SERIES INFORMATION

For Black History Month, The Afro-American Cultural Center and Yale Sustainable Food Program have partnered together for a special event series, “Cooking Across the Black Diaspora.”

This series weaves into the Sustainable Food Program’s long-standing speaker series, known as Chewing the Fat. Building upon the conversations with past Chewing the Fat guests like Michael Twitty and Leah Penniman, we celebrate the food traditions and innovations of Afro and Black-identifying peoples from across the world. In hosting Nyesha Arrington, Paola Velez, Kiki Louya, and Bryant Terry, this series creates space for four chefs to share their stories, of food and identity, heritage and resilience, healing and justice.

EVENT INFORMATION

Join us for a conversation with Nyesha Arrington, founder of L.A. restaurants Leona and Native. A former Top Chef finalist, she draws on her Korean and African-American roots to create original and artistic meals––an endeavor shaped also by her culinary experiences in Michelin star restaurants like Melisse, L’Atelier, and The Mansion. Nyesha will share about the intimate ties between her cooking, identity, and heritage, and discuss how these personal discoveries have led her to advocate for environmental sustainability.

Afterwards, we celebrate the kick-off into our “Cooking Across the Black Diaspora” series with “Foods of the Black Diaspora,” a night of conversation featuring samples from black-owned restaurants and caterers in and around New Haven.

Nyesha Arrington is a Southern California native with a Culinary Science degree from the Art Institute of California. She considers cooking an art, with a philosophy that “every plate is like a canvas.” She and her culinary skills have been profiled internationally, and through publications like the New York Times, Eater, Food & Wine Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times.

Chewing the Fat is the Yale Sustainable Food Program’s long-standing speaker series. All events are free and open to the public.
This event is hosted in collaboration with the Afro-American Cultural Center, Asian American Cultural Center, and the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration.