melted within African American culture. And then as I got older, I started realizing that that is not necessarily like my heritage. And as I got to college, I realized how distant I have been from my Caribbean heritage, and I've been kind of like trying to reconcile that late recently, I've been doing a lot of things to try to feel more in touch with my cultural heritage, but then I also sometimes feel kind of in a very odd space with it, because I'm not from the Caribbean. I was not born there, and I've been there very few times. So sometimes it feels awkward for me to stake a claim to that. But then at the same time, I'm not African American, and it also feels odd for me to stake a claim on that as well.
Nina Scott 9:11
For Britney holidays in particular, cause these differences to rise to the surface.
Britney Watson 9:17
I've been around people cooking Caribbean food and Thanksgiving meals, and even day to day dinner, we'll do sawfish and dumplings, oxtails and brown stooped chicken Escovitch. And that is something that has been extremely familiar to me. I think a particular moment in time would be maybe my Thanksgiving when I was in fourth grade, my mom invited one of my teachers to our house because she really liked Jamaica food. And I was telling my teacher, I was like, oh yeah, we always eat dumplings. We always eat sawfish. And she was so excited, and I was really, I think that's when I noticed there was a difference between the things that I was doing at my home. That maybe other black people weren't doing, because I was like, everyone's eating this at their dinner table. And that was really nice, because not only did I get to appreciate the food that I always appreciate on a day to day basis, but I got to invite people into my house who aren't usually there to appreciate it with me. And that was really lovely experience, right?
Nina Scott 10:18
Could you describe what Saltfish and dumplings taste like,
Britney Watson 10:22
yes, so I think if you go to the store, sawfish will say like, Pollock on the actual package. I don't think it'll say sawfish. I think it'll say something like, P, o, l, O, C, K, and it's just frozen fish in a package. It's white and it is covered in salt. Is extremely salty, and to even cook it, you need to, like, boil it in water several times. Like, boil it, rinse it off. Boil it, rinse it off. So it's like, at a consumable level of salt. But then you'll mix that in with some seasonings. You'll do tomatoes, you'll do scotch bonnet pepper, he'll do the onion scallion, and it's just a very nice, savory and almost sort of tangy taste, depending on who makes it. My dad really likes it with a lot of sauce, so he'll use a lot of tomatoes to make it have a very acidic and like sharp taste with it. But sometimes people don't like a lot of sauce, so it'll be a little bit drier and not has acidic and then the dumplings are made with just dough. It's just flour. You put flour in a ball, and then you boil it in water. So it's just a very plain taste, but it's very nice because the sawfish is salty and sometimes it's strong, so the dumplings cut that, and the textures also blend with each other very nicely. The sawfish has a very sharp texture. The fish sometimes is very hard, not hard in a crunchy way, but it's got, like, very sharp and prominent edges in your mouth, and sometimes it even has bones in it, so it's sharp in that sense too, whereas the dumpling is very smooth and soft. So those two things, they just compliment each other very well, and they're not I don't think they're always eaten together, but more than likely, I think I've always had them with each other.
Nina Scott 12:07
Food has been a beautiful point of connection in my friend group. Rebecca Britney Sari and I frequently hit the grocery store together, and our grocery baskets look like a true American melting pot. Once Rebecca drove us to Costco, where Brittany bought this huge box of Jamaican beef patties. I bought barbecue ribs. Saudi bought ramen noodles, and Rebecca bought tofu. Although our cultures are distinct, we're brought together in our love for each other and our love of eating, this uniting power of food transcends culture, geography and even death. Here's Sari again.
Sari Ghirmay-Morgan 12:42
After my grandmother passed away, it became very much more important to me to immerse myself in Ethiopian cultural dining traditions, and it really makes me feel more at home when I'm able to eat, especially with my mom, because she's American, but she really likes Ethiopian food. And with my dad and my uncle and my aunt, because they are ha Bucha and they love ha Bucha food as well. But being with family, and kind of having a family style Ethiopian platter, where we're able to like, we're able to get the fish and the lentils. There's three main lentil dishes, and like a fish dish that I really love, and potatoes and cabbage and carrots dish and a beets dish. And so all of these dishes are generally sold separately, but when you're with your family or with a large group of people, you're able to kind of consolidate and then get them all on the platter of the injeta. And so the injeta is kind of like a circle, and you have each of these little dishes, and just being able to share that with my family or with my friends, it just feels really It feels like I'm more connected communal. It feels very communal.
