Food as a Political Tool

It is with a lot of reluctance that I share this post. I personally like use social media for public things for the most part and especially about food and politics. But it pained ny heart to see so many people, Black and otherwise defending a warlord and dismissively calling others haters. The death of the last queen of England was divisive both in life and death.

Kenyan has been a divided country from the time chief Waiyaki Wa Hinga the first Gìkuyù leader who was murdered by the British after welcoming Ludwig Kraft as a brother. Some people become hostile to the theiving and ungrateful travelors. The cover and true motive of the British had been blown off in the eyes of all. Yet others had felt that it was futile to fight for freedom against the invaders. I am in owe to see how that fear continues to be be normalized in modern day Kenya. The numbers of those who resisted continues to decline and for a period of time in my youth, the history of the resistance was taboo topic both in schools as well as in media. The speaking of African languages in schools was punished beyond 3rd grade.

Here is a photo of my kick-ass father as a prisioner of war in the British gulag in 1951.His story is one of millions of families in colonial Kenya. My father helped organize the other prisoners to agitate against the use of food as a political tool. He had quickly recognized the nefarious plot by the British to use food to both dehumanize as well as demoralize those inclined towards revolutionary action.

This was done by feeding the prisioners like animals, without dignity. The pucket which the inmates used as a toilet was rainsed and then used to provide drinking water.

Since the prisoners would be so thirsty given the artificial scarcity of water, the bucket would be laced with feces at the edges to discouraged the prisoners from touching the bucket. That meant that the prisoners had to bend down and drink the water from the bucket like dogs, all while smelling feces. They were too insignificant to deserve clean water and cups.

My father was a great cook, owned a restaurant and a lover of food. He was food literate and understood the connection between food and Heath.

I can only imagine the damage to his personhood to have been that traumatized by

When I hear people calling others haters because of the utter disgust at the crimes of the British monarchy, I know ignorance is real. It would be a great dishonor to the pains my family and people are still going through today due to the actions dating back over 70 years.

There are many who suffered but who know that forgetting is suicidal.

Calculus of Food Justice

CALCULUS OF FOOD JUSTICE

Food Literacy has deep cultural implications. One of the most fundamental principles of food literacy is justice. If you can't learn about justice through food, no law school degree can help you.

I remember this process of learning justice through food, during family gatherings, where every family would take some meat home. I was always fascinated with the way my Dad’s oldest brother would always set aside some meat. He would never cook all of it, and I loved to watch him divide the remaining meat by quantity and quality for people to take home.

It was a wonderful feeling to discuss this matter with the young men from my village, working in Kenya on our Food Literacy Project, after they slaughtered two animals for meat, as a group, and practiced the same old system of their forefathers. If you think that a village that prays together stays together, consider one that eats together, and observe the difference.

I found it rather fascinating growing up, when my father told me that you can insult some without uttering a word, but rather from the choice of meat you offer them.

The young men used two broad banana leaves as a mat and divided the meat into unequal piles. These young men had no scale. A scale would have been of little use. You see, all meat is not equal. That means that the one dividing the meat has to do a very complex calculation. The calculation has to factor in the cultural value that each part of the animal carries.

In the end, the amount of meat in each pile is different, as it takes into account the quality and quantity. Each pile would carry different flavors, too. To an outsider, the whole process could appear overly simple, and flawed. Yet those who are culturally aware and literate would be smiling all the way to the kitchen.

What a fun way to learn about food justice, while enjoying indigenous flavors too! There is more to food justice than access to food, and the quality of food. Often, when eating food, we love a good ambiance. Consuming the food in a culturally just manner and a culturally literate environment is the most powerful ambiance.

Food Crucifixion, Bikini &Banana Republic

Miles Davis is a legend of jazz improvisation. That genius was once demonstrated at a live show in Stuttgart Germany. At the beginning of the show, Herbie Hancock blanked out on the keys and played a note that clearly way off. Miles was visibly bothered, but just for a moment. What followed amazed those present. He played a note on his trumpet which actually made the mistake that Herbie Hancock’s mistake sound right.

