I will be speaking with Nderitu Waihura on Inooro FM from around 6.15 - 7pm Kenyan time and 11.15 am to Noon EST. I will speaking about the Post-covid global system relative the economy, food and politics.
Below is the link:
https://radio.or.ke/inooro/
We all know about scams and ponzi schemes. So much so that it comes as no surprise to hear the question posed about the catch in regards to a sales pitch. In other words, the person posing the question is expressing two very important points. The first is that the seller and the buyer have different interests and the the seller has both the incentive and means to manipulate the power in aaction that might not be necessarily in the interest of the buyer at worst or at a minimum influence the decision making process.
That means that the buyer has to be ever vigilant. That however happens lesser often than is necessary. Whenever someone says that the food system is broken, they are actually giving a critical analysis of the consumer's ability to act in his best interests.
One simple way to rectify that is to recognize that their is a potential catch in every food decision you make. Asking the question about where the catch is should be both standard and organic.
Yet, simply asking a question without the ability and correct information is unlikely to result in any positive change. That means that gathering correct information is absolutely necessary. Correct information is the fertile ground upon which a just food system will have to be built.
Having said that, I can argue that we can't have good leadership without good eatership. The first vote is that of food. Failure to master that results in an unjust food system as well as political system.
Where is your catch?
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Japanese ginger is a great garnish in fine dinning. It doesn't produce a tuber underground but rather a cream flower that slightly resembles an orchid flower.
I found the story of orchids to be quite interesting considering that even Charles Darwin died with the hope that these sneaky plants had pollen or smell that was yet to be discovered. Darwin and his buddy and Alfred Wallace had nothing on the orchid. The plant figured that sexy is the best timeless advertising agent.
For that reason, some flowers of the orchids mimic sex organs of the insect it wants to attract.
If all chefs were flowers, I would choose to be an orchid chef. That is probably why I am growing the one garnish that closely resembles an orchid. Naivasha is the best place to grow such a gingerly flower. It had a history of licentiousness during the colonial times.
Then it graduated to the equally sinister reputation as the capital of petals of blood.
We are working hard to change that reputation to petals of taste. In the colonial days, there was a local joke in form of a questin whenever a man would meet a lady. The question was: " Are you married or are you from Naivasha."
As an orchid chef, my goal is that folks will ask, " Do you eat promiscuously or are you from Naivasha?".
Our first words will be wecome for one of the most eclectic and radical organic dinner. The garnish of choice for one of the multiples Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine dinner will be Japanese ginger whenever it flowers. The cycle of this flower will mark a special dinner of Renaissance.
Long live Naivasha,long live Japanese Ginger, long live orchid chef. That is my ode to taste.
While flipping through a philosophy book about Martin Luther and the Reformation, I ran into a headline that captured my imagination. The headline of that chapter was the Diet of Worms. Before I could catch my self, I had already allowed my mind to label Martin Luther as a chef and reformer of medieval diet by introducing worms in the decrepit culinary tradition of Europe. I was obviously aware that Europe was at cusp of the most momentous transformation whose effect are with us today. These were some of the most important three or four decades in the history of food and justice.
The Diet of Worms was a gathering of leading clergy in the town or Worms Germany to decide the fate of the Martin Luther following his revolutionary act of writing the now popular 95 thesis that fundamentally changed the power of the Papacy and the Catholic church. This act was probably the most important event in the history of Christianity in the last 500 years. The character of Martin Luther would also inspire the works of an African American thinker and Civil Rights leader by the same name in America.
Columbus had landed in America a mere three decades before the Diet of Worms in 1521. Columbus took many new foods from the Americas back to Europe. Those new foods included corn, pepper, tomatoes, beans, cacao and avocados. While these foods had not exactly become European staples, the reformation and along with it the Diet of Worms was about to play a big role in forever changing the food of Europe and by extension that of Africa.
The story of Diet of Worms is significant to me because the global "Food Reformation " that followed the Protestant Reformation by Martin Luther with his 96 Thesis is literally written in blood.
Columbus acquired the new foods from the Americas at high cost of genocide and Africa received the same food at many times the initial cost in blood and plundered resources. In other words, our food history is marked with a trilogy of bloodletting that makes food justice an integral part of our shared past.
The production of foods continues on this bloodletting path globally.
There is the second part of the heading and one that ignited my interest the most. That part is the one about worms. When I first went on my own cultural voyage from my village in Central region of Kenya and the home of my Gìkùyù ethnic group to the shores of Lake Victoria, I gathered my own worm stories amongst the Luo community. During the onset of rain season, I would accompany my friends as they collected winged termites into bowls amongst a frenzy of crowed yards as each family tried to gather as much manner from the sky as possible. If there ever was a perfect example of diet of worms in my head, then that was it. I once followed my friend Akinyi to her house to see exactly how those flying termites would be turned into a meal. That is a story of another day.
What is interesting is that how such childhood memories of the beautiful Akinyi with her silver earrings and a necklace made of a twisted string attracted me to the heading of the Diet of Worms. I thought that the idea of eating termites was so strange until much later as a graduate student when I learned that my own people ate grasshoppers during the times of famine. In fact, there is a famine that is known as the famine of grasshoppers. Instead of my ancestors writing about it and putting the material in an elite library, they did what most indigenous people would do by adding it into their folklore. They did this by naming an age group after the grasshoppers. Since then, the name Ngigí entered our lexicon of male names.
The idea that Europe was dealing with the consequences of illegitimate religious power and exploitation of the masses, the indigenous community was living in harmony with nature. The ideas that are currently trending about the sustainability of eating insects in not new for many indigenous community. But those touting permaculture and a host of other sustainable ideas, it is important to remember that all those ideas are not new. It is a from of injustice to destroy the food ways of indigenous people and then go back to them later with new terms for the their old ideas sold as new and foreign.
The Diet of Worms was not about Europeans eating sustainably but about the efforts to subvert the much needed Protestant Reformation that broke the stranglehold of the Catholic Church on matters of religion. Five hundred and twenty years later, all of us, regardless of color, ethnicity or religious affiliation are at a crossroads. We are now faced with our own Diet of Worms, the case is not about protestant reformation, but about our food. The eternal damnation of a poor diet is far much more lethal to the environment than the toxicity of religious intolerance of the 16th century. If we do not do the right thing, we will all find ourselves in a hot pot as the the winged termites that Akinyi and I collected in our childhood days.
One of those changes is to eat in the natural cycle of the seasons like Akinyi’s community and practically as the age group of NgigÍ did. Please welcome Akiny and Ngigi as two stories of triump for the indigenous food and justice. When you add the story of the Diet of Worm, a balanced trinity is created that can potentially cleanse our curse from the bloodied history of the spreading of food by colonial and empire-builders. Many Africans and their benefactor are still deeply caught up under the same spell of food injustice driven for the benefit of the powerful and the detriment of the oppressed. Luckily, we all don’t need to eat a diet of worms to bring about change, what we do have to do is acknowledge the wisdom of those who were wise enough to live sustainably and then build on it.
Our diet of worm takes place every time we open our mouths and take a bit. Each and every single bit we take promotes justice or injustice. Now decide which side you are on, but you cannot be neutral. The price of a collection of poor choices is that we will all be a diet for the worms in our graves prematurely. As Billy Holiday reminded us in her song, Strange Fruit , any failure to act in the face of such a global calamity will be strange indeed. It would be strange indeed to have the whole globe wrapped in “Blood in the leaves and blood at the root.” How prophetic Billy?
CHEF KABUI
APRIL 9, 2021
A TEA OF REPENTANCE & LIBERATION
I have been thinking a lot about the story of tea this Spring. That is one of the incidental outcomes of the pandemic as we are stuck at home. That idea of being forced to spend a lot of time at home, means that we have enough time to look not only outtward but also inwards. That inward spirit got me looking at my backyard with different eyes. I noticed that I have a lot of eddible plants that grow wild.
The Spring seems to be just burgeoning with different species that are eddible within two weeks into Spring. Among the list of plants I found are chickweed, Dandelion, wild Blackberries and wild onions. There are two wild vegetables that are consumed in Kenya but whose name I am yet to find out.
I have enjoyed some of these early vegetables but that is not my focus today. My interest was the kind of tea I could make by incorporating some ingredient from my backyard. My search yielded Dandelion, Lemon Balm and young wild Blackberries leaves which made a great base for my tea. I added a few Blackberries, Tumeric, honey, fresh squeezed Pineapple and a fresh squeezed Lemon juice to complete this sumptuous drink.
I loved the floral flavors but also whole idea of creating a recipe that truly borders a repetance brew. I used the word brew because many of us have literally become drank with naivety of the consequences of our mindless consumption that is either the goal or consequence of capitalism. But the word brew touches on a another brew that is destroying the youth of my village.
As if to offer my libation to neutralize the two demons of addiction now emblematic of food, well and also brew: Injustice, I also decided on a brew that is a counter to the errant drink of the traditional tea. My tea turned out to be a thrill even to my children, who also happen to be my harshest critics.
As we enjoyed the tea, I took the opportunity to teach them about the history of tea. It was an eye-opener to them just like it was for me the first time I heard it. I especially couldn't believe how the tea leaves my mother used to cook for us during my youth in that magical land of Gathingira, the village of my birth, had their roots in China. It might be worth noting that my favorite metal cup with a nice glaze to it was also Chinese; and so was the ubiquitous neatly folded handkerchief I kept in my pocket as a village etiquette with British roots but more driven by my regular sneezing that was probably exacerbated by the increasing foreign diet in our food. Looking back, there were tell tell signs of a dietary coup in the offing. The coup had four things at it’s root and they were food, textile, God and language. Britain led the coup but China was a loyal sidekick.
The most interesting bit is how and who was responsible for spreading the tea leaves across the world to far of places including my little remote village.
The story started with the British explorers to China. Among the many things that fascinated these British explorers about China was gun powder and tea. Both would change the course of the world in ways few would have imagined in the early 1800s. Once the British explorers tasted the Chinese brew they were hooked. They took some back to Britain and soon after tea become the most popular drink in Britain.
The wealthy class couldn't get enough of the new drink. One has to bear in mind that beer was the default drink for workers due to the widespread problem of water contamination. Before long, politics of tea cropped into the trade. Britain realized that it could not sustainably keep buying the Chinese tea using silver and gold, the only two means of payment that the Chinese were willing to accept. They Chinese were also not willing to sell their cash cow by selling transplants of tea to the British, or anyone else for that matter.
The British were so adamant on growing their own tea that they finally decided to send a spy to go and steal the tea plants and sneak it out of the country. That was no easy feat. It took a lot of skills, courage and guile. The task was especially complications by the fact that the Chinese did not allow any of the foreign traders beyond the trading ports. Tea could probably rank as the first political drink of global proportion.
The story starts when the British East Indian Company decided to engage Scotish botanist named Robert Fortune in the espionage. In 1848, Fortune set out for a journey that would land him in Wu Si Shan Hills where he successfully managed to obtain the secrets of growing and processing tea. That is still the biggest espionage case in world history in terms of cash value.
The second tactic by the British was the introduction of opium in China in order to addict the Chinese with a commodity that the British had easy acess to. In so doing, the British would get opium from their colonies in India and buy tea with it instead of the more rare and expensive precious metals the Chinese were demanded as currency.
The Chinese did not fall for the trick laying down. The two countries went to war that is popularly known as the Boxer rebellion. The stakes were so high that it took a second Boxer rebellion to subdue the Chinese enough for British comfort. The chinese lost the war and opium flooded the Chinese market. One of the lingering consequences of the Chinese loss still lingers and continues to this day. That consequences was that of dividing the Chinese country into three parts of Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. That the seperation of Hong Kong was for only 50 years comes as no consolation to global security. Yet, it is the seperating China and Taiwan that carries the greatest source of global insecurity as it pits America and Chinese, two nuclear powers, against each other.
Once the Chines lost the war, opium dens become a common place in China as more and more Chinese became addicted to the drug. Many injustices happened and many lives were lost before the original Chinese drink could find its way to my village. Unbeknownst to my young taste bugs, I was partaking in the spreading the impact of the tea heist simply by drinking my mother’s brew. That simple and unassuming plant had made British East Indian company and Britain in general a lot of money, power and fueled its efforts to build a global empire. As evidence, we still call the chinese tea, British tea. British breakfast can't be complete without a brew made with the Chinese leaves.
Large areas in my region still grows tea to this day. The crops uses a disproportionate amount of land , leaving smaller area for growing food for local consumption. That fact of growing tea with chemical fertilizers, consuming sugar and eating gluten in bread for breakfast was a perfect recipe for the making of a regular running nose. The Chinese could at least take solace for their loss of their tea monopoly by appreciating the growth in their handkerchief market.
Tea gained such a stronghold amongst some farmers in my region that it was not a rare occurrence to have farmers growing tea on their farms but going to the market to buy food that would readily grow on their land but had opted to give tea priority over other foods.
Tea also uses chemical fertilizers that damage the ecosystem.
Apparently the ripples of the espionage that took place in 1848 are being felt thousands of miles from Wi Si Shan hills or Britain. While no Boxer rebellion has yet broken out in my village, the damaged ecosystem has been equally destructive. That damage is exacerbated by the unjust market that favor the foreign consumers to the detriment of the farmers of economically less powerful countries. That economic ecosystem of today is what we call global economy. Like the opium dens of old China, dens are now becoming common place in my home region.
Though these dens don't typically sell opium, the toxic cheap alcohol being sold is having somewhat similar results as that of the opium on the Chinese back in 1850s. It wouldn't surprise me at all if some of the chemicals used to brew sold in my village originated from China. It's rather ironical that the dens of toxic brews are coming up just at the Chinese are gaining in influence over the Kenyan economy. The Chinese influence may require me to come up with a recipe of yet another libation against a second form of toxic brew: debt. That is one libation that I am yet to come up with.
Food justice is more complicated than most people might guess. Once you are food-literate you will see the injustices stemming from food all around you. A tea of Repetance gains a whole new meaning, and flavor. As I sat in my backyard, watching the organic ecosystem of birds building nests, bees pollinating flowers and the countless other creatures instinctively playing their roles without anyone's urging or supervision. I wondered if at all it is possible for us to play our respective roles in the global ecosystem.
That thought immediately conjured images from as far back as 399 BCE. Those images were of Socrates drinking a cup of hemlock for his principled stand against fake gods and youth manipulation by the powerful. Many other toxic brews have been consumed since then. But the main reason we know about the story of Socrates is because Plato, a student of Socrates, recorded it in the dialogue of Apology. To accompany the ritual of the Tea of Repetance, I put my earphones and listened to Miles Davis tune, Bitches Brew and poured a libation to the ecosystem in my backyard but also to the courage of my ancestors both kin and otherwise who have struggled for an ecosystem marked by justice that was represented all the wonderful creatures both visible and invisible.
While clearing the backyard shrubs in my backyard in preparation of our garden, I remembereda deep conversationI have been having with various people over the last year or so. I remembered the long process dealing with poor soil when I first started out over 17 years ago. The soil in this small space has really challenged me about conventional ideas about investments. How can I equate the value of a house and the value of the soil in my backyard? I find that as the house prices go up, I sleep less and less hours every night. As if that isn't enough, the taxes follow a one way road that only goes up.
Yet the quality of my life inside that house stays the same, at least assuming I am of above average intelligence to equip my self with adequate defense against malevolent forces that come modern day lifestyles. One of those challenges being colonized food. The kind of colonialism I am talking about is not an abstruct idea. One can be excused for the tendency to associate colonialism with national and racial entities. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. One does not need any special heuristic skills to understand the logic behind the above supposition.
While on a flight from Kenya to France, I used the 8 or so flight to think about the concept of food colonialism. It might be helpful to mention that I boarded the plane with everything I would need throughout the length flight except a parachute, a bathroom and water. In my person, I had a yams and Macadamia nuts from village, avocados and a sweet piece of cultural delicacy known as rùkùri. Rùkùri was masculine equivalence to red roses in western culture, except.
A man would cure the best part of a goat known as ikengeto and store it in an old bee hive. That piece of delicacy could last for years and was only shared between best friends. A traditional man's hut was rather simple in early days of my grandfather.
As far as fate would have it, my seat was in the first row facing the first class in the plane. I sat down comfortably in a reflective mood as I re
I put alot of thought in the design of our farm in my ancestral home in the village of Gathingira, Murang’a Country. It is the place I spent my early childhood and almost all my school holidays during the two decades of my life. My parent’s farm has since been divided between my two brothers and I. It would have been hard for me to choose which third of the farm was my favorite, assuming that I had that option. There two particular areas that were both almost equally special and close to my heart.
The first was an area I spent many afternoons in grazing our cows, especially Kamore, they cow that was so loved by the family that when its daughter died, there was double mourning in the family as it was the last in the lineage of Kamore.
I was fond of that area which was referred to as the Rocky zone or Mahigainí. The name referred to the volcanic rocks strewn all around the area. Some of the rocks weigh several tons going by the visible part that was above ground but there is no telling how deep the rocks went below ground level.. I used to graze cows in this area as it was not viable for farming.
The second best area was an area known then as Kwa Múgú. The area hosted the only beehive we had and I have fond memories of the only time I went to harvest the honey with the local honey sage from a nearby town known as Rwathia. The honey that the sage harvested magically connected me to his village in even deeper ways. I would find myself making regular trips to Rwathia for some love that was sweeter than honey. My sweet grandmother Njoki would talk in symbolic language that borders on poetry as she subtly sent me hints about the apple of my eye. How my grandmother knew that I was heading there some evenings after work to chance spending a little stollen moments with my queen of Rwathia,
I will never know. What I do know is that the experience of harvesting honey with my mother and also having two types of shrubs on the boundary near the hive made me much attached to the particular location.
The two shrubs were Magio and Kirùrite, both of which were greatly loved by goats. But that wasn’t all the fuss there was about the two shrubs. One Magio was the raw materials for making the most exquisite baskets I know. The women would remove the back of the shrub, then peal a very thin and fibereous inner side of the bark. That petticoat-bark would then be chewed it in the mouth and then roll it on the thigh to make a string that women would use to make baskets. I guess that this was the second manner in which the community microbiom was shared around.
I currently possess a basket that one of the family matriarchs made. That means I have traces of the microbiom of the woman who once chewed my baby food still in my possession. I remember the majestic woman with her dresses folded between their legs to the point where it would look like they were wearing shots. Seated on a three legged stool, she demonstrated her rolling mojo as she majestically peal the inner bark, chew it and then rolled it into strings in a manner that made it look as though she were dancing and ruminating at the same time. It was a cool rhythm to watch.
These particular shrubs are still there to this day. The fact that I am always weary about the “progress minded” spirit that has engulfed my community and its propensity to destroy cultural icons in the name of modernization. I was not sure that the rest of my family would be keen on preserving these childhood memories but again we all have our duties and I was keen to stay on my path. I therefore would have wanted to inherit my childhood’s cultural landmarks.
So when it turned out that had I been allocated the portion of land where the hive and the iconic shrubs were, I was elated. Unfortunately, right above the section where the beehive and the shrubs were located, I had also inherited another more recent less glamorous landmark. It doesn't have the sweet memories of the beehive or beneficial shrubs but it is a story that started sadly but ended up in a triumphant note.
It is on that location that i lost my most significant battle, It will was the lowest point of my work when I stood by as my brother bent down with a bottle of Roundup in hand and carefully poured it into a spraying pump, then boldly handed it to two young guys to start spraying of weeds. As I watched in dismay as the two young men hoisted the poisoned charlace on their back. Oblivious of the damage they were about to cause to my being and the hallowed ground that had nurtured my ancestors, the walked just few steps from where I was standing. Though I could not see thier faces as they pumped their death agent as they walked, their bodies looked ghostly.
I knew very well the dangers they were exposing themselves to for not having the correct work gear. But again the first victim of fire is what the firewood. The young men were both agents and victims all at the same time.
