Minnesota’s African American Food Traditions

Transcript

This is Minnesota's Legacy, a look at the organizations and the people who have benefited from Minnesota's Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.

Xan Holston: For Uli Koester, Executive Director of the Midwest Food Connection. Food is storytelling. Minnesota clean water and legacy funding is supporting Midwest Food Connection’s research into African-American food traditions in Minnesota, exploring the foods and cooking styles that tell the stories of migration, adaptation and resilience.

Uli Koester: We want to know about crops, meals, foods, dishes that are traditional in different ways and how they've evolved.

Xan Holston: Koester is seeking community partners, chefs, historians, urban gardeners and farmers to help trace those stories from field to kitchen.

Uli Koester: So you see the plants growing and there again, the farmers are excited to talk about their traditions.

Xan Holston: He's built similar relationships with Hmong and Native American community members.

Uli Koester: We want to learn with partners in the community so we are not interested in just pulling information from them.

Xan Holston: For Uli Koester, it’s part of a larger effort to pass these stories forward and celebrate the joy that food carries across generations.

Uli Koester: Seeing people get jazzed about their food and their, how their dad told them, you know, and what their grandpa always ate, and stuff like that, is really, really fun to me.

Minnesota's Legacy is produced by AMPERS with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Online at AMPERS dot ORG.