The Economics Of Eating

The one lesson of good health

By Don Thaayù

To eat, or not to eat. That is the question.

There is a great movie out there called A Beautiful Mind. It was my first intro to the mental state of paranoid schizophrenia. It’s a story about a brilliant guy who just happened to see imaginary people from time to time. It led me to learn more about multiple personality disorder, and helped fuel my interest in philosophy and neuroscience.

It’s funny now, from my current non-religious perspective, to see how quick we are to label people as “crazy” or “wicked”. More often than not, we just want people to submit to our will, to our moral conclusions, so we categorize anyone who doesn’t agree with us as “crazy”, or some similar categorization.

The fact is that a split-, or multiple-personality is kind of the norm for human beings. Every desire or value that we invest in, over time, develops its own personality, of a sort. For example, there is the “me” who wants to be really productive. If that were the only me, I’d probably be doing pretty well, though maybe traumatized in other areas. But that’s not the only “me” in my head. There’s the gamer me, the parent me, the procrastinating me, the responsible friend me, the sad me, the tired and hungry me, the planner me (that’s the one who conspires with my procrastinator, telling themselves that making plans is the same as production), and several others.

I don’t think I'm alone in this situation. I suspect that, to some degree or other, most humans have a kind of political, or economic battle going on inside their heads all the time.

Another version of this is the story of feeding the right wolf, where a native American chief counsels his warriors to give their energy only to the version of their internal “wolf” which serves them, rather than to the one that will destroy them and those around them.

Multiple wolves, or split-personalities, the human mind is a bit of a battle ground.

This brings us to the economics of eating. Almost. First, I have to reference one of my favorite books, Economics in One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt.

In this book, Mr. Hazlitt describes his “one lesson” like this: any economic policy is “good” if it serves all people at all times. If either of these conditions are broken, then such an economic policy is a “bad” one. For example, a reverence for and a defense of private property is a “good” economic policy, as it serves and benefits all people at all times, harming only those who wish to profit at another’s expense, against their will. Private property is, in principle, good for all, only harming those who wish to prey on others.

Another “good” policy would be one which promotes and enforces a general non-aggression policy, one in which anyone who initiates the use of force against another is stopped and punished. This moral and economic code is good for all, ensuring general peace and welfare, and is harmful only to those wishing to initiate the threat or the actuality of harm to others unjustly.

An example of a “bad” economic policy is taxation, or one of its many fruits, such as government welfare or a social security program. Taxation is theft, benefiting only those with the power to enforce it, at the expense of those who are forced to pay it. Welfare and social security benefit specific interest groups at the expense of others, without their consent.

I love his analysys. He describes his “one lesson” right away, then spends the rest of the book supporting his thesis. I find his arguments self-evident and very instructive. Now we are ready to eat!

If you live with a sort of political system within your mind, then a wise “economic” policy would benefit you very much. For example, we could say there is a special interest group located in your mouth. It’s your taste buds. They are lobbyists who constantly petition your mind for control over the jaws and the hands at specific times. When the foods they love are available, they team up with your slobber to make a strong case for their benefit.

Another part of your personal economic makeup is your stomach. It is supported by your heart, your vascular system, your liver, kidneys, pancreas, your lungs, and more. Pretty much every part of your body’s physical composition outside of the mouth is the citizenry, so to speak, that makes up your body politic. They are the ones who reap the benefit of the taste buds, the teeth, the salivary glands, and your chewing and swallowing muscles. They are also the poor slobs that get taxed to pay for poor economic eating choices, enforced by the mouth lobby.

My buddy and mentor, Chef Njathi Kabui, has, through the effort of decades, identified a serious problem with our food. Rather than the solved problem we’ve been sold, our global food system is anything but safe and supportive of human health and growth. The details are amazing, scary, and discouraging. But he has provided a fix and a wonderful alternative in his Afro-Futuristic Cuisine. Not only is his food delicious, but nutrition and purity are at the core of his “just food” approach to eating.

I bring up my association with Chef Kabui because it gives us a solid dilemma to chew, along with our food. Before he came along, the advice of the best nutritional and medical authorities was “diet and exercise”. Oh, and pills. And regular checkups. Now, fortunately, we have access to a full analysis of the scope of the failure and dangers of our global food supply chain, as well as locations for emerging supply chains with the potential to reverse a deadly situation. In other words, with his thesis and ongoing work, we now have a clearer picture of what we are up against when hunger strikes, and we are fully able to make use of the “one lesson” Henry Hazlitt spoke of, and apply it to our own internal political situation.