I had pleaded with my brother against the act but to no avail. Luckily, he has since become a born again food advocate for sustainabilityand food Sovereignty. That act symbolized the latent death that stems from the communiy ’s lack of awareness of the connection between food and the global empires.
These are not normal times, they are not times of peace nor is there a lull in suffering of those who are deficient in power.
On account of the foregoing background, we using this culturally rich land as a hub for food justice.
We have plans adrift for having amongst the foodiest one acre piece that can spread both the awareness, love and culture. But besides all the new herbs, spices, vegetables and fruits, we have 9 types of indigenous banana species. One in particular known as Mùtore has been growing in the family longer than anybody alive can remember. The banana species also known as Mùtahato was our primary baby food.
The coolest part of the process is that it used "bioblender" AKA the mother’s mouth to blend it for the child..
The mother would roast it by the fireside and then chew it finer than usual and then using her pointing finger, she would feed it into the baby's mouth. If the mother had to be away for whatever reason, an aunt or other close relatives would step in as the "Bioblender".
If I tell you that I went through the whole experience as a child, I have no doubt that you will not ask me again why food justice is so dear to me. I have the micro biom of many members of my community and that is the fountain of my love for food and community. Capitalism, Jesus and food illiteracy perpuated by colonialism has struggled that magical kingdom I just described.
The village now can neither breath nor chew. A small group however is fighting back. Resurrection is coming and we will march right out of the dark cave of ignorance and a new dawn is what lays on the other side of the Decolonization of our minds and our food. However far wide I travel, the food I ate in my village as a child and more important how I eat it and what it had in it forms a major part of my commitment to food justice. One day, the joy and love I received was enough to share with all those who care to listen and join in the beautiful symphony of my village tune. Even without eating the Mùtore bananas or having it processed the village way , they still can be made whole again through inspiration.
The Hex Kitchen is a collaboration between Chef Kabui and the Hex community in a bid to promote food literacy, mindful eating and wealth creation. There is a natural connection between those who are fighting against fiat currency and those engaged in the struggle against fiat food. The two social ills of fiat currency and fiat food are at the heart of the tyrannic global world system we are now living in. That tyranny is directly connected to the climate crisis we face and there is no way we can solve one part of the problem without being mindful of the whole system, For a start, the Hex Kitchen is keen on addressing the issues of real money and real food as a basis on regaining our sovereign power. It is no accident that the struggle for food justice would find allies in cryptography and more specifically cryptocurrency. It is not a usual collaboration but yet it is one that makes sense on many levels. Chef Kabui has been studying and applying the power of food literacy, mindful eating and food justice in the struggle against oppression in general and specifically to people of African descent.
Chef Kabui has studied the disciplines of politics, anthropology and culinary arts and has designed a cuisine or rather an approach to food that is informed by the above experience and the indigenous knowledge that he gained from his Kenyan family’s history as sustainable farmers for generations. The combined experience and education resulted in the creation of a cuisine called Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine. It is a combination of the most sustainable practices in the growing, preparation of food with the goal of causing the least damage to the environment and maximizing the health benefits of the food. Those two conditions are necessary for a mindful community that ensures that justice thrives.
Chef Kabui has been pushing organic food and healthy eating based on his research and his own experience. The idea of healthy food and justice is not something that chef Kabui got into but was born in it. His family operated a farm and his father ran a restaurant in the capital city of Nairobi. Kabui grew up in the village with his mother where they grew almost all the food they consumed. It was at his family farm that he Kabui developed a love for fresh food and the art of consuming food following the natural cycles of seasons.
The collaboration aims to share the skills for healthy food to the Hex community and beyond. No community can survive without food and the Hex community is no different. The Hex Kitchen is another assembly point for the community to be nourished both physically and socially. While wealth is private, food is social and having a kitchen for the community to assemble is a great option for a community that is causing ripples across the world.
What to Expect
The Kitchen will have virtual classes, content on Youtube and other social media presence for a start. The goal is that the Kitchen will have a physical place that will have a kitchen in a farm that will grown food and have space that guest can visit. The farm will have a demonstration farm for the vegetables, fruits and herbs,
For the schedule of upcoming classes please visit our events section and find a class that is fit for your schedule.
