Last night I dined with the world
Last night’s BIPOC Foodways Alliance Table, co-hosted by Richnie and Tevy Phann of Cambodia, was repped by people from Haiti, St. Lucia, Trinidad/ Tobago, India, Laos, and Sierra Leone. We had white immigrants who came from Europe in the 1600’s, and we were repped by even more countries, too. So many places I lost track.
While this was by design (BFA always hops to host a diverse Table) it was also by accident. We invited the people who wanted to be at our Table, and this is what we got. I felt so proud to be hosting this moment that bordered on ceremony, but not just pride. I felt pure joy-- joy at how simple it can be if we just try the tiniest bit.
For us, the tiniest bit of trying means asking someone, in this case Richnie Phann, to put down the food closest to her heart, and share it. Not hard. She did just that. Then, we invite people to sit down and enjoy it together. That’s it. The easiest thing in the world, really.
Sharing food does this by its nature. Not because our foods aren’t all very different-- they are. We ate foods many of us have never had the pleasure of trying before-- dried fishes, fermented fish of many flavors, a dessert made of mung bean, scallion, ginger, and sesame-- a new favorite of mine and others at the table.
It’s not about food.
As we passed around bowls and platters of Richnie’s cooking-- sweet and sour red Tilapia and country style pork stew; dried fish dip, beef skewers with pickled vegetables, we didn’t hear a lot from her.
Having lived a life of struggle and unspeakable traumas, Richnie’s communication comes through her hands as she offers us these things— the vegetables she grew, and the rice she wants us to eat while it’s still piping hot. The less talking, the better, probably.
When I finally began to understand that we were not likely to hear a lot from Richnie verbally, I asked our guests how they communicate when communication becomes too difficult. How do you find a way in when words fail?
And this is how we are all the same: laughing, storytelling, helping, waiting, cooking, eating, joking, jabbing, ribbing, flirting, offering, playing. We all do these things. I know of no culture, no race, no skin color of person, who doesn’t resort to the same human behaviors as the next when talking is not on the table.
We literally started BFA to illustrate how we’re more the same than we are different, as humans, and last night punctuated that for me perhaps more than any other event we have hosted, and it had almost nothing to do with the food at hand.
As we all floated into the chilly, damp air, unsure of what lay ahead with the election, I went to bed with this knowledge, this proof, tucked into my heart, and in my brain against my pillow as I slept.
I slept hard, but woke up with the collective anxiety of my household, my neighborhood, my city on my chest and in the stress headache that plagued me. I didn’t need to check any news site to know where we were at.
And yet, last night I dined with the world, and my heart is still blanketed with the meaning I get from it: we’re all just the same, even though we live in a world that insists on focusing on difference— I happen to know it’s just not true. This provides me with indescribable comfort.
If you disagree with me, sit down and eat with someone who seems “different,” and be quickly disavowed from your wrongheaded convictions.
Because words won’t save us now, and anyway, it’s better to eat the rice while it’s still hot.
Read the full story of Richnie and Tevy Phann in an upcoming post.