When we take a bite of anything, it has the short term consequence of providing certain services to the lobby (the mouth and appetite), as well as medium and long term consequences to the overall health of the entire cellular body politic.

How are you doing with your economic knowledge? If you don’t know about how bad most of the food available in our markets and restaurants is, I suggest you attend some of Chef Kabui’s lectures and classes. If you know, then let’s ask this question: are you making use of the “one lesson” as you eat? Is the bite you’re taking right now serving the lobby only, at the expense of the body politic? Is the bite you are chewing creating a tax that will be imposed on the rest of your body, a fiat load, as soon as you swallow? Are you satisfying your friends and family as they pressure you to “pick your poison”, to “eat, drink, and be merry, for health insurance covers everything”? Are you employing, with each bite, a policy that serves one specific part of your body at the expense of the rest?
I love my Chef Kabui. He offers a priceless commodity in allowing us to once again think of our food supply chain, our recipes, and our meals, as a solved problem. He offers the food abundance and flavor that we crave, but without the tax of fiat food. By applying the economics of eating that he teaches, we are able to, with every bite, satisfy the lobby in our mouths, while passing on great benefit and power to the rest of the body politic. This is the economics of eating. Let’s learn this “one lesson”, and apply it with every bite.

Decolonization of Salad Outfit

This might be my last recipe I will be creating for the year. It was inspired by my first student who paid for my class in cryptocurrency back in  February 2021. That essentially made her the first entrant and practitioner of my thesis of Just Food  as an antidote to Death Worship. The concept of Just Food and Unjust Food( also referred to Colonized Food) are the polar opposites in my classification of the food system along the binary of Life Worship and Death Worship as the main foundation of of my thesis relating to the broader topic of Food Justice. All that is a story of another day. Since then, a handful of other practitioners have followed suit and completed the whole course with amazing results. I have learned just as much as I have shared as I have experimented on taking indigenous concepts about food and fashioning them in a modern global food system.

My approach towards foods may sound highly exaggerated and so I wonder why they should pay for something that is so basic that anyone can figure out almost intuitively. That is not a problem that is unique in my experience but the experience of most new concepts. Knowing that has kept me focused on what my passion and interest is regardless of whether anyone ever pay for it. It was a great breakthrough to gain traction outside of academia and other institutions. Lindsey Thomas started a new phase in my work. 

Now that the consequences of food injustices are becoming more obvious as poor diet causes havoc in the health of more and more people across the globe, my ideas seem to gain acceptance more and more. The biggest news in Kenya about a renowned preacher who spent KSH.460 million shillings on cancer treatment in the U.S over one year must have turned the most heads. My thesis is that humans have been set up by having their food culture colonized in front of their eyes. That colonization has taken the form of food illiteracy that has literally erased the advanced food culture over our evolutionary history that is itself the foundation of our advancement as a species. But for the sake of profits a few powerful idiots are on the verge of destroying all the advances of the man species. Extinction of many species has been the cost we have had to pay, but now humans are facing the same extinction as a reality. 

You do math and tell me how sustainable it is for anyone to spend KSH 460 million shillings for medical treatment. While it is true that some of the illnesses might be related to other things, the truth of the matter is that we know all too well what the side effects of the chemicals we use in our food are. 

So I shared here my best vinaigrette I made for the year. Since I am focused on decolonizing our food, I am closing the year with the decolonization of the word vinaigrette. A French word for a salad dressing, typically made with vinegar, oil and spice. In line with my futuristic thinking of ever pushing the boundaries, I decided to formulate a name that would be most appropriate for salad dressing in my language. I arrived at the name Njuthi. I borrowed the word for sauce, mùchuthi and the first letters from the word, njuthí, meaning raw. Since a salad is a form of raw dish, the word for something that makes the salad much more attractive would be our equivalent to vinaigrette.  Funny enough it is just one letter off from my name. 

Ironically, the first Njuthi was named after my first student who paid for a class using cryptocurrency. She was also the first person to pay for a couple. Though the couple did not finish the class as agreed, they opened the door for the next couple of Kenyans living in Australia. TTLT is her mission name and she is still in the class with great plans. 

