How To (More Deeply & Equitably) Learn About Your Local Food History
Or what I wished I had learned before moving to a new city.
Despite its reputation for friendly people, New Orleans is not the easiest place to be a newcomer. Were you here for Katrina? and What high school did you go to?1 are two questions locals use to suss out the depth of your ties to the city. And I didn't begrudge anyone for being skeptical of new arrivals; the city has a long tradition of (usually white) saviors swooping in to "help," implementing a solution that no one asked for and doesn't actually address the root cause of the problem, before disappearing and leaving New Orleanians behind to deal with the maintenance and/or clean-up. (*cough BradPitt cough*)
I was grateful that I had years of learning about the city and its history — and received anti-racism training — before I actually worked directly with people, addressing individual needs or larger food systems problems. Most dietetic interns who moved to New Orleans from other parts of the country don't have years to orient themselves to their new city, its complex history of food apartheid, and its unique culinary culture, so after I started working at a racial-equity-focused nonprofit, my supervisor and I created an orientation session for new dietetic interns, to give a very quick overview of the food culture of New Orleans and its intersection with Blackness (and anti-Blackness).
But it's not only dietetic interns who need this kind of orientation to the food culture and history of a new place. When I moved to Denver in 2021, I knew I had a lot of learning to do if I wanted to join the local food community and make a meaningful impact. If you are wondering how to more deeply learn from and engage with your local food community, especially through an anti-racist lens, this is what I recommend.
Talk to people!
The history of marginalized communities is rarely documented in traditional ways, through books, newspaper articles, or official photographs. Instead, these stories are often carried in people's memories, and the only way to find them is to ask. Talk to the neighbor who has lived on your street longer than anyone else, or the new acquaintance who mentions how much has changed here since she was in high school, or the colleague who says that interesting thing about why her Filipino American family chose this place to live back in the 1950s.
It means talking to your neighbors, something I rarely did when I lived in L.A. in my 20s. That changed when I moved to New Orleans in my 30s, so I can't tell if L.A. was the problem or if it was my attitude, but I continue to love a casual chat with neighbors or near-strangers, and learning more about my adopted city through conversations with people.
If you are lucky, you might live in a place where organizations or local governments are collecting and documenting these types of informal, memory-based histories. History Colorado has a project called the Museum of Memory Initiative, in which they "collaboratively work to reanimate, center and amplify the histories that have long existed only in the margins and create the opportunity for the community to decide how to remember its collective past." I love this.
They are wrapping up a Memory Project in my Denver neighborhood, once widely known as the Northside, and now called "The Highlands," a change that is one of the many signs of displacement in this rapidly gentrifying area. Names matter, and name changes tell a story. If you find a name change at some point in the history of where you live, do a little digging to find out why.
Read local publications
I get the New York Times newsletter for its national and international coverage, but it never tells me much about what is happening right outside my front door. For that, I get daily newsletters from Denverite and Hey Denver. But my absolute favorite source of local news and history is a neighborhood newspaper called the Denver North Star, which covers the Northside. It shows up on my porch and I am glued to that paper — it's so hyper-local that it covers news I would never read about elsewhere. They even wrote a story about my neighbors' attempts to build an ADU for their family member with a disability that ended up leading to a more equitable zoning procedure in the city. Local news is so important, and so gutted in many places in the US, so support it where you can!
These outlets are also incredibly helpful for learning about local food history, or the history of marginalized communities where you live. I rarely come across a full historical breakdown of an important event, person, or location, but I get enough information to research on my own, and fill in the backstory. (For instance: did you know Denver once had a Chinatown, but it was destroyed in an 1880 race riot?)
Find BIPOC-led food organizations and get involved
Getting involved might start with just signing up for their email updates, to learn more about what they do and why they do it. As soon as I knew I was moving to Denver, I started looking for food-related nonprofits and following them on Instagram, then following any partner organizations they tagged, so I started to become familiar with the organizational ecosystem months before I was physically living here.
(This was also helpful when I stopped working remotely at my New-Orleans-based job and began looking for a local job; I had already been keeping an eye on job openings for the past year, so I had a sense of pay ranges and the types of roles organizations were looking to fill.)
Deepening involvement through volunteering, attending events and educational workshops, signing up for CSAs, or other face-to-face interactions brings the opportunity to talk to people (see #1) who oftentimes know a lot about the history of local food systems and BIPOC communities.
Why BIPOC-led? In my holiday gift guide, I talked about how I find values-aligned organizations to support and get involved with, and that advice applies here:
I try to prioritize BIPOC-led nonprofits—because racial disparities in philanthropy put organizations led by people of color at a financial disadvantage—and look at who holds power in each organization. Who is on their board? What experiences do their staff members bring to their work? Often it is organizations that promote white saviorism that get the most press and donations, especially at this time of year. I don't mind putting in a little extra work to find organizations whose mission and methods I wholeheartedly support.
Join a food policy council
No, I will never stop banging this drum. Local food policy councils offer a way to connect with people who care about food systems and equity, and find trainings or resources that give more context about the local food system and its history. So many people to talk to and learn from! (See #1 again.)
I think every dietetic intern should receive training on the local food history and culture of the place where they live. I wish it had been taught in my graduate public health nutrition program, too. If you are embarking on a new adventure like this, I hope these ideas are helpful first steps for becoming a part of your new community.
Looking to educate others?
If you work with students, interns, new employees, or anyone else who needs to orient themselves to the history of BIPOC communities and food systems in your region, you could put together a simple document with resources to get them started, including:
Links to local news outlets to follow
Links to websites and social media for local food organizations
Information about local food policy councils
Encouragement to talk to longtime residents about their experiences
A more extended document could also include:
Short summaries of historical events and other facts important to BIPOC and other marginalized communities in your region
Explanations of regional foods and their cultural significance
Now I want to know: How have you learned about your local food history and/or the history of BIPOC communities where you live?
Knowing what New Orleans high school someone went to can tell you about their family's class, religion, values, and probably more. As a public school kid from a Los Angeles suburb, I always found it bizarre — but the longer I lived in the city, the more I was able to glean from people's answers, which tells you a lot about the school system in NOLA.
Thank you for this! I live in Montana, a state with some incredible Indigenous food historians and food writers/activists (Mariah Gladstone is one). I follow their work and have done a lot of reading/research around local Indigenous food history, as well as the food history of people who immigrated here to work in the copper mines, on the railroads, and on farms. There’s a still a real sense here in the West (among white people) of things being “new.” It erases the long history of BIPOC people in the area.