This weekend, I turned a mistake that resulted in having so many bananas into some artistic cooking that actually made the mistake become an unforgettable flavor and recipe.

Here is one simple and yet most elegant gourmet breakfast. It consists of a disc-shaped section of white sweet potato (known as Japanese bonito, locally) and a disc-shaped section of beet root. That is where the simplicity ends. The sauce is my version of pure sweet bananas "honey”, with a bunch of spices in it. It initially looked just like pure honey, and only formed into a jelly after refrigeration. The garnish is lemon balm and dandelion flower, from the backyard.

Last year I made a tea I named the Tea of Repentance. It was sumptuous enough to warrant an essay to memorize and accompany it. This spring, I have created a mock vegan honey from bananas. I am still adjusting the ingredients to standardize it for a collection of recipes and curriculum. Rubbing this honey on roasted sweet potatoes, or using it to make rice, are two of the ways I used it.

My indigenous holiday over the weekend was that of celebrating real food and was memorable enough. I had many questions in my mind at a time when many were celebrating Easter around the world. My mind however was preoccupied with earthly matters. Bananas was earthly as I could get this weekend.

Besides referring to the bananas we eat, the other popular phrase with bananas is the clothing brand known as Banana Republic. Together with the word Bikini, Banana Republic makes mockery of the injustices of America against other indigenous people and countries.

Bananas are cheap in the U.S because countries like Guatemala dispossessed indigenous people of their land, so that the Americans United Fruit, later changed into Chiquita, can force the locals into low wage workers for the corporation. That's how we can afford to eat blood food and still be mentally shielded enough to view ourselves as innocent and even blessed.

Bikini Island wasn't as lucky even though they were a small island without banana-growing capacity, or rare minerals. Being amongst the Marshall Islands, however, was just far enough from America to be useful as a testing ground for 23 nuclear weapons between 1946 and 1958. The pristine Island was therefore contaminated with the toxic bombs which were detonated there, forcing the evacuation of the remaining residents who survived.

The two injustices in both South America and Marshall Islands would be marked by two ubiquitous fashion brands: Bikini and Banana Republic. One for your scantily inner wear and the other, outer wear.

I used the bananas to make a nourishing meal, that hopefully allows me to turn the mistake of fiat food into a potent weapon in the war for food justice. Real justice cannot be something that we wear and remove like fashionable clothes. It has to emanate from inside.

I hope you don't ask me " So what?", as my answer can only be tasted or turned into a tune, which, unfortunately, I can't do. That is why I borrowed one from Miles Davis. The answer is simple: we all have to be indigenously just.

Is your level of Justice and Food Literacy as scant as a Bikini? Now you know why our food system is scanty dressed with justice but heavy with pollution. Like Miles, consider being a savior by making the old errors right. In other words crucify your fiat food appetite and, like Miles, right our past and, by extension, our future. In so doing, real food will be resurrected.

Rhythms, Food & Freedom

One of my major patron activists is Fella Kuti. His Afro Beat music is a significant inspiration behind my cuisine, Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine. Kuti embodies the quintessential rebel spirit necessary to break the chains of oppression without any prerequisites except originality and a consistency in unencumbered freedom of thought. I can’t think of a better reason for me to be traveling to University of California, Santa Barbara to speak of Food Literacy and African self-liberation. California, specifically Oakland, was the bedrock of the Black Panthers Party during the haydays of the Civil Rights movement. It is therefore no accident that Fela Kuti started his self awareness on the same stomping grounds as the BPP during a visit there to see Sandra, his girlfriend at the time.

At the time of his visit, Fela Kuti was studying in England at the time and was already playing in a band. The impact of his visit and his awareness about the work of the BPP would change Fela Kuti, his music and mission for the rest of his life. The product of his California trip is evident is the prolific music that touched many people across the world.