That she used cryptocurrency to pay for the class is very symbolic as the whole idea behind cryptocurrency is to offer an alternative to fiat currency which robs the currency holder through inflation. That kind of robbery through inflation is exactly the kind of robbery I have observed in food by pushing food that leaves us poorer, much poorer, over time as the case of KSH. 460 million shillings above demonstrates. It is kind of neat to have the first couple paying for the class in a currency that is designed for the same mission that my food is designed for.  Talking about design, the recipe in focus is the first one since the publication of a book on food design by Franseca Zampollo in Italy that was published this week. Contributed an essay and was profiled in the book. It was great to see a picture of the traditional kitchen in my village home in a big book. 

I therefore named my finest Njuthi in honor of the work she has done over the last two years. 

Please visit my website for the recipe that she had paid for to make it available to all. It is our gift and celebration for all the good things that each and everyone out there did to push life worship.

Eat well and worship life. 

Futuristic Vinaigrette

TTLT Njuthi

Ingredients

4 leaves dried holy basil,

2 cracked pieces of 1 star of anise

pinch of caraway seeds

5 peppercorn

Pinch of salt

Juice from 1 lemon

1 tsp chopped fresh parsley

5 leaves fresh oregano

1 tbsp tamarind paste

1 tsp olive oil

1medium clove of garlic

pinch of grated nutmeg

touch of maple syrup

Process:

Pound all the dry ingredients together

Add the Lemon,oil and Tamarind paste And mix throughly

Grate some Nutmeg as last step.

Serve with salad, boiled beans or radish salad.

Decolonized Salad OutfiT

This might be my last recipe I will be creating for the year. It was inspired by my first student who paid for my class in cryptocurrency back in  February 2021. That essentially made her the first entrant and practitioner of my thesis of Just Food 

As an Antidote to Death Worship. That is a story of another day. Since then, a handful of other practitioners have followed suit. I have learned just as much as I have shared. 

My approach towards foods may sound highly exaggerated and so I wonder why they should pay for something that is so basic that anyone can figure out almost intuitively. That is not a problem that is unique in my experience but the experience of most new concepts. Knowing that has kept me focused on what my passion and interest is regardless of whether anyone ever pay for it. It was a great breakthrough to gain traction outside of academia and other institutions. Lindsey Thomas started a new phase in my work. 

Now that the consequences of food injustices are becoming more obvious as poor diet causes havoc in the health of more and more people across the globe, my ideas seem to gain acceptance more and more. The biggest news in Kenya about a renowned preacher who spent KSH.460 million shillings on cancer treatment in the U.S over one year must have turned the most heads. My thesis is that humans have been set up by having their food culture colonized in front of their eyes. That colonization has taken the form of food illiteracy that has literally erased the advanced food culture over our evolutionary history that is itself the foundation of our advancement as a species. But for the sake of profits a few powerful idiots are on the verge of destroying all the advances of the man species. Extinction of many species has been the cost we have had to pay, but now humans are facing the same extinction as a reality. 

You do math and tell me how sustainable it is for anyone to spend KSH 460 million shillings for medical treatment. While it is true that some of the illnesses might be related to other things, the truth of the matter is that we know all too well what the side effects of the chemicals we use in our food are. 

So I shared here my best vinaigrette I made for the year. Since I am focused on decolonizing our food, I am closing the year with the decolonization of the word vinaigrette. A French word for a salad dressing, typically made with vinegar, oil and spice. In line with my futuristic thinking of ever pushing the boundaries, I decided to formulate a name that would be most appropriate for salad dressing in my language. I arrived at the name Njuthi. I borrowed the word for sauce, mùchuthi and the first letters from the word, njuthí, meaning raw. Since a salad is a form of raw dish, the word for something that makes the salad much more attractive would be our equivalent to vinaigrette.  Funny enough it is just one letter off from my name. 

Ironically, the first Njuthi was named after my first student who paid for a class using cryptocurrency. She was also the first person to pay for a couple. Though the couple did not finish the class as agreed, they opened the door for the next couple of Kenyans living in Australia. TTLT is her mission name and she is still in the class with great plans. 

