01x13 - Mojo-ho Christmas

[bunniefuu]

Step, slide, step, slide, step.
Like you're marching.

- I can't do it that fast.
- Yes, you can.

- No, I can't.
- Yeah.

I know what you're asking.

Padma, what are you doing?

I may not be a country girl at heart,

but I've found myself right smack
in the center of it.

While I say Appalachia...

It's pronounced "Appa-latch-uh."

...you may say "Appa-LAY-cha."

- Alright!
- Whoo!

You got it!

I've never really
explored this part of the country,

so I didn't know what to expect.

The region has been kind of set aside
as the stepchild of the nation,

kind of the capital of American poverty.

To me, this is like
the first melting pot in America.

Everyone was kind of thrown together.

Who are all these rednecks?

I've seen the movies.

I've heard the stereotypes.

And I'm calling bullshit
on the narrative we've all been sold.

Appalachia has a deeper story.

And it starts with the most simple,
unexpected ingredient...

Ta-da!

...the bean!

Green beans, soup beans,
any kind of bean.

This amazing pot roast-y,
pork tenderloin-y, kind of umami,

and it's just a bean.

A lot of the cooking that we do here
is sustenance cooking, you know?

Just kind of using what you have,
using what you can forage.

Say what you will about Appalachians.

But they're onto something,

about treating our planet right.

Mother Nature gives you
everything you need to survive.

Now more than ever,

we could all use a bit
of mountain wisdom.

So let's go find some.

Woo!

Woo!

I came to America when I was four.

I'm an immigrant. And I'm not alone.

I've spent my life writing about food
and tasting the world.

Now, I want to explore who we are
through the food we eat.

My game is strong.

What exactly is American food?

And what makes us American?

I'm Padma Lakshmi.
Come with me as we Taste the Nation.

Oh, my God, this place is so beautiful.

- It is.
- I mean, it's "storybook beautiful."

Appalachia spans from Northern Mississippi
to the southern tip of New York.

I'm starting my road trip
in the heart of southern Appalachia

in rural southwestern Virginia.

Everywhere you look there's
just this amazing bounty and beauty.

But that's Appalachia to me.

This is Travis Milton,

The chef at Hickory Restaurant
on Nice wonder Farm.

He's giving me a lesson
in Appalachian cooking.

I thought we might be starting
in the kitchen.

But at Travis' restaurant,

where supper is cooked
in a wood-burning oven,

this meal begins at the woodshed.

Wish me luck.

Here we go.
This is a good one for you to try.

Okay. And then, which way am I going?

- I can't do this.
- Over your left hand.

- 8-Like this?
- Over your left shoulder.

- Like that?
- Yeah!

- Really?
- Yeah. Give it a shot.

Ah! Geez. That was scary.

I almost sliced off my shin.

- Yeah, exactly. It's... It... Yeah.
- Did you see that?

- Okay, let's try this again.
- Alright.

- So, my left hand should be here?
- Yep, and just

Whoops.

- Okay, I'm gonna take off my jacket.
- So...

I mean, I don't know if it
will make me any better.

It probably will make me worse.
But, let's see.

We've got more than enough
wood. You don't have to worry about it.

- Yay! I did it!
- You frickin' did it!

His roots are Scottish and Irish,

but Travis identifies as Appalachian,

something he wasn't always
proud to claim.

I ran as far away as I could,
physically and metaphorically.

I did everything I could
to try to lose my accent.

- I feel like...
- Why do you think that is?

You know, everyone calling me
hick, redneck, hillbilly, inbred, or this.

You know, just taking those stereotypes
and those narratives

that they've always seen
from movies like Deliverance

or, you know, stuff like that.

Where you goin, city boy?

We've all heard
this word many times: Hillbilly.

Tell me, Cornelius,
does ya like it up here?

A term likely brought
over by Scotch-Irish immigrants,

“hillbilly” was originally used
to describe people

who preferred the isolated lifestyle
of the mountains.

Ya-hoo! Mountain Dew.

But over time, it's became loaded...

...with implications of
whiteness, poverty, and ignorance.

Wheelchairs is better than lawn chairs
'cause they got wheels on 'em.

But is "hillbilly"
still the insult we think it is?

I mean, if someone called me
a hillbilly,

I'd wear it like a badge of honor,
you know?

That would mean I'm someone
that's connected to my community,

that's, like, connected to the earth.