Nina Scott 14:00
Rebecca noted that the food eaten at festivals and communal celebrations plays a huge role in how she connects to her culture.
Rebecca Wu 14:08
I think outside of food, there were fewer things that I used to connect with my culture. So even if we watch stuff, watch TV or movies in Chinese, it was, you know, Chinese versions of American movies, and not necessarily exposure to Taiwanese or Chinese culture directly. And I think the only other thing I can think of that really connected me growing up was like going to celebrations, or going to Lunar New Year celebrations, or like mid autumn festival, things like that. And even those things are very centered around food. I think food is just a very nice, like everyday way to stay connected with my culture.
Nina Scott 14:41
These conversations about food reflect the ways that cultural disconnection can occur. I sometimes envy the fact that my friends are able to name the regions and countries that their close relatives come from. The transatlantic slave trade violently severed me from the traditions food and overall culture of my African ancest. Sirs, it's a complex type of grief that I hold space for, while continuing to celebrate the adaptation and resilience that birthed the soul food of the afro Carolinas. This holiday season, I'm working to be intentionally grateful about the connections I have with my living family, and to hold space for the connections I no longer have or never got access to I never met Miss Flora Riley, nor my great granddaddy, Tom, but I can still connect with them via foods and memories from the holidays. While I work on perfecting my candied yams, I'll think of MS Flora growing sweet potatoes to provide for the future generations of her family. So many other ingredients for holiday recipes were likely crops in her fields. When I asked my mom about memories of eating with my great grandparents, she noted the candied yams that my great grandmother used to make. She'd season the sweet potatoes with cinnamon and nutmeg and cover the dish with loads and loads of toasted marshmallows. This food memory will guide my hand as I'm cooking this Christmas I also hope to learn how to cook more Caribbean dishes here and there. Hopefully, with the help of Britney, Sari and Rebecca, we can work together to create meals that help us reconnect to the cultural ties lots of time, distance and hardship. I'll leave you with this thought from Britney, who says that cooking helps her explore her own values and identity as well as her culture.
Britney Watson 16:22
It's me expressing love for myself, but when I specifically am cooking in a way that's cultural, there's like a whole other layer to it. At a baseline, I like feed myself because I care about myself, and I want myself to keep going, and I want myself to have energy, and that is already a really important process. But when I'm adding to that a long history of like culture and memories, it is doing something different. I'm now proud of myself, and I'm now recognizing how far I've come as an adult, and how far I've come with my relationship with my family and understanding the history of my family, and it's also not performative, which is something that's different than other parts of culture. Not to say that the culture is done for the goal of performing for other people, but food is inherently internal, like it's not has a function, right? It's not done for entertainment, and it is not done necessarily for esthetics. It's done to feed me, so something about me cooking versus me dancing. It's like there is an inherent, genuine, like thing here. I have to do this right, because I need to eat. So there's a lot of extra care that goes into it as well. So I think food is just a place where I get to really put in discipline and practice and care and intentionality with cultural expression in a space in a way that I don't have to do that with other aspects of my cultural identity.
Nina Scott 17:55
Embodied is a production of North Carolina Public Radio-瓜神app, a listener supported station. If you want to lend your support to this podcast, consider a contribution at wunc.org. This episode was produced by me, Nina Scott, and edited by Amanda Magnus. Kaia Findlay is our producer, and Jenni Lawson is our technical director. If you have any thoughts or feelings after listening to this episode, we would love to hear them. You can leave us a voice note in our virtual mailbox, speak pipe. You could also write us a review and let us know why you listen, or text your favorite episode to a friend. Be sure to check out our Instagram page @Embodied瓜神app to stay up to date on our upcoming episodes and behind the scene sneak peeks. Until next time, I'm Nina Scott.