That she used cryptocurrency to pay for the class is very symbolic as the whole idea behind cryptocurrency is to offer an alternative to fiat currency which robs the currency holder through inflation. That kind of robbery through inflation is exactly the kind of robbery I have observed in food by pushing food that leaves us poorer, much poorer, over time as the case of KSH. 460 million shillings above demonstrates. It is kind of neat to have the first couple paying for the class in a currency that is designed for the same mission that my food is designed for.  Talking about design, the recipe in focus is the first one since the publication of a book on food design by Franseca Zampollo in Italy that was published this week. Contributed an essay and was profiled in the book. It was great to see a picture of the traditional kitchen in my village home in a big book. 

I therefore named my finest Njuthi in honor of the work she has done over the last two years. 

Please visit my website for the recipe that she had paid for to make it available to all. It is our gift and celebration for all the good things that each and everyone out there did to push life worship. 

Eat well and worship life. 

The Herb of the Cross

It was a bit of a surprise to learn that a flower known as Brazilian Verbena that has been growing in our place is an herb with deep roots that extend to various cultures which include ancient Egypt, India and the West.  It’s coolest connection is with Brazil, barely a week after the visit of Professor Paulino from the Amazonia region in Brazil. 

The herb has numerous uses including the calming of nerves and activation of the lactation glands. It is known as the herb of the cross for religious reasons that I seriously doubt ever happened. But that is in the past. Our interest in the plant has to do with its signaling to connections of the future across cultures, and more specifically to the indigenous & Kilombo communities in Brazil. We are delighted to have a herb of the Cross that will hopefully calm and activate the lactation glands of our various cultures in a bid to calm our nerves from centuries of abuse. Incidentally, we have another Brazilian plant which symbolizes the persistent oppression that seems to always reinvent itself. The most vicious form of that oppression is food. The shrub of Brazilian Black pepper is a beautiful shrub but it is also invasive. It has been relatively contained and I am wondering if the app identified the shrub correctly. I didn’t plant the shrub and my parents must have planted it many years ago. How they acquired it and why they planted it will remain a mystery.

What is not a mystery is the world in which we live today is governed by a global system that is invasive and parasitic towards the human rights of the masses. Fewer things symbolize that unjust system than our food and our relationships. That is primarily the cause of sickness and wars. I am of the view that our stomachs are the dumpsite for all of our folly. Plants and animals absorb all the negative energies we emit through industrial processes and chemical farming. We then ingest the same and reflect health effects that mirror our environment. Primitive accumulation of wealth, more mining of natural resources like oil, not even the invention of faster gadgets can turn this futile tide. We have to cross over to a more sustainable and human existence.

Being Black and educated is a tough affair. I almost wish to be blind to keep me from seeing certain things. One of those things are the illusive justice that Africans continue to experience in the most subtle way that allows them to celebrate the shadow of other people’s justice as though it is their own. The problem of justice is complex and it takes more than racial and cultural tones. It comes layered and sexed. Women and men don’t experience injustice. Yet some think that the problem is the other sex, all the while the puppeteer is busy robbing them all. The divisions of color are equally the same. Blacks dream of living the same life as Whites only to realize that the goal post has long been moved by the time they get there. How else do you explain an increasing gap between races even as the economy grows. It doesn’t seem to occur for a minute that the whole system is gamed. The power gap between the races get wider even as more Blacks gain entry into hitherto White fields. Those in power use the power to increase the gap between them and the rest. Those who are behind look at each other and blame each other for their situation. 

The situation is not too bad as long as you go along with it and act like you don’t see. Being a coward pays well in that kind of system. To be African and to wish for change is a complex affair. I often think of the God of the Christians who kills his own son so that man can be saved. In fact, one of the tests of faith in the most important religious guide is willingness to die not for man but for God. A martyr dies for God but God does not die for man.  Man is dying in droves. I have often felt like Black martyrs who like Jesus say crucify me that this suffering may come to an end, but I am rebuffed by many who seem to believe that their salvation can not come from anyone else other than a White person. It matters not how those who come in the name of the various prophets rob and mislead the masses. The way of the book is the one and only way. Nothing else can suffice. 

The quest for justice seems like the story of the overcoat in the story by Nikolai Gogol. In the story Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin is a low level clerk working for the government. He was in dire need of an overcoat to shield him from the bitter cold. Since he earned very little money working for the government, it took him years to save enough money to buy an overcoat. He was so proud of himself that he couldn’t wait to wear it out to a party for his coworkers. On his way from the party that night, his coat was stolen and he ended up dying from cold. Such is the nature of those who yearn for justice in a world that they complain of but one that still gives them so  much meaning and pleasure. Thinking about the complex web of subterfuge is looked at as boring. Like Bashmachkin, the most likely outcome is much of the same. I therefore stand to the side and watch even as I whisper to keep from annoying the oppressed too much that they might slain me. Maybe the only hope is that the masses will suffer enough to realize that the pain is too dense to be wished away or tolerated. How does one trust a government that comes up with endless amounts of money for wars but is hard pressed to keep its books balanced. The government borrows for the sake of a few but the masses are stuck with the debt.