For a lot of us around here,
it's a term of pride

of the way that you grew up
living off the hills

and living off the mountains.

What brought me back around
to embracing it

was thinking about the food
that I grew up with.

And, as, you know, kind of,
farm-to-table became a bigger thing, and.

I had that in my back pocket, like...
And didn't even know it.

What Travis had in his back pocket

was a secret to survival
in these mountains...

There ya go.

That's the way I cut.

...passed down in the form
of a carefully cultivated,

protein-packed green bean,

dried and rehydrated
into a dish known as leather britches.

Now, we're going
to make some leather britches.

I have never
made leather britches before.

I make them out of
greasy beans or half runners,

and the first step
is the most arduous and stupid.

You have to string the bean.

Okay.

And you just kind
of string 'em up like popcorn.

The way I-I typically describe it is like,
we are dry-aging a bean,

like you would dry-age a steak.

And when you do that,
this amazing pot roast-y,

pork tenderloin-y, kind of umami,

and it's just a bean
that I literally just dried.

When I was growing up,
we would hang these up,

literally all over the house...
Usually three, four weeks.

- Is that long enough?
- That's perfect.

Preservation techniques like this one

were born from the unique conditions
of the local landscape.

The Appalachian Mountains
provide soil that's rich and fertile,

but the climate comes with challenges.

Mountain folks face long winters,
short growing seasons,

and relative isolation.

Appalachians had to be scrappy.

They found solutions
like leather britches and chow chow...

More on that later...

To stretch the bounty of the harvest

and build a one-of-a-kind
vegetable-forward cuisine,

centered around preservation.

This is the humblest of dishes.

Literally just beans, black garlic,
and some miso made from the beans.

White miso?

So, that's miso that I make out of koji

that I make from the leather britches.

- You're just concentrating that flavor, developing it.
- Expounding. Exactly.

You know, it-it's just this...

Beans, times beans, times beans,
kind of flavor.

They're a great source of protein,

they cost pennies
compared to meat protein.

Oh, a hundred percent.

Traditionally, you couldn't just
have a pork chop on your plate

because you had to make sure
that you had something to eat later on.

So, like, nine-tenths of the time,
you had beans.

And, you know, a part of that comes
from the coal camps.

It was... It was either
you could buy a piece of beef

and be broke for the next three weeks,

or you could buy some beans
and feed yourself and your family...

- And season them with salt pork.
- ...for a little longer, and season it with that little bit of pork.

- That will last also, 'cause it's cured or preserved.
- Exactly. Yep. A hundred percent.

Yep. Yep.

When you think of
Appalachia, you might think of coal.

It's what dominated the economy here
for more than a century.

The land that Appalachians
once relied on for food

was stripped because of it.

Imported and processed foods
filled the void.

And the art of living off the land
was nearly lost.

Are there still a lot
of functioning coal mines around here?

There's still some,
but, I mean, growing up there was...

It was what dominated every bit of...
Of the economy.

The bulk of the men in my family
are steelworkers or mine workers.

You know, we're at a reckoning
of, of needing diversification in,

in the economy,

and I really think hospitality
can be a-a part of the answer.

By reclaiming the humble ingredients

from the land around his restaurant,

Travis hopes to break the cycle
of extraction

that's long plagued this region.

What do we have to do next?

We are going to be making cornbread.

It's rosy almost.

Yeah. This is Bloody Butcher Cornmeal.

You guys have a way with names
here in Appalachia.

Uh, yeah, I know.

Not all cornbreads are created equal.

For an extra crispy crust,
Travis has a pro tip from his grandma.

My grandma always told me,

if the pan doesn't scream
when you pour your batter in,

you did it completely wrong.
So let's hear it.

Yep.

- She screaming?
- Oh, yeah.

And you see it...
The edges of the cornbread

already starting to pull together?

Mm-hmm.

And then we're gonna go
into a wood fired oven.

And then, I'm gonna grab some
of the leather britches.

- That looks great.
- Let's put it right there.

Mm!

Doesn't taste just like a normal
green bean at all, does it?

No, but there is that
"string-be any" flavor to it.

Yeah, it's still there. Like, it-it's...

But then it also feels like
a heavier, meatier bean.

And then, you do get the umami.
That's great.

Along with our leather britches
and cornbread, more staples.

There's country ham,

leftovers from the garden pickled
into a relish known as chow chow.

That's funky.

