Chef Ken Baker and Miss Debbie

This Black History Month, we want to honor black communities, black history, and recognize the profound ways that these communities have contributed to America’s food history. From the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program to Former House Representative Shirley Chisholm’s critical contribution to the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Low-Income Women, Infants, and Children, black individuals and groups have played an essential role in making our food system more sustainable and equitable throughout the years.

These monumental efforts are deserving of our accolade, and we recognize their importance, but we also want to honor the people working to transform our food systems every day. One food hero especially near to our hearts is Rethink’s Director of Culinary Operations, Ken Baker. Chef Ken grew up in Baltimore as one of four children, and spent significant time (especially Sundays) at his grandmother’s - Miss Debbie’s - house. Chef Ken has cooked for just about everyone: a former president of the United States, college students at Johns Hopkins, and even me (and, it was delicious). To learn more about his history we sat down and asked him a few questions, about his childhood, food, family, church, and of course, Miss Debbie.

The Family, Gathering

Take me through your core childhood memories of food.

“I spent weekends at my grandmother's house. And if you spent the weekend at Grandma's, you had to go to church Sunday morning. I'd be woken up with the aroma of fresh made biscuits, and I have yet to this day had a biscuit like my grandma's. She’s passed now, but I can still smell then. The revving of the engine on Sunday morning was that biscuit, because with it, you’d have something hearty to hold you over the eight hours of church. You know anything about black church? It's a very long service.

Going to church on Sunday was always married with Sunday dinner. Sunday dinner was a spiritual experience that lasted the whole day. Just as people take communion in church, representing our profession of faith in the Judeo-Christian sense, Sunday dinner was a communion where we cemented our commitment to family. The entire family got together either at Grandma's house or Grandpa's house - and oftentimes, members of the clergy would join us. It was our own slice of heaven, where we could close close the door on the limits of what society told us we were and what we weren’t. It was with church and Sunday dinner where you had a sense of belonging.

There was a great onus put on the luminaries, the elders of your family or in our community, that we have to communicate to our kids, and their kids, that their sense of belonging is strong - because the world's going to tell them they don't belong. And if we let that succeed, who are we going to be as a family? Who are we going to be as a community? We've had to develop our own internal resilience. That was really passed down through the luminaries and pillars of our communities: the grandparents, the preachers, the church elders, just the women who would sit on the porch and just watch out for everybody.” 

Sunday Dinner

“I remember seeing my grandma cutting ribbons of collard greens. She’d only add them when a pot of water came to a very subtle boil–and nothing was measured. It was all muscle memory. Through the years, that tradition is passed down, and I can still see her adding those ribbons - little by little, because you want them to soak up the flavor.

My grandma had this wooden spoon that I now have, which is the only thing I asked for when she passed away. She would use that spoon to gently let the greens seep down to the bottom of the pot, and then put another handful of greens on top of that. She’d let that go for two to three hours - which would act as a timer for the rest of the meal, because she knew that when those greens were done, everything else was done. Halfway through those greens was when she would put the cornbread in the oven, because that gave just enough time for it to come out hot and ready – the greens and the cornbread were two staples you ate together. That's actually where we get the New Years Eve tradition of having greens and cornbread - it represents prosperity. The meal was always a representation of hope.

I believe that’s why Church was also fundamental to the Black community, just given the reality of our living situation. There was a notion that we're not living for this world - that this world doesn't value us. But instead we're living for our next journey, our spiritual journey. So the church and our food sustained people through their lives to deliver them to that spiritual home. You're learning patience, and the idea that your reward is on the other side. Same for cooking. We have to be patient and slow with this food, so that when it's time to eat, it will be rewarding, it will be nourishing, and it will be something that I can stand ten toes down and feed my family, knowing that I provided them this meal.”

Miss Debbie’s Wooden Spoon

What has been the role of food in the Black community?

“Food, and the Black Church, were really the two pillars of society and culture, which we had complete autonomy over. Through these, we could operate our whole sense of selves, without the infiltration of Jim Crow or slavery or restrictions - be it, implicit bias, societal infrastructure, racism, whatever it is.