I have therefore settled to farm and create a space of salvation of our stomachs. Maybe, just maybe, just food might do the magic and remove the vail. Anyone who can convince a person who is eating toxic food and claiming to be living life to stop eating against their best health and wealth can do anything, including taking them to heaven.

Our heaven is the farm. There are few places left where one can be a steward of the earth, a healthy stomach and healthy emotions. I am reminded of the best name of any character in Russian literature. That name is of a character in a short story by Leo Tolstoy entitled Where Love is, God Is. The main character is a shoe repairer working in a room in a city. The room is a basement with a window that allows one inside to see the feet of those walking by the street. The shoe cobbler had been repairing shows for so long that he could identify the people walking across the window by their shoes. He could tell a foreigner by simply looking at his shoes. The character was named Martin Avdeitch. I love the character because like him, I can identify aliens by the way they eat the same way Martin could identify members of his community from their shoes. The good bit is that the story is not about shoes or food.  The story is about poverty and loss of family. Martin had lost his wife and son, making him an angry man. When Martin was later introduced to the Bible, he read it with the hope that God would help him. Martin later realized that by loving his fellow man, he could find the peace he was seeking. 

The only small problem is that they poverty and death that was bothering Martin in early Russia taken taken the form of food and the poverty of food have extended to become the poverty of reason and logic. In that confusion, just food has become alien and old fashion. That means what is love has been turned into hate. The end result is a fiat world where most of the relationships and food is fake. I have now become an alien and many look at me in an odd way when I act with love for self and others in the manner I consume and serve food. But in other more mundane matters, much care and love is expressed that would make those in love with humanity, and just food jealous. I mean, how does someone take a birth twice and change his clothes twice but eat food that makes his stomach so dirty three times a day? Very clean on the outside with expensive makeup, apply foundation so that the makeup can stay on and then spray their arm pits so that they can smell like love and justice to their fellow man. In that kind of world, I am an alien. In fact, I am like a the lady  character that Martin interacted with in the story, that character was an old woman who hawked apples around town. Martin called him Babushka. I am not sure if the Russian use that word out of respect or in a dilatory way, but in the West, calling some like me an old woman or anybody for that matter is not considered a compliment. In our culture, you don’t get old as you age, you don’t get older every successive birthday, only an alien can think so. Whether I am considered an alien or even a Babushka, I will love and grow just food. Anything else is Russian roulette.

In the meantime the bees are having a ball falling in love with Spice of the Cross and this is something worth celebrating. Whether those that have turned their stomachs into alien spaces will cross to the side of justice or I will die waiting, I am at peace.

Kilombo & The Great African Catastrophe

The sun delayed setting today in our village in honor of a most humbling connection. Professor Paulino Itamar was our guest. He is a professor at Federal University of Western Pará but also works closely with 9 Kilombo communities inside the Amazon Forest. These communities of Afro Brazilians, also known as maroons, are populated by Africans who escaped slavery during the painful period of African Catastrophe. Many of these communities were able to resist every effort by the Portuguese to this day.

Professor Paulino has officially invited me to Brazil to give a symposium at his university and also do an event with the Kilombo communities. I understand that these communities are eager to connect with other Africans, something they haven’t done for over 250 years. The communities are in the very interior of the forest and have only been recognized by the government not too long ago. I have spoken to one of professor Paulino’s masters class along with the late environmentalists Wanjiku Mwangi, Professor Sally Nyambura and Thiong’o wa Gachie.

The students shared some of their favorite recipes at the end of our presentation. Some of the students are eager to visit Kenya and also spend a little at our farm and we can reciprocate by sharing some of our recipes made with food that is as close as possible to the food that the first ancestors of the Africans the diaspora ate before they were caught up in the African Catastrophe.

