Join us January 7 @ 6:00PM EST for a virtual panel with food culture influencers, restaurateurs, and scholars to examine what we put on our plates (and why) amidst a COVID-19 context. This year’s public health crisis has heightened attention to matters of cooking and food insecurity for many Americans, while simultaneously serving as the backdrop to intensified national conversations about race, identity, and belonging. Panelists will explore those twin developments, tease out links between food justice and social justice, and invite us to think more deeply about how we eat. The discussion will also touch on the pandemic’s disruption of the U.S. food system, including which changes could be here to stay both at home and in the restaurant industry.
Cuisine of the African diaspora will figure centrally. As a set of traditions shaped by the Atlantic slave trade, centuries of multicultural exchanges, and an imperative to adapt, this cuisine has shaped what’s served on American tables in ways that are profound yet overlooked. It offers a unique prism through which to view our current moment, and to foster conversations about the triangle of power, identity, and sustenance that food entails.
This FREE Cross-Ivy event (in collaboration with ColumbiaDC, and co-sponsored with Brown's Inman Page Black Alumni Council) will include time for moderated audience questions following the panel discussion. All BCDC members, ColumbiaDC members, and friends are warmly welcomed to register. Join us via Zoom when the day comes!
A 30-minute cooking demo will precede this event @ 5:00PM and offer a springboard for the panel’s themes. Visit the registration page to learn more and sign up!
Panelists:
Mark Bittman: Mark Bittman is a prolific authority on U.S. food politics, sensible cooking, and nutrition. Currently the Special Advisor on Food Policy at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Mark is also the editor-in-chief of Heated, and is working on a book and television series entitled Animal Vegetable Junk. His latest book, co-authored with David Katz, MD, is How to Eat.
Mark developed a devoted following during his three decades at the New York Times, and as a cookbook author behind 30 titles that became mainstays in countless home libraries (including the bestselling How to Cook Everything series). He has starred in four television series, and has made hundreds of television, radio, and podcast appearances, including on TODAY!, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, RealTime with Bill Maher, and NPR’s All Things Considered, Fresh Air, and Morning Edition programs.
Ian Knauer: Ian Knauer is a modern renaissance man who’s made a mark in American food culture through his writing, teaching, farming, and cooking. As a food editor for 9 years at the iconic Gourmet magazine, Ian developed and tested recipes in the magazine’s world-renowned kitchens, and co-hosted Diary of a Foodie (which won two James Beard Awards) and Adventures with Ruth (which was nominated for a daytime Emmy).
Currently Ian stewards agricultural production and a cooking school at his centuries-old family farm in Pennsylvania. The Farm (2013) on PBS chronicles his leading voice in the farm-to-table movement and eco-conscious food politics, and he remains a contributing writer for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Men’s Health, and Bon Appetit. When he is not in a kitchen, Ian is hunting, fishing, and foraging for his dinner wherever it can be found.
Johanna Obenda AM '19: Johanna Obenda is a scholar and multimedia storyteller who explores the African diasporic experience through the lenses of art, history, and food culture. While completing her Masters in Public Humanities at Brown University, Johanna designed “Memory Dishes,” a lauded exhibition that explored the complexity of African-American identity and the impact of immigration upon home cooking through stories and photographs. Presently she is based in Houston, Texas with her family during the pandemic, while continuing projects with the National Museum for African American History and Culture here in DC.
Peter Prime: Chef Peter Prime is one-half of the sibling duo behind Cane, a nationally-acclaimed restaurant located in DC’s H Street NE corridor. Prior to opening Cane, he trained at the French Culinary Institute in NY and worked with some of Washington’s most successful chefs (including Michel Richard at Citronelle and Todd Gray at Equinox). Peter has brought dishes and traditions from his upbringing in Trinidad and Tobago to local diners, and illuminates the complex multiculturalism of his heritage through them. During COVID-19 closures, Peter continues to offer delivery and catering from Cane, and to engage audiences through online culinary lessons and conversations.
Last year Peter was named DC’s Chef of the Year by Eater and Cane was declared Best Caribbean by Washington City Paper. In September 2020, Cane earned a RAMMY for Best New Restaurant in the Washington Metropolitan area.
Host:
Emily Dietsch '06: Emily Dietsch is the Vice President of the Brown Club of DC and an academic consultant. She earned her BA in American Studies and Art History at Brown University before coming to DC for doctoral studies in the same disciplines, with an emphasis on race, ethnicity, identity, and social movements in modern American culture. She is an award-winning columnist on food and drink, and lately a frustrated pandemic home cook.
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These events are proudly co-sponsored by the Inman Page Black Alumni Council (IPC) and the Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice (CSSJ).
Founded in honor of the first Black graduates of Brown University and Pembroke College, IPC works to support the needs, concerns, and experiences of Brown University's Black alumni, faculty and staff, including through programs and conversations such as this.
CSSJ is is a scholarly research center with a public humanities mission. The CSSJ creates a space for the interdisciplinary study of the historical forms of slavery while also examining how these legacies shape our contemporary world.