Oakland-based eco chef, food justice activist, and author, Bryant Terry works to move the intersections between poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity from the margins to the center of food justice activism to build a more just and sustainable food system.
I'm very excited to learn about Vegan Soul Kitchen (VSK): Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine, the forthcoming book by Oakland-based eco chef, food justice activist, and author Bryant Terry.
Terry's previous book, Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, co-authored with Anna Lappé, has been on my to-read list since I first learned about it through an interview with Satya magazine a couple years back. I've put off reading Grub for way to long now and the announcement of VSK is as good a reminder as any that I need to move it to the top of my list. [ETA: I've since read Grub, and was disappointed by it.]
I just learned about Terry's new book project thanks to Breeze Harper and her post on the Sister Vegan Project blog about a recent brainstorming session to promote and support Terry's new book. In her post, Breeze writes the importance of books like VSK, noting that:
To support Terry's project is to support a part of the the food movement in the USA that is generally ignored by the status quo. Basically, within the mainstream, it is assumed that everyone is white middle class and has the transportation, financial, and educational means to access healthier and tastier foods. The mainstream food movement generally doesn't have to think about environmental racism, 'food deserts,' legacies of colonialism on brown, black and red bodies, etc.
I think Breeze is absolutely right on this. I just recently read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and what Breeze points out was exactly what I observed with that book. For a book of some 450 pages, Omnivore's Dilemma could have been much, much shorter and gone a whole lot deeper into the justice issues of the U.S. food system if it wasn't written as a "personal journey" about a White middle-class author who can afford to ignore all those deeper issues that Breeze mentions.
This is exactly why there is a such a pressing need for books like Terry's Grub and VSK. Terry's work moves the intersections between poverty, structural racism, and food insecurity from the margins to the center of food justice activism to build a more just and sustainable food system.