On his part, professor Paulino shared a great story of a Black masquerade character known as FOBO. FOBOR appears at a festival parade and punishes powerful individuals who misuse their powerful positions or resources to oppress others. I was very interested in the story and even wrote a short essay about it. I hope to one day see the masquerade of Fobòr in person. How cool would it be to have FOBOR at my dinner.

In any case we are glad for opportunity at hand. I am focused at the series of dinners on our farm with the community and the African Diaspora.Those first dinners is what I call the Dinner of Return. It’s the closest concept I know to spirituality. By preparing the farm to grow such important food, we are acknowledging the Great Catastrophe in all Africans and all those who perpetrated it and continue to both benefit from it as well as keep it alive, albeit in different form. We then follow that recognition with action and gratitude.

Kilombos is our spirit of resilience and resistance. Just food is the fuel that drives that resistance. It is a common thread amongst all those who were against the Great African Catastrophe. We shall overcome. Today we overcame the divide across language, color and culture. In other words we ate as one and we ate Just Food. It’s the least we can do to uphold our humanity in a time of intense darkness. When I make it Brazil, I will light another star in our constellation of Beautiful Blackness that shine. My parents would be most proud of their work to hear that their dreams of freedom, justice and love is being felt as far as the Amazon. Mau Mau meets Kilombo again over the Dinner of Return. In honor of those who have fought so hard using their own marshal arts like capoeira and indigenous spiritual system like voodoo and Santeria, we killed a cock and uttered the peace refrain Thayù Thayú. One Thayü for the Professor and one for the Kilombo communities that have invited me to their community. When I make to Brazil, I will start the same way we ended and the Kilombo will close the best way we know how. The spirit of Kilombo is the spirit of food justice, an integral part of overcoming the Great African Catastrophe. A deep debt of gratitude to all the stewards who have been working on that for all the generations past and those yet to come and those support this vision from a far even though they might never eat a morsel of grain from these farms. To those generous souls, may the FOBO 0f the carnival called life smile on you.

The Chestnut Allegory

By Chef Kabui

Cape Chestnut is one eatery in Nanyuki that sets itself apart from other food joints that I have visited. When I say it is a different space, I mean it in every sense. Let me start by warning anyone with a closed mind and a faint wit that this restaurant is not for them. It is not all in vain for that person(s), for at the very least, they know not to waste their energy going there. However, they surely will miss the palpable love and warmth of the space.

The restaurant is owned and operated by two women, who are also partners. One is an American trained chef and the other is an Indian self-made chef. The eclectic combination of the two cultures, training and passion makes for a perfect recipe of food that adds value to an African culinary tour. I typically would not eat American or Indian food during my tours in Kenya, but this is one experience I truly appreciated. My hesitation to eat these foods are largely emotional as well as political. I grew up with Indian friends and later moved to America where I have been living amongst some solid American friends. In both of these instances, I have matured enough to separate individuals from their dominant culture. I am able to live and thrive in that duality of a White oppressive power and to have some honest friends who happen to be white. A similar binary holds in my dealing with Africans. I now understand, regrettably, that not all Africans desire freedom or are willing to pay the price for it. That ultimately leaves me is a point of discrimination. Yes, you read that right. 

“Discrimination” started as a positive word until it was politicized by the oppressors. These oppressors practiced an illegitimate form  of discrimination to deny other's their rights to their culture, wealth, labor, markets, education and health. Yet, the etymology of the word has nothing to do with injustices, but rather discernment.  In other words, discrimination is the ability to tell differences for the sake of making the correct decision or choice. 

I, therefore, appreciated the restaurant because it represented my food story outside the African experience. The first foreign food that I ate was Indian. The latest influence on my food thinking is American. I call these influences the stem. The root is African, and they all bear fruit that is a synthesis of African, Indian and American, which I call Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine. 

I have to confess that the above description is overly simplistic and only useful in my narration of this specific story. Had I enough time and space and patience on your part, I would indulge in an equally interesting exegesis about how each of the three cultural cuisines are equally interconnected at their root. African food is deeply influenced by Indians who came to Kenya to build railways in the late 1800s. America was founded as a result of Europeans desire for Indian spices. Africans had been trading with Asia long before the coming of Arabs and Europeans. 

