IN-PERSON EVENT at Essex Market Teaching Kitchen
Join MOFAD at Essex Market for an evening with acclaimed food writer and chef Melissa Thompson and legendary culinary historian, Dr. Jessica Harris, as they take us on a journey to Jamaica with a conversation celebrating Thompson’s new cookbook, Motherland.
Covering more than 500 years of history and influences, Motherland features in-depth research into the evolution of Jamaica’s food. It charts the contribution of indigenous Jamaicans, the Taino. It follows the impact of colonization, and how the periods under Spanish and British rule left an indelible mark on the nation’s gastronomy, without shying away from their brutality.
Dr. Harris and Thompson, who is based in London, will discuss the ways in which British -Jamaican and African foodways differ from US-Jamaican/African foodways and consider how the lived experience for Black British folks is different from that of African-Americans. According to Thompson, “there is a movement building in the UK that is almost taking its lead from the US, where Black people in food are building connections and community more now than ever before.” It is that momentum that inspired her to write Motherland and explore the roots of Jamaican food.
Tickets include a cocktail made with Ten to One Caribbean Rum.
Copies of MOTHERLAND by Melissa Thompson are available from our partner bookstore, Kitchen Arts & Letters for purchase online with your ticket or separately at the event. If you order a book with your ticket, you will be able to retrieve it for signing at the event.
This is an in-person event. Tickets must be purchased online in advance. Tickets will not be available for purchase at the door.
photo credit: Samer Moukarzel
MELISSA THOMPSON
Melissa Thompson is an award-winning writer and cook who started a popular supper club in 2014. A former feature writer for a national newspaper, in 2015 she left journalism to pursue her love of cooking, with the supper club growing into a sell-out pop-up across locations in London. Born in Dorset to a Jamaican father and Maltese mother, her food has always been an eclectic celebration of cuisines around the world. She won the Guild of Food Writers’ Food Writing Award in 2021.
JESSICA HARRIS
Educator and culinary historian Jessica Harris is the author of fifteen books documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America. She has written extensively about the culture of Africa in the Americas, lectured widely, and made numerous television appearances.
Jessica holds a Ph.D. from NYU and is an English professor at Queens College, CUNY. She consults at Dillard University in New Orleans, where she founded the Institute for the Study of Culinary Cultures. Harris is a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and a member of the IACP and Les Dames d’Escoffier. Her articles have appeared in Eating Well, Food & Wine, Essence, and The New Yorker, among other publications, and she has been profiled in The New York Times. Harris has spoken about the food of African Americans on The Today Show, and Good Morning America, and at the Museum of Natural History, and has been a frequent guest at Philadelphia’s The Book and the Cook. In 2004, Harris was awarded the Jack Daniel’s Lifetime Achievement Award and she was awarded the James Beard Foundation 2020 Lifetime Achievement Winner and Humanitarian of the Year. To learn more about Jessica, go to www.africooks.com.
Essex Market is New York City’s most historic public market. Our mission is to foster small business, and to serve the community with fresh and high quality food & services.
Kitchen Arts & Letters is a bookstore devoted to food and drink, with titles imported from around the world. They emphasize works on food culture and innovation.