Most comfort foods that we talk about in America have their start as African-American food - soul food. The impetus of a much of that cuisine was making do with what was discarded by slave masters or what wasn't considered desirable. At one point lobster wasn’t considered a delicacy. Black people were forced to eat it, because people didn't know what to do with it. They just saw this creature, and didn't know how to eat it - but we were able to transform that into something special.

We had to reimagine what was given to us. We were given product as pure sustenance, the discard of what nobody else would eat. We had to refashion that into an entire cuisine. I can't mark or name any other ethnic group that had reimagine that, because [food] ordinarily exists within the framework of an ethnic identity, and is passed down. But we were forced to create a new identity, in a new country without any pillars of infrastructure, context. We literally had to create an identity under the foot of bondage. That's what's so beautiful about the Black community, and particularly the Black culinary scene. It's like out of the ashes, a Phoenix rises. We were given the bare minimum, and we've turned it into art. 

That's why I enjoy being here at Rethink - because I'm able to replicate that process, and recreate the identity of this space. We're here challenging the notion and the stigmas about how you feed individuals facing food insecurity. We're not just opening cans, or bags, or giving people certain quantities of food and saying, ‘Oh, you're hungry, you should take anything.’ No. It's food paired with compassion, cultural relevancy, and most importantly, dignity. It's almost the dignity that was robbed of my ancestors that I'm now pouring into my output of what the commissary team does here.”

Miss Debbie Watching Over the Kids

How does your past inform your imagination of the future of food?

“I started with my grandmother, I'll end with my grandmother. She was really our whole neighborhood’s grandmother. Miss Debbie made sure that everybody had something to eat. My grandma didn't have significant means, but she always had something on the pot or the stove.

This story is about one of the longest friendships of my life, over 20 years. My dear friend Kelsey - a white woman. We grew up together. We got to know each other, mainly due to the fact that unfortunately, she didn't come from the best background. Her mother struggled, and my grandmother saw that. So Kelsey and I, we went to school together - and my grandmother started telling Kelsey, ‘Hey, come here. Just come here after school, you’ll have a hot meal and shower.’

We went to a Catholic school, so even being able to wash her uniforms discreetly at our place allowed an organic friendship to form between her and I. At the same time, my grandmother was providing hospitality in a very subtle way, with dignity. It was the breaking of bread, the sharing of a communal table and love. Now Kelsey and I’s friendship is as strong as ever. She has a beautiful baby girl - that's my goddaughter. It almost haunts me to think about if my grandma didn't open up her table to this woman, and how differently Kelsey's life could be.

That's the power of a meal, that’s the power of our humanity. It’s sharing that acknowledgment that I can't change your situation, but what I can do is provide you some solace in this space, pacify you in this moment. A meal is comforting, and what I try to impart to the team here in the Rethink Commissary, is that it's through our production - if we are truly being intentional about our mission, cultural relativeness, and sensitivity, dignity will come through in our food.

We don't know where we're meeting somebody when we feed them - they could be at their breaking point. But sitting down, having a hot meal we prepared lovingly, could refocus them in the way we couldn’t even imagine. But that's the power of food. You don't even have to speak, you sit down the table and just have a meal. You're nourishing somebody in more ways than one.

When we look to the future it shouldn't be bleak or self-deprecating on what's been done in the past. There should be great hopefulness -that the more we become intentionally inclusive, the more we create these organic opportunities to allow people’s skills and the food to speak for itself - that's the future. When we get to a point where it's not about the individual cooking or consuming it, when it's about the food, the food will become a collective celebration of all of our lived experiences. It’s a beautiful woven tapestry of ingredients on our plate and we dine at this multicultural table of acceptance and harmony - so it’s food that will bind us together.

Part of that is ensuring that all stakeholders in our food system - be it the growers, the bus boys, the dishwasher, the porters - everyone that goes into supporting this thriving, dynamic bolstering industry, have the same resources or access to nutritious quality meals, three times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. To me, that’s what an equitable sustainable food system looks like.”