I was a young boy when my oldest brother brought a Fela Kuti which he would play all the time. My first memories of Fela's song was of a song entitled"Gentleman". I couldn't understand the message from the song and I wasn't sure whether my love for the song is solely based on its musical merits or just familiarity due to the fact that my brother played it so many times until instinctively the song became an a part of my memories of home. The influence of Afro Beat would follow me to the U.S, where it become the background music during my college years in the U.S. I was surprised to learn just how popular the music of my childhood was globally.

It made all the difference that I could now understand some of the message, thanks to some of my college friends who helped explain a lot of nuances in the message that I could not have possibly understood in my younger days. If Fela Kuti's music was the philosophical anthem, professor Ngugi Wa Thiong'o was the intellectual fire rod that ignited my desire for both activism and intellectual pursuits. I read every single book by Ngugi that I could lay my hands on. It was an interesting coincidence that I would later meet Ngugi for the first time in California.

My favorite Gìkuyu play of all time is “Ngahika Ndenda", later translated to the English into "I will Marry When I Want" by Professor Ngugi wa Thiong'o. The play was unconventional as it was led by a university professor but using the peasant farmers as the cast. I remember my brother talking about the play but the government quickly shut it down and detained the veritable author. As I drove in a taxi on my way to Ngugi's office, I wondered if Fela had read Ngugi's play and if that had anything to do with his decision to marry all the women in his band, There were few conventions about Fela, at least as I know him. All this could just be nostalgia, but in any case, my brother would be the first to argue that my life has mirrored Fela's song "Gentleman" spirit to a letter.

As if to give credence to that theory, food features very prominently, followed by fashion. Fella Kuti makes mockery of Africa's neo colonial mentality in dressing and in eating habits all in a bid to be considered a gentleman. Fela Kuti denounces such behaviors and boldly states that his stand is to be an original African. To this day, those are two areas that continue to plague Africa in its bid to liberate itself.

I first went to California back in 2003 and it was during this visit that I met my intellectual Kenyan hero elder Ngùgì wa Thiong'o. It was a memorable meeting and the most remarkable statement he made had a lot to do with self liberation. Professor Ngùgi told me that a classical way to view our situation as previously colonized people is that of a mother that gives birth to a child but suckles another woman's child instead of her own. That powerful imagery couldn't be easily forgotten.

I have those two towering giant elders and Chef Bryant Terry, my college mate and colleague who resides in Oakland, on my mind as I head to California. Fela is an ancestor and it is only right that I serve him an original course of culinary tribute.

Quantum Culinary Voyage

Today we harvested organic plantains in Njumbi Murang’a county. These plantains were planted during the Corona lock down. Many thanks to the many hands that tilled the land, offered seedlings and financial support. The first cropped has gone to some of those supporters. 

The biggest reward has been to work on a project which involves 4 generations alive, my matriarch mother, myself, my children and grandchildren.  The project also offered internship opportunities for some of the local youths and kept them productive and learningduring the longest school break in history of modern schoolingin Kenya. Many students strayed from the normal path, with teenage pregnancy and drugs resulting in high school dropouts across the country.

Munene Antony and Stanley Gatheca  were critical in starting the project. Many others have supported in various ways. Here is a repository for very old species of indigenous bananas and other cultural and exotic foods. It's a small place with a big heart equal only to the dreams of the ancestors who kept the grounds sacred enough for those who will be nurtured both by the fertility of the soil as well as the hearts of those that fertility has nurtured.

There are also reparations that are owed to the soil for the brief period Maafa, where the custodians of the soil were duped into applying foreign chemicals into the soil as they chased the illusive and deceptive monster known as the global market. Some are yet to recover from that misadventure and the diseases of the body, soil, soul and pockets due to consequences of toxic chemicals applied on their land. It is no suprise that many today have high levels of chronic diseases. I am acutely aware of the difference between food and fiat food. I never could have thought that food could be inflationary.  The food we grow is the exact opposite.  It is deflationary.  It will be more expensive and valuable over time and we have the record and the clean soil to back the claim. But most importantly we have eaters who can bear witness of our work. What I hope will also happen simultaneously is that we will help make it easier for those who eat our consciously grown foods do is recognize the pirate cum inflationary food from miles away.

