Knowledge Base › Adante Hart & Njathi Kabui - Pull Up A Chair: Food and Futures

You mentioned that food is not static but always evolving/improving. Can you share some examples of this from your personal experience?

Pull Up A Chair: Food and Futures

Adante Hart & Njathi Kabui - Pull Up A Chair: Food and Futures

Recorded

This event was on February 23, 2022

Join us for a conversation about food literacy, Black history, and Black food futures with Chef Njathi Kabui and Adante Hart, RD. This is the first of a series called Pull Up a Chair, featuring the Rouxbe team in discussion with various leaders in food-spaces on diversity, equity, and inclusion throughout the broad landscape of food. During this conversation, you’ll hear about Chef Kabui’s personal odyssey through food, how he started a food literacy center in his home in Kenya, and how he engages in social and political discourse through what he calls Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine.

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Question

Ken Rubin

You mentioned that food is not static but always evolving/improving. Can you share some examples of this from your personal experience?

Answer

Right. Yes. Right here. That's a watermelon. Radish. I never even Rick watermelon. Radish when I grew up. That's number one. I'm always I have if you visit my blog I have An essay that I call the tea of repentance. And most of my writing that I'm working on is I always tie something historical or mostly doesn't have but mostly is is a composite just like I make recipe Food I write the same way I cook. So I take different ingredients and I cook into a meal one meal. So I take several different stories to as a compound. I have some history. I have something philosophy. I have some culture and I have some crazy. You know me new stuff, right? So When I was clearing the backyard, I have some got in the backyard. I read that I have some stinging nettle and I have some Down the line the group while dandelion. So one day I saw wow. This is Donald by the downline in the background in the backyard is producing really beautiful flowers. So I picked up the flowers and I was thinking about putting them in the best. And say what if I bought them and drink the liquid it might be really healthy. Then I say Amen. What if I what if I add some what else can I add for my back here? So I went looked at all this stuff. I never realized how much stuff I had in my back yet, but I can turn into tea. I have been some more battery. I have a stinging narrow. I am dandelion and I have some of those while onions And I put all of them in the tea and so that was something I never drunk before something very new and I probably put some black pepper in some. Ginger and turmeric in it and some honey. So it's very my kids love the honey and I think a lemon so so as a result I ended up riding a history about tea the history of Tea House stolen from China and all that kind of stuff and why cheeti is connected to the sugarcane and that's how African Americans they ended up being brought here sleeping and so on. So that's an example of how we can expand our food so food now wishes us but our body but also ideas I get all kinds of ideas being in the kitchen.

Adante Hart & Njathi Kabui

Chefs

*Njathi Kabui* is a Chef with a passion for Food Justice, a Leading expert in Food Literacy, a Medical Anthropologist and an Organic farmer. He is actively involved in promoting food literacy as a Public Speaker, Writer and a Social Commentator. Chef Kabui appears regularly on one of the most popular radio stations that broadcasts in his local language in Kenya as well as international media. Chef Kabui has literally worked on almost all common sectors of food from the farm, marketing, food app design, to the consumer’s plate through his advocacy and eclectic food workshops and dinners on farms, Non-profits, museums, academic institutions and corporate events. Chef Kabui has designed his own cuisine which he calls Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine as a more healthy option that deals with Climate Change, Health and Food Justice. He has promoted this cuisine in Africa, Europe, USA and in the UAE, at numerous educational institutions, corporate companies, nonprofits and embassies. Chef Kabui has set up a food literacy and sustainability center in Kenya which has a village branch and an urban branch for the purpose of promoting food literacy, demonstration farm and creation of content. The center has both local and international attractions and collaborations. Chef Kabui is ranked as the top chef in sustainability in Africa. Chef Kabui has presented at numerous conferences and panels such as SASS Conference in Milan Italy (2021), Kenyatta University, Kenya(2021), U.N Food Systems Summit (2021), Africa Week in Berlin (2020), SOAS Food Summit in London (2019), The Smithsonian (2018) in Washington D.C. He is also a notable Public Speaker at various gatherings such as BCAGlobal in New York (2020), the Males Place (2018), CFSA (2020) in North Carolina, Kenyatta University (2021), Dedan Kimathi University of Technology (2021), SASS International Conference in Milan Italy (2021) and Alliance of Leadership Fellows (2021) \. Chef Kabui believes that the best African food is in the future. *Adante Hart* serves as the Health Programs Manager, leveraging his experience in public health and nutrition to inform and optimize many of Rouxbe’s culinary and wellness initiatives. He is also a Registered Dietitian, nutrition educator, and speaker who strives to improve public health through advancing food sovereignty. He brings to the Rouxbe team a wealth of experience working in and around food, from academia to agriculture and farming, hospitals, restaurants, non-profits, and nearly everything else in between. Drawing from this wealth of experience working around food in various capacities, Adante regularly speaks and leads classes/interactive workshops that reside at the intersection of nutrition, foodways, and health. Adante holds a Master of Public Health from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Bachelor in Biology from The Johns Hopkins University. He also serves or has served in a formal capacity with Oldways Preservation Trust, the Southern Foodways Alliance, and the National Organization of Blacks in Nutrition and Dietetics (NOBIDAN). He currently resides in North Carolina, and spends his spare time exercising, gardening, and gaming.