- 4 hours ago
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
03:00I'm Jeff Elisa Reynolds, classically trained, soul food raised, and I'm on a mission.
03:05We searching for soul food.
03:07Let's get it.
03:09At my restaurant in LA, I apply my classical training to what I know.
03:14Soul food.
03:14Cuisine created with ingenuity through struggle that nourished my people through its hardest
03:20times.
03:21And I think, just maybe, we aren't the only ones with that bomb formula.
03:25What do you guys think?
03:26Going in for a second.
03:27Yay!
03:27So I'm ready to taste the soul of the rest of the world.
03:30And I'm bringing you along for the journey.
03:32Peru, Jamaica, South Africa, y'all.
03:35And I feel like I just tapped into the soul of Napoli.
03:38Mama mia!
03:39People say LA has a lot of flavor and no soul.
03:42I beg to differ.
03:43It's about making something out of nothing with sustenance and love in every bite.
03:48And I want to get a taste of it all.
03:49You can't even describe it.
03:51You're like, hamana, hamana, hamana.
03:52What we're trying to do here is to, like, let people know the depth within these meals.
04:00Whenever I sit down at a table, it brings back those memories from when I was little.
04:04It is the oldest recipe in South Africa.
04:08What?
04:09And how long has this tradition been going on?
04:128,000 years.
04:158,000 years.
04:17When I eat soul food, it takes me all the way back to, like, the happiest times of my life.
04:21When you have love in your food, that's what everybody's coming for.
04:25This is history on a plate.
04:27Yeah, we search for soul.
04:28Yeah, we search for soul.
04:29You want something to show, boy.
04:31Searching for show food.
04:34Talk to me about your culture.
04:37So, who are we?
04:38We are the Maroons.
04:39And Maroons are people whose spirit could not be broken.
04:43Wow.
04:43The origin of the word Maroon is formed from the Spanish word Simaroon,
04:48meaning wild and unruly are and tame.
04:51So, the Maroons were herders for the Spaniards.
04:54They would have chased the Simaroon cattle in the woods, keeping them there.
04:58So, they say they were as wild as the cattle they chase.
05:02And I love teaching the history, so I teach my children.
05:04That's how the Maroon knowledge work.
05:07They groom us in herms.
05:08This is called the Pepper Helder.
05:10And is this what the Maroons used for food and for medicinal when they were fighting off the British?
05:17Right.
05:20So, it's that energy that is in it.
05:24They knew these things from Africa.
05:27Your ancestral source.
05:29Yes.
05:29And they want to reach you.
05:30Wow.
05:31This is incredible.
05:32This plant is also the spice that they use on jerk.
05:35This is one of the preservatives in the meat.
05:38People are eating the struggle and they don't even know.
05:41Who do?
05:41People are eating the struggle and they don't even know it.
05:47People, did you hear that?
05:48People are eating the struggle and they don't even know it.
05:51You don't even know what's in the food that you're eating, all the culture, all the history.
05:54That is amazing.
05:56Wow.
05:57Wow, for real, guys.
05:57That was deep.
05:58I just had to start with that.
05:59What a beautiful moment, guys.
06:01Hello.
06:02I am Victoria Womarogi.
06:03I'm the Senior Lifestyle Editor for