On a positive note, the work has taught me so much about value and what it means for me to stay connected to a place I call home but yet have not resided in over 40 years.  Home is truly a strange concept! Home has quantum characteristics as one can be there even when far away. For all the talking I do, for all the dreaming and theorizing I do, its an unspeakable joy to share my home with others across continents and across time and space. That is what gives life something beyond meaning and profit. I am so much wiser now and hope to grow, along with others on that fantastic voyage.

Food, Scholarship & Y-Chromosomes

Today I attended a great event organized by Dr. Frederick Douglas Opie, a prominent food scholar I highly respect. Something he implied inspired this recipe which I prepred soon after for a great friend who is a Gìkùyù scholar in his own right. Since goats and sheep are both used as currency and sacrificial animals, I choose to prepare this lamb recipe for him.

The flavor profile , the 5 mounds, the 4 corners of the bowl all add up to 9, which also happens to be the number of the ingredients used. Nine represents the one constant number. What these two men represent to me is that constant power of nurturing responsible culture as a way of cultivating manhood. Put differently, you have to love yourself through the kind of ethics you live by or aspire to. Being loved by others is subservient to love of self. I am quite aware that any oppressed group of people have to ultimately deal with the idea of compromised adulthood. Systemic racism equally undermines healthy relationship with self amongst the oppressed group, but more so especially amongst men. Having partners that enable me to shield me from such pains is a great asset.

This is a wonderful discussion to take place amongst men. Men typically don't verbally express love in words but in deeds. In the world of the Y-chromosomes, actions speak loudest. That doesn't mean that occasionally say that I love this two great men both through words and food. There is no greater love amongst brothers. Such friendship and alliances are more valuable than gold. By the way if you think toxic masculinity is problematic to you, remember that it is problematic to males too and has some roots with a toxic, violent and unjust culture such as ours. Cultivating a culture of wise, healthy and loving men who love themselves as well as other men is a benefit to us all.

Food & War

Look at the food war going on right under our nose. Here is some organic corn seeds that are priced at $.40 per gram. That means that 1 kg of these seeds cost $400 dollars. An NLAW missile that is quite common in taking down a large number of Russian tanks in Ukraine cost about $40,000. That means that 100 kg of corn seeds are equivalent to the above missile.

It all might make sense, the cost of a T-14 Armata Russian tank is about $3.7 million dollars. That means that a 40k missile takes down a tank that is almost 100 times more expensive. In a similar light, you can buy cheap food but you will end up spending over 100 times your lifetime expenditure in food.

There is no escaping this truism, no amount of prayer will keep us from paying the price of polluting our environment and our bodies. Our only choice is to protect our environment or be ready to pay through our health. I don’t need to remind us that we all pay for the pollution of our environment collectively. Eating in a conscious and responsible manner is a cheaper deal in the long run. Wake up and fight with your teeth.

Kagai Macadamia Sauce

We harvested macadamia nuts from our 4 trees today. This is one of the many sustainable products grown in my area but only gained popularity when the Chinese started importing it.

Yet this is a very versatile commodity in ensuring food security and good flavor with very little effort or toxic chemicals required.

The nuts can make the easiest and tastiest vegan milk when first harvested. When dried, the nuts can last for many months without refrigeration or canning.

I have fond memories of my childhood tied to this nut. This nut was a great snack for us after school as children in the village. As an adult, I make awesome sauce for a plantains as a breakfast meal.

The breakfast was so good that I felt as though what I had been having in the in the city is tantamount to a saucide boombers otherwise known as ketchup, tartar sauce and salad dressing. My Kìgai macadamia sauce I created used only local ingredients.