And my personal favorite, k*lled Salad,

doused with vinegar
and wilted with hot bacon fat.

Now, that's my kind of salad.

- Bacon and vinegar are a great combination.
- So good.

- Smoke and acid.
- Mm-hmm.

It just gets better as it goes.

Wow. It's so good.
I have a mouthful of Appalachia right now.

Yeah.

All of this stuff just makes amazing,
just, music together.

If this is what hillbillies eat,

then hillbillies are
pretty damn inventive.

Taking simple ingredients
and elevating their flavors

takes some real mountain ingenuity.

So what else have they got?

I have a feeling there's plenty more.

And I also think
I'm gonna have to work for it.

- I've never done something this outdoorsy.
- Yeah?

Well, very rarely, let me say that.

Clearly, I'm not very outdoorsy.

Ah! Geez. That was scary.

But I am ready for my next challenge.

One that's been practiced here since
long before European immigrants moved in,

and something you may be familiar with.

It's certainly all over TikTok.

You won't believe what I just found.
Look at this.

And here in Western North Carolina,

foraging is way more than a trend,

it's an ancient indigenous tradition.

- Oh, that's poison ivy?
- Yep.

But, you know, Mother Nature gives you
everything you need to survive.

Next to the poison ivy,
you have touch-me-not.

Or you have other things near it
to cure you from it.

This is Chi Shipman,

a member of the eastern band
of Cherokee Indians,

and a Cherokee language educator.

Alright, and duck under.

She's dropping some
serious plant knowledge on me,

inherited from millennia
of Cherokee people.

They're the original stewards
of these southern Appalachian mountains.

Today, we're gathering Sochan,
a relative of the sunflower,

and a sacred plant in Cherokee culture.

- Right here, see? You see the turkey foot?
- Yep.

- So that shows you that it's Sochan.
- That's Sochan?

But you don't...
Don't pick your first plant though.

Okay. Leave the first one
for someone else.

- Yeah.
- Okay.

You only take as much
as you need, never more.

And if you're unsure,
you just pick it, give it a smell.

- Yeah. It smells really lemony.
- Yeah.

Mm. Smells good.

- Sochan!
- There you go.

Chi's sustainable harvesting methods

have been practiced
by the Cherokee people

for thousands of years,

along with the cooking techniques

that she and her Aunties Judy and Ulela
have offered to teach me.

Hello. We have returned!

Did you wash it in the spring
before you came in?

The spring was a little muddy!

- We'll wash it in spring water, how about that?
- Yes.

Okay, that... that will work.

There we go, nice and hot.

The recipe for Sochan is simple,
but full of flavor.

The leaves are dropped into a giant pot
of boiling water

then seared in a pan with some fatback,
taken from the backbone of a pig.

Yum!

You really can just do it
in a couple of tablespoons of oil.

But since we have pigs now

we like salted pork.

Colonizers brought pork to this region.

But the Cherokee
found their own ways of using it

to make yummy, fatty greens,
seasoned with a pungent hit of ramp salt.

What is ramp salt,
and how do you make it?

All it is, is dehydrated
leaves of the ramp, and salt.

Looking good!

- My first ever k*lled Sochan.
- Oh. You did great!

- With fatback.
- With fatback, yeah.

- Mm-hmm. It looks good.
- Yep.

Careful, it's hot.

This is delicious.
It tastes incredibly healthy for you.

I just love the taste of it. Yeah.

- I really do too. It's delicious.
- Mm-hmm.

It cleanses your system,
it purifies you,

gives you all the antioxidants
that you need.

They're still discovering it.

They're calling it a "wonder plant,"
at this point.

Whereas 9 years ago,
almost 10 years ago,

the National Park System
was mowing it down as a weed.

Their sacred plants aren't the only thing

the U.S. has tried to mow down.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson
signed the Indian Removal Act,

forcing Native Peoples from their homes
in the Southeast,

and on a treacherous thousand-mile journey
to present-day Oklahoma.

Today, that journey is known
as the Trail of Tears.

On this day today, 184 years,

they started gathering Cherokee people
from these mountains

to put them in stockades.

They marched 12,000 people
a thousand miles

and over 4,000 died.

From starvation.

Yeah. Starvation, weather,
I mean, sickness...

- Disease.
- Disease.

During the forced removal,

a small band of Cherokee families
resisted the U.S. Army

and narrowly avoided displacement.

Some hid in the mountains,
living as refugees on their own homeland,

and foraging off the land to survive.

