Rice is a food that can be found at the center of tables around the globe. It connects cultures internationally but as Michael Twitty has said, “Rice has a long history with culinary justice.”

Spend an evening learning about the culinary history of rice and its African diasporic identity, with curator and historian Savona Bailey-McClain, chef of rice restaurant FIELDTRIP JJ Johnson, author of the upcoming RICE cookbook and culinary historian Michael Twitty, and rice farmer Nfamara Badjie.

Learn how the culture of rice has impacted Black culture as we trace its roots from Africa and the Caribbean to the American South.

NFAMARA BADJIE

Nfamara Badjie, a native of The Gambia, came to the US in 2005, sponsored by a musicologist from the University of California, who brought him to teach drumming.  Nfamara is one of a very few remaining living masters of the Bourgarbou, a traditional drumming style of Nfamara’s Jola (aka Diolla) tribe.

Nfamara grew up in a remote village of subsistence farmers. His tribe is famous for their expertise in farming rice which they do near The Gambia River. His family has cultivated rice, maize, peanuts and fonio for many generations.

In 2013, Nfamara and his wife Dawn purchased a home with the intention of farming. When Nfamara observed how wet the land was, decided to attempt growing rice despite the many challenges. With seed from the USDA seed bank, and seed provided by a farmer in Vermont, they began.

In 2015, Ever-Growing Family Farm started a vegetable CSA and began selling rice. Initially, everything was done by hand as it is in Africa-- including digging paddies, transplanting, weeding, cutting, drying, threshing, and winnowing. For several years, they drove to the Champlain Valley in Vermont to mill the rice.

Each year all farm earnings have been funneled into purchasing used small-scale rice farming equipment from Japan. Additionally, seed of varieties appropriate for the Northeast is hard to come by and not available commercially. Dawn has continually sourced seed and together they have grown out many varieties adaptable to the Northeast.

Nfamara insists on maintaining the Jola tradition of giving 10 percent of the rice to people in need. Accordingly, the farm sends 10 percent of sales revenue to assist families in The Gambia and Senegal.

SAVONA BAILEY-MCCLAIN

Savona Bailey-McClain is the Executive Director/Chief Curator of the West Harlem Art Fund, which has organized high-profile public arts exhibits throughout New York City for the past 20 years, including Times Square, DUMBO, Soho, Governors Island and Harlem. Her public art installations encompass sculpture, drawings, performance, sound, and mixed media, and have been covered extensively by the New York Times, Art Daily, Artnet, Los Angeles Times and Huffington Post, among many others. She is host/ producer of “State of the Arts NYC,” a weekly radio program on iTunes, Radio Public, Youtube, Mixcloud and other audio platforms. She is also a member of ArtTable and the Governors Island Advisory Council.

JJ JOHNSON

JJ Johnson is a James Beard Award-winning chef best known for his barrier-breaking cuisine connecting the foodways of West Africa and Asia to the Americas. Chef JJ’s signature style of combining culturally relevant ingredients with his classically trained cooking and global point of view was inspired by the Caribbean tastes he grew up with, combined with inspiration from his travels.  

Recognized by Eater as one of the New Guard of Power in NYC Dining, JJ’s brand of creating cultural connections through food is a hallmark of his hospitality group Ingrained Hospitality Concepts, LLC, a collaboration of industry professionals dedicated to creating great restaurants while sharing international cuisine with amazing hospitality. 

The restaurant group opened FIELDTRIP, a quick-casual rice bowl shop located in Harlem that highlights rice traditions from around the world with globally-inspired flavors and techniques. JJ is a Chef on Buzzfeed’s Tasty platform, a Mastercard Ambassador, and a television host on Just Eats with Chef JJ airing for its second season on TV One’s Network Cleo TV. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30, Eater Young Gun, and has been featured on NBC TODAY, GMA, Food and Wine, Esquire magazine, and the New York Times chose Fieldtrip as a Critic's Pick for the Hungry City Column. 

Chef JJ published his award-winning first cookbook in spring 2018, “Between Harlem and Heaven: Afro-Asian-American Cooking for Big Nights, Weeknights, and Every Day” (Flatiron Books). He serves on the James Beard Impact Programs Advisory Committee and sits on the junior board of Food Bank for New York City, taking action to end hunger. 

MICHAEL TWITTY

Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian and food writer from the Washington D.C. area. He blogs at Afroculinaria.com. He’s appeared on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern, Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates and most recently Taste the Nation with Top Chef's Padma Lakshmi. HarperCollins released Twitty’s The Cooking Gene, in 2017, tracing his ancestry through food from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom, a finalist for The Kirkus Prize and The Art of Eating Prize and a third place winner of Barnes&Noble's Discover New Writer's Awards in Nonfiction. THE COOKING GENE WON the 2018 James Beard Award for best writing as well as book of the year, making him the first Black author so awarded. his piece on visiting Ghana in Bon Appetit was included in Best Food Writing in 2019 and was nominated for a 2019 James Beard Award.