Bringing African culinary heritage to Chattanooga
Some chefs are drawn into the kitchen as a means of putting food onto their own tables. The demand for cooks needed to appease society's insatiable appetite creates innumerable jobs, typically with low wages and long hours.
Sometimes, these chefs find a home. Often times, other careers are more viable. It’s a hard and demanding life.
Other chefs find or create an existence of passion. Some chefs are drawn into the kitchen from such a fundamental sentiment that it is inherent in their bones. They have no chance of staying away or escaping to another path. Gastronomy is synonymous with their identity, their approach to a meaningful life. These cooks create beautiful symbiosis with and within their kitchens.
In this case, Chef’s name is Kenyatta Ashford. His soul, love, and passion for cuisine stems from his deeply seeded desire to understand his own history and where he stands both as a chef and as a living and proud continuation of that history.
This burning exigency drove Kenyatta to attend the Culinary Institute of America in NYC. It propelled him to work in some of the great kitchens in his hometown of New Orleans under Chef John Besh. It has taken him to visit the Southern Foodways Alliance. His drive has challenged and rewarded him. It has provided objectivity, compassion, and a humble validation of his skills.
Kenyatta brings a unique point of view to Chattanooga’s kitchens.
“In south Louisiana, it’s hard to say where (food history) started and where it is now,” he explains. “Slaves were there before the Acadians. Natives were there before anyone. There was Spanish Louisiana before there was French Louisiana. South Louisiana has so much depth. It is so unique. It’s not Appalachia or Dixie or anything else.”
Chef’s past began in New Orleans, but his major jump start came when he was awarded the Jean-Louis Palladin Grant by the venerable James Beard Foundation. Kenyatta began to travel the Southeast and dove further into studying his culinary heritage.
But Chef is interested in researching his upbringing in Creole country from a much more thorough angle.
“I want to explore all of the African influences in the western hemisphere,” he says. “Focusing on the foods that I grew up eating is where I started.”
In March 2018, he traveled to Ghana on the Roots to Glory tour with several chefs, including awarded culinary historian Michael Twitty.
Concerned with balancing violent control and maintenance of economic viability of enslaved Africans and their children, colonizers didn’t pay much attention to keeping detailed records about the histories of the people that they regarded as mere chattel. Because of this methodical erasure, food has become the means of discovering, recovering, and sharing a history that is fragmented and often lost.
“If we don’t start preserving our history, it won’t be around,” he continues.
Kenyatta has the goal of exploring his historical cuisine and bringing it to Chattanooga with a restaurant. His dream is to offer a glimpse into the history of African food and its influence on modern civilization. Inspired by chefs like Edouardo Jordan, BJ Dennis, and JJ Johnson, Kenyatta hopes to expand their foundation.
Kenyatta is calm and focused, present in a world where people are often distracted. He is not playing on his phone or daydreaming. He is intensely present as he tells me about his dreams and aspirations. He answers my questions about the fruition of his goal with an innate sense of destiny.
“Patience is key. I can only control what I can control,” he says. “If I set a hard date, I don’t allow life to happen. It will happen in its own time.”