It wasn't until I came to New York and started to see the African American community, but also the Ethiopian community here, and started to eat the food, started to understand the music. I said, you know, I got to go and understand the culture. So me and my sister went.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the importance of cultural appreciation and understanding through personal experience.
Marcus Samuelsson emphasizes the transformative power of experiencing different cultures firsthand. By engaging with the African American and Ethiopian communities in New York, he highlights how immersing oneself in food, music, and cultural practices can lead to a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse backgrounds.
In practice
In a discussion about multiculturalism, you might quote this to highlight the value of exploring other cultures.
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.
A bicultural upbringing is a rich but imperfect thing
Tribalism reflects strong ethnic or cultural identities that separate members of one group from another, making them loyal to people like them and suspicious of outsiders, which undermines efforts to forge common cause across groups.
Hip-hop has done more for race relations than most cultural icons; and I say save Martin Luther King, because his 'I Have A Dream' speech was realized when Obama was elected into office.
If we learn anything from the history of economic development, it is that culture makes all the difference.
I realized that you cannot think European and want to write or create something African. You have to think African in everything.
Sports is like rock 'n' roll. Both are dominant cultural forces, both speak an international language, and both are all about emotions.
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