Their descendants feel
an incredible responsibility

to protect what's left
of their ancestral homeland

on the Qualla Boundary,
where they live today.

We are not a reservation.

- You're not a reservation?
- We are not. We are a boundary.

And tell me what a boundary is.

We had to buy back all our land
that we have now.

- From the U.S. government?
- Mm-hmm.

Now, if we were a reservation,

the government would've said, "Okay,

- here it is."
- "We're gonna take care of you."

But you're taking care of yourself.

- Right.
- You bought it back.

I never learned what a boundary
was in school,

and I'm guessing you didn't either.

But it's a key distinction

in the Cherokee people's fight
for their autonomy.

What does it mean to you,
to reclaim this culture and enliven it,

here in Appalachia, specifically?

I'm living my best life.

I know. I mean, I am. I mean, I just...

Every day that I get to go to work,
I'm fulfilled, and I'm happy.

I've... I've found my purpose.
You know, I...

And what is that purpose, in a nutshell?

Teach Cherokee language.

And in turn, by teaching the language,

I'm going to teach you
what it means to be Cherokee.

- You taught me today, with these.
- Yeah.

I'll never forget it.

Tell me more about,
what perhaps Appalachian culture

borrows from Cherokee cultural practice.

I mean, everything we have here,
ramps, Sochan, came from this land.

It started here.

This ramp relish, you know?

I mean, it's not Cherokee,

it's Southern Appalachian culture,
you know?

So, it's a give and take.

For all that the Cherokee
have given Southern Appalachia,

so much has been taken.

I'm struck by the humanity
of these women.

They're still here, still smiling,

and sharing their knowledge of the land
with newcomers like me.

That is Cherokee mountain wisdom.

And they're not alone.

Not far from here, another community
is using Appalachian ingenuity

to preserve the legacy of their people.

With foraging under my belt,

I think I might just be getting the hang
of this here country life,

but I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

My next Appalachian challenge
takes some serious skill.

Bluegrass music,

another critical ingredient
in the recipe of this region,

is quite often misunderstood.

I think without Black people,
you wouldn't have banjo in bluegrass,

or you wouldn't have bluegrass as a whole.

This is Tray Wellington,

an up-and-coming bluegrass musician.

His very existence as a banjo player
defies the usual stereotype.

I don't think a lot of Americans know
that the banjo

is a West African instrument.

- Yeah.
- Or, the descendant of.

Yeah, I think it's a
very miscategorized instrument

'cause so many people think of it
as this white, American instrument.

Is the banjo very much Appalachian?

I think yeah. It's definitely...
It has history here.

You know, a lot of immigrants
from Scotland and Ireland

were coming over here
at the same time that... at...

Um, when sl*ves were being
brought over from Africa.

And so you had these
two musical traditions colliding,

and that's what eventually
became this bluegrass music.

Will you give me a lesson?

Yes! I would love to.

- I have never held a banjo before.
- Okay.

And so, one thing you can do,
just to really get started out,

is you can just strum the chord.

Okay. And then, third string.

Second string.

Yeah, and then fifth string
with your thumb.

Yeah. And then...

Especially the 4/4 time signature,
you can just do that.

- That's like that "galloping" music.
- Yeah, and the horses are even...

- Are, like, moseying along.
- Yeah.

- That's a "mosey."
- Yes, exactly.

I've certainly got some practicing to do.

But in the meantime,
I'm dying to know more about

other African American influences
to this region,

particularly its cuisine.

Next stop,
Black Mountain, North Carolina.

Well, thank you for
coming to Thomas Chapel, AME Zion Church.

This was the first African-American church
for the Black community here.

And the church itself was built
by our formerly enslaved ancestors

and other members from the community,

so it has a,
a rich historical significance.

I tell people that
the name of this town is Black Mountain,

but that's not referring to us.
Uh, it's because...

It's referring to the mountain?

It's referring to the mountains
in the background, so.

Sisters Cynthia and Dionne Greenlee

are descended from five generations
of Black Appalachians,

dating back to enslavement.

But rarely are stories like the Greenlees'
included in the image of this region.

As a James Beard
award-winning food writer,

Cynthia is writing Black histories
back into the narrative.

Often, when I go to restaurants here
and people ask me,

"Well, where are you from?"

'Cause there's a assumption
you're a tourist.

But there's a deeper assumption
that I am not from here.

