00:00What's up Essence family? I'm so excited to be here with you all today. It's your girl Tameesh and
00:17this is a very special edition of Essence Eats powered by none other than Target. We are here
00:22at the Essence Festival of Culture down in New Orleans and listen, it's the black joy for me.
00:28I'm talking about food. I'm talking about the fashion. We got music. We have amazing talent hitting the stage. I'm going to be talking with a trio by the name of Ghetto Gastro coming all the way from New York. They'll be hitting the stage doing a food demo and they might be pulling up in just a minute. What's up guys? Good to meet you. Good to see you. What's up Les? Good to meet you. You know we had to bring that Ghetto Gastro effervescence to Essence. I mean period. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ghetto Gastro
00:58and Cherie Nicole. Y'all give it up. Yeah. Peace Essence Eats. This is Chef Les and I'm from the Bronx. Peace Essence Eats. It's your man Chef P. And yeah, we getting to it out here. Essence Eats. You already know the vibe.
01:12What's going on? Fresh off the streets. We got our cleats at Essence Eats. Stay tuned. John Gray, Ghetto Gastro.
01:18Some people may be wondering, where in the world did the name Ghetto Gastro come from? How did that happen?
01:25I used to be able to take naps pre-Ghetto Gastro days and I woke up from a nap with an epiphany and the name just rained down.
01:33And it was an interesting journey because like starting off, you know, it's a polarizing name taking two things that people don't think go together.
01:40You look at Ghetto, people often have a negative connotation. But we wanted to kind of just honor where we're from.
01:45This is like the precipice, the crux of culture, you know?
01:49Ghetto was such a name that was tarnished. We wanted to bring some more polished essence to the word Ghetto.
01:55When you think of gastro, you think of the science of gastronomy, the science of, you know, eating and digestion.
02:01You know, we wanted to give people something to digest. And not just food, man. You know, energy, vibes.
02:08Got the red velvet waffle mix right here. It's all natural plant-based ingredients.
02:13We're going to do an air-fried plantain with a little bit of our spicy sovereign syrup on top.
02:19It's going to go on top of our wavy waffle and we're going to make a sundae out of that.
02:21Some plant-based ice cream, some smoked and candied pecans, maraschino cherries, a little whipped cream.
02:29You know the vibes. Layer the flavors, layer the flavors, layer the flavors.
02:32We can't physically feed everybody by hand, but, you know, if we're able to distill it into products or into content, plant the seeds, you know, it's there for people to digest, you know?
02:44You can't be what you can't see.
02:46I never saw anybody like us growing up doing the things that we're doing.
02:50You know, we're eating in Michelin-star restaurants all around the world, you know, and we're the only people who look like us in the space.
02:57This is it. This is the final dish right here.
02:59That's the vibe right there.
03:01Mmm.
03:02Missy.
03:04Mmm.
03:05That's so good.
03:06Yeah, the Bronx, like, we like to call ourselves the mouth of the global south, man.
03:10It gives people the opportunity to experience, you know, the foods that come from the Bronx and highlight the diaspora, you know, that transatlantic effervescence that we bring into the essence for y'all.
03:19When we look at the assortment, it's like the Pan-African Pantry, so we in New York and we in the north, but our family, generations ago, came from the south, came from the continent, came from the Caribbean, right?
03:31So how do we unify these flavors? Like, it's multitudes and it's not a monolith.
03:35And then through that food, you know, we are making it more easy and accessible for, you know, for our audience and for everybody and the consumer to just make the products at home and be able to distill, like, our flavor into products that people can make at home real easy and steezy.
03:48You know, you just pop it in the air fryer and the waffle maker, add a little water, whatever, you're off to the races.
03:52But for us, we want to work the work we're doing to really scale to affect the masses.
03:57So Target's the right partner because they have the mass approach.
04:01They have the volume and the scale.
04:03They respect creatives.
04:05I think now they're really investing in the culture.
04:07So it's a beautiful partnership.
04:08Y'all, that was amazing.
04:12Ghetto Gastro killed it, brought that New York swag and energy.
04:16And didn't that food look amazing?
04:18Like, literally, I can't wait to try it.
04:20So glad to have you all join us for this very special edition of Essence Eats, powered by Target.
04:25Talk to you soon.
04:26Bye.
04:27Bye.
04:28Bye.
04:29Bye.
04:30Bye.
04:31Bye.
Comments