Civil Eats

If you haven’t heard much about black farmers recently, that might be because there aren’t many of them around. Or, as advocate Tanikka Cunningham put it recently, “If there was an endangered species list for farmers, black farmers would be at the top.”

Cunningham is the co-founder of Healthy Solutions, a fledgling Washington, DC-based organization working to bring awareness of black farmers to a national level, despite (or because of) the fact that they now make up less than one percent of all agricultural producers in this country. A former produce distributor who now works simultaneously to connect black farmers to markets while providing folks in low income neighborhoods with fresh produce, Cunningham and her group named last week, July 10-16, National Black Agriculture Awareness Week.

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I was so excited when I received Bryant Terry’s newest cookbook, Vegan Soul Kitchen: Fresh, Healthy and Creative African-American Cuisine.  First, because I grew up on southern delights like baked beans, corn bread, grits and coleslaw, but have been hard-pressed to find tasty recipes that don’t call for industrially canned and/or processed ingredients.  Second, the recipes in Terry’s book are vegan — which I see as an added bonus (though I’m not a vegan, I love eating that way), allowing the eater to get back to the core of what makes soul food good: Terry shows us that it’s the fresh, simple ingredients that bring the most flavor. Read More