- Because?
- Because of my brown skin.

What's your response?

What I say is that,
"No, we've been here.

We've been here since the 19th century.
How long have you been here?"

- Ha, ha, good!
- And...

And one of the other myths, Padma,
is that sl*very didn't exist here.

And we know that not to be true.

Cynthia and Dionne
are the direct descendants

of an enslaved woman named Myra,

and the Scottish-Irish man
who enslaved her.

So there's a story that when freedom came,

Myra was released, was emancipated,

and was given some cooking implement,

and basically told,
“Make your way in the world.”

It gets me in my gut a little bit

to think that our family's freedom
started with a pan.

And... it's not surprising
given how Black women,

in sl*very and freedom,
cooked for all of America.

That's exactly right.

During and after enslavement,
Black men and women

powered the restaurants and hotels
that transformed neighboring Asheville

into a culinary mecca.

But their contributions
are often overlooked.

One local chef is trying to change that.

She's a rising star in this community

and someone who I'm pretty familiar with.

And the winning chef today is...
Ashleigh!

- Congratulations, Ashleigh!
- Thank you. Thank you so much.

And she happens to be
hosting a pop-up right around the corner.

- Okay.
- Hi, Ashleigh!

- Hello!
- What are you doin'?

Um, frying some fish, of course.

- Mm. Nice to see you.
- Nice to see you!

Since her days on Top Chef,

Ashleigh Shanti launched a pop-up series
inspired by fundraisers

traditionally held
by Black Appalachian women.

So, fish camps kept many churches alive

post-Jim Crow era.

And I often think of it, in my family,
the women in my family,

kind of yelling, "Good hot fish,"
throughout the streets,

trying to sell fish in their communities.

Um, I always saw it as, for women,
a way for us to start businesses

in a time where a lot of women
did not have businesses at all.

'Cause you would just go and fish

and whatever you could fish
you would sell?

Right.

As, uh, descendants
of the formerly enslaved

in this... in this country, um,
a lot of our story is one of resilience

and simply just trying to find place.

Today, she's frying up some local catfish

for the Black Mountain women
who traditionally held fish fries

to raise money for the local churches
built by their Black ancestors.

That's really delicious.

It's piping hot.
It's seasoned perfectly.

- Very good.
- Yeah.

So how much money was raised
from a typical fish fry?

I think the largest was, like,
$2,700, Margaret? Something like that.

No, you remember that one time
we raised over $5,000 too?

Oh, yeah,
uh-huh. Yeah, I forgot about that.

Yeah, sure did.

- That's pretty good.
- Yeah.

By utilizing the local bounty

and a bit of Appalachian wisdom,

these women sustained the legacy
of their Black ancestors here.

It's an approach that unites

the diverse communities of Appalachia,

and attracts newcomers
with their own ingredients to add.

In Punjabi music there's, like,
this, like, clacking drum.

Like, every time I hear it,
it gives me goosebumps, right?

And then when I heard bluegrass
for the first time,

I got that same feeling.

It's a high I chase and...
And Appalachia gives that to me.

In Abingdon, Virginia,

Katlin and Mohsin Kazmi
are shaking things up,

combining the Appalachian flavors
of Katlin's childhood,

with Mohsin's Pakistani palate.

It may sound unlikely,
but their Pakalachian experiment

is a delicious match made in heaven.

So he was making food he grew up with,
and I was making food I grew up with

when we got married.

And so, what ended up happening
is our leftovers on the third night

would just go together.

That's literally
how this food truck started.

So every dish on the truck
is 50% Pakistani, 50% Appalachian.

Very cool. How long have you
had the food truck?

- Since 2018.
- Five years.

Just like Appalachian recipes,

Pakistani food relies on
a diversity of influences,

and a deep connection to the land.

Appalachian food
just comes with earthiness to it,

potatoes, carrots, those root vegetables
that keep for a long time.

But there's also that punch of vinegar
and... from canning and preserving.

To me, Appalachian cooking is...

Is using what you have
in a way that's delicious

and that makes sense across the long term.

Punjab, where my family's from,
is like an agricultural society.

It's like the bread basket of South Asia,
and so is Appalachia.

I mean, there's so much growing here

that people utilize
and... and cook in their daily food

that is just so much deeper
and connected to the ground

and, and, and the work
that it takes to grow it.

Katlin and Mohsin are teaching me

to make one of the most popular dishes

on their menu, Saag and Grits.