The connections do not end with the cultural and professional ties of the owners of Chestnut, but also with the word “chestnut”. Chestnuts also have an interesting story for Indigenous Africans, Asians, Americans and even Europeans. The tree contributed greatly to the building of wealth in modern day America. Enslaved Africans were central in the gathering of the nuts for food from the tree, which was sometimes referred to as the “bread tree". Its valuable wood is rot-resistant (though that did not make it immune to an Asian fungus that attacked the American Chestnut tree species that numbered in the billions).  As a tree that starts to produce nuts at 40 years and can live to be 1000 years, it is a symbol of both food security and vulnerability. In America, Indigenous people knew how to make both milk and flour for communities that provided a major source of the starch. Now, science has proven that chestnuts are a superior source of starch and contain other minerals such as selenium. The name, therefore, has an equally complex history that spans a wide period and across cultures. 

The Chestnut Restaurant represents the positive aspects of this long history, that is, the resilience, the nurturing aspects and a healthy dose of uniqueness. The two owners took time to welcome me and share their vision and philosophy. They have a farm in Mauu that provides them with a bulk of their food. That means that they do not have a standard menu. Their kitchen runs around the season. 

One thing that you will not find there is anything plastic. I need not do anything except give a big salute. The restaurant earned a place in my crass heart. That is one team that I would love to collaborate with for a fine dinner because our history, philosophy and destiny are aligned.

I could not hide my excitement about what I was hearing about the restaurant. My sister Wanjiku from Porini had to be a genius to select this as one of the places in Nanyuki to visit. Thinking about the chestnut can create a cultural and historical thesis about food of the triple heritage of the cultures aforementioned. It has not always been fancy but we have enough good to build a culture that is as valuable, transcendent and futuristic as a chestnut.

Batian & Food Heroism

I'm restoring my ancestral food vibe in the space that first nurtured my understanding of what I call "Food Heroism". Food Heroism is a simple concept. It observes the foundational nature of food and of its central role in human evolution and civilization. Those basic lessons have informed my conclusion that of all the battles that have been fought, from the oldest recorded Western war epic of Homer over a woman named Helen, to the modern imperial wars fought over a black liquid known as oil, the most significant battle is one still to be fought. It's the gorrilla war--to recover control of our food.

I know that any battle has to have a historical context. Mine is partly personal, and partly global. Both of those two aspects can be deduced by the types of food that was growing in our farm in my young days. The person I am today, the values I hold dear, and the battles I engage in are deeply influenced by the crops that were grown by my family, and by the way they grew them.

As I am remaking my family farm in a more contemporary Afro Futuristic fashion, I am saving some of the historical food relics of my youth. One such crop that was a key consumer of our time and energy was coffee. I have saved 33 trees from my mother’s original stock, for memory's sake. They are a form of living cenotaph for my mother’s toil on the land. The type of coffee trees I am growing are known as "Batian", a fitting word from old English, meaning to fatten (in a healthy way, in other words, to feed in the purest sense), to make better, or to heal.

That was our holy food trinity of the past, the struggle and code of our ancestors. "Batian", to feed, to improve, and to heal is now the faded godhead I am determined to resore, as articulated in my cuisine by the word "Futurism".

The original coffee trees were all cut down. My 33 relics are all new young shoots from some of those originals. We look forward to having a few lbs of organic coffee for our experimentation. We used to believe that the coffee had to be sprayed with toxic chemicals to survive, yet we haven’t sprayed ours with anything, but we are already harvesting a respectable amount from the young trees. We don’t have to produce any set amount because we don’t owe anyone for chemicals and toxic fertilizers. Some farms near our own were destroyed in the quest for high productivity. Those farms are now death fields or junkies for drugs that killed the fertility of the soil in the first place.

Unfortunately for many, today's dinner plates are a testimonial of having lost the battle of Food Heroism. But as human history has shown even losing significant battles doesn't necessarily mean the war is over. We are working hard to win the war. The name Batian also happens to be the English name of the highest peak on Mt. Kenya, otherwise known as Kírínyaga. The mountain has deep spiritual significance in my culture. My ancestors were fascinated by the white snow on the peak of the mountain. My name Njathi is associated with a few things, among them the highest of the three peaks on Kíng’ang’a. The colonial period introduced the name Batian. The white snow is slowly disappearing due to the changes in weather and degradation of our food and environmental conditions. That disregard of our food has its roots in colonialism. Food Heroism can recenter our community.

With a name like mine, parents like mine, and a history to boot, I couldn’t escape my fate in Food Heroism. We are looking up to our food, from whence our health, our life and heroism comes from.