We know so much about the European food story, and we're getting to know about the American food story; but we know so little about the African food story.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the lack of awareness and understanding of African culinary heritage compared to European and American cuisines.
Marcus Samuelsson emphasizes the importance of recognizing and exploring the rich and diverse food culture of Africa, which has remained largely underrepresented in the global culinary narrative. This statement calls for an appreciation and discovery of African food history, akin to the attention given to European and American cuisines, suggesting that every culture's food story is vital to the overall understanding of world gastronomy.
In practice
In a presentation about culinary diversity, I used this quote to highlight the importance of recognizing African contributions to global cuisine.
I'm engaged in food on so many levels, and I love that. So my work, my craft, is around food, and writing is one aspect of it; communicating a narrative, cooking online is one aspect of it; solving the food chasm that we have in Harlem and finding a farmers market is another one, and all of them are equally exciting for me.
To become a good cook is to know yourself, and I, at this point, know myself. I know myself, and I know the cook I want to be and the cook I am striving to be.
As a chef, I always have in mind how to properly feed the public, but at times it's easy to forget that some people have trouble even getting any food, much less adequate nutrition.
I came into this environment where there was so much love, so much positive energy. I never heard my parents say, 'We have adopted kids.' The minute my sister Linda and I landed in Sweden, we were their kids.
I've been lucky to travel and work all over the world through the lens of the back of the house, and I love that monocle. I love that lens, because it's real people.
Children want to mimic adults. They notice when you choose to prepare fresh vegetables over calling in another pizza pie for dinner. They will see that food made with love and care outweighs going through the drive-through window.
When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.
Chinese Americans, when you try to understand what things in you are Chinese, how do you separate what is peculiar to childhood, to poverty, insanities, one family, your mother who marked your growing with stories, from what is Chinese? What is Chinese tradition and what is the movies?
There's a time when it was an event for a black person to be on television. Where black households would gather around, 'Oh, you know, Sammy Davis is going to be on 'All in the Family' tonight! Let's go check it out!' It was a big, big thing.
What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue the English language as the common medium of speech.
In a time of social fragmentation, vulgarity becomes a way of life. To be shocking becomes more important - and often more profitable - than to be civil or creative or truly original.
Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society
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