It's an Appalachian take
on a beloved Pakistani dish.

Saag means spinach in Urdu.

But that's not the only green
in this recipe.

There's one in particular
that stands out:

Kudzu, more commonly known as
"The vine that ate the South."

So Kudzu grows wild.

- Weed...
- Very invasive.

And it's pretty...
It's kinda prickly feeling.

It is in... it is prickly,
it-it's got a lot of fibers in it.

You want to take the stems off, right?

- You do. Mm-hmm.
- Exactly.

Okay.

And... And the cool part is, with saag,

you take the greens
that are available to you.

So in Punjab,
that would be spinach greens

- and mustard greens, right?
- Right.

Exactly. Then we're using Kudzu kind of
as a way to kind of bring awareness

to our customers
about invasive species and...

- And what you can do with them.
- Exactly.

- That's pretty useful.
- Exactly.

Where most people might
see an invasive, annoying weed,

the Pakalachians see
an abundance of ingredients.

It's an instinct I keep coming across.

A determination to find value
in the most unexpected places.

Be it Sochan or Kudzu,

even a weed can be transformed

into something worthy
of feeding your people.

- Look at that goodness!
- It does look great.

Sizzling, yummy, dangerous goodness! Yes!

It's good stuff.

You know what she wants
to do. You want to lick that spoon.

- I know you do.
- Do I wanna?

Absolutely.

Hopefully it's not too hot.

- Oh, it's delicious.
- It's good, isn't it?

Oh, my God. It's so good.

Hey!

Appalachian food is like a potluck...

- Hi.
- Hi. How are you?

...where every
guest has something to offer,

and the sum is more delicious
than each of its parts.

So before I hit the road,

I've invited my new friends
for our own potluck,

where everyone can bring
a bit of themselves.

That is candy roaster casserole.

- Can I give you some?
- Yes.

Yeah, so, how I'd recommend
you do it is you get a scoop of grits,

and then you put a scoop of, of saag.

I am stoked about the bean bread.

Who would like some chow chow?

- Everybody likes chow chow.
- Everybody loves chow chow.

Wait a minute. So do
we need a chow chow explainer?

Chow chow in itself
is a little bit of everything.

It's like that, "everything, but the kitchen
sink" condiment.

- So, if you have a half a carrot or...
- Yes.

...a couple st*lks of celery,
um, a quarter of a head of cabbage,

you're going to put that all together,
chopped up into this super punchy,

acidic condiment that always lives
on the kitchen table.

- Yep.
- It lives on the table.

Why throw out leftover produce

when you can pickle it into chow chow?

From the wide range of relishes,
soup beans, and bean bread,

a candy roaster squash casserole,

saag and grits and Sochan,

every dish on the table

is a vegetable-forward
love letter to this region.

The bean diversity
here is just off the chain.

Tell me about these soupy beans.

These here are
Crowder peas, and black-eyed peas,

uh, seasoned with country ham and onion,

and we leave the broth
so they're incredibly soupy,

which is why they're called soup beans.

Typically served with cornbread.

Yeah, very simple, humble dish,

which is, I think kind of describes
this region perfectly.

It takes me back to listening
to my aunt and my mom telling stories

of always having beans on the table.

Like, it didn't matter.
Like every morning, put a pot of beans on

- 'cause you didn't know who was coming.
- Yep.

So, you wanted to feed 'em
and beans were the easiest thing to do.

That's the same way
I grew up in Appalachia.

You took care of the people around you.

You had shared gardens
and you're able to see

that there's...
There's common threads all the time.

If-If our garden does well,
all of our friends do well.

And if one person's really good
at growing peaches,

by all means grow your peaches.

I will grow apples for you,
and we will trade.

We have a word for that.
It's called gadugi.

- Gadugi.
- Gadogi.

- Gadugi.
- Love that.

And it's community.

And it's more than community.
It's taking care of one another.

And it's... It's doing this,
and sharing, and caring

and making sure everybody has something.

We're trying to get back to that.

It's like, we, we had
so much taken away from us

but we're... we're trying
to get back there.

Yeah.

There's so much on these plates
that... that we hold dear

that come from cultures that aren't ours.

That's the weight for me

is, like, showing that there's...
There's more to these dishes

than just some white people
in a holler, cookin' beans.

- This food belongs to all of us.
- Yeah. We're all in this.

We're all in these plates right here.

Delicious!