It was a pleasure to participate in the choreography of an Afro Futuristic Food event at Eco-Institute at Sanctuary Farm with a group of wide cross section of food experts in diverse positions across the country. The group forms a committee that determines how a fund that a philanthropist made available is disbursed.
The event was a great opportunity for me to further my analysis of power. My life mission has been to understand power in its most nuanced form and how it affects inter and intra relationships. The topic is the only thing that rivals food in maintaining a curiosity that refuses to fade away.
I have become fairly descent is classifying just how health or unhealthy our proximity to power influences our health. Last week’s event was a great opportunity to see how people navigate this challenge.
The interesting observation was that the philanthropist who had made the fund available is such a big supporter of food that they wanted to come and assist in the kitchen as my assistant. I have noticed that happens quite often. I can’t remember when I last hired a helper to clean up or assist in cooking. In majority of my events, the same people who are the clients are typically the assistants in the kitchen.
To some this might be trivial. To me this is huge than I can explain. But I will still try. When I grew up in Kenya, restaurant food was not something special but actually less than third tier. Restaurant food was something you consumed because you had no alternative. The first option was always eat food that was prepared not by strangers but by those who cooked it. I have come up with a theory that a healthy relationship is power can be deduced from one’s relationship with food.
In Kenya of my youth, catering for large family events was done by the sub clan members. I know that as two major events were help in my honor for being bold enough to attempt to attend college in America without hardly any money or knowledge of the empire. I have several essays about that experience.
But nowadays, most families hire a caterer to prepare food. This is obviously a sign of progress and wealth to some but I have a totally different idea.
Last week, I had the opportunity to have chef Kelly Tylor,my favorite culinary school instructor volunteer to assist me. John and Christy Chi were equally active in supporting put the meal together. The guests then lined up and cleaned up.
You are welcome to take any position but these people have a very close relationship to both food and power. Those who solely rely on people whose only relationship with food is only transactional and about money are likely to consume low quality food and to have a less healthy relationship with food.
I shared the story about the cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey. The Cyclops know as Polyphemus ate humans and refused to offer the typical hospitality known as Xenia. Yet, Polyphemus was glad to accept the gift of wine from the same humans he was eating up. When Odysseus asked for a gift in return for the wine, Polyphemus replied that Odysseus would have the pleasure to be eaten last. When asked what his name was, he answered that Nobody was his name.
The wine that Polyphemus consumed made him so drunk that it was easy for Odysseus was able to pierce the one eye of Odysseus. Polyphemus was in so much agony and pain after Odysseus pierced his eye with a fired sharp olive wood. Polyphemus shouted for help from the neighbors. When the neighbors showed up, they asked Polyphemus who was bothering him. Polyphemus replied that Nobody was try to kill him. So the neighbors figured since nobody was bothering Polyphemus, there was no need of going inside the cave to rescue Polyphemus from Nobody.
When we don’t have a healthy relationship with our food and those who prepare our food, we risk being cyclonic. It might just be that the cyclonic syndrome is at the heart of our lifestyle diseases.
Now you know why I don’t sell food, I sell idea and charge a fair price for those with a healthy relationship with food. When someone asked me about a prayer before eating, I said that it is an insult to pray for food you know is toxic and expect anything else but suffering. Mine is not the healthiest but it is the closest I could get to it. It made me smile to see everyone trying something different. They picked the folks and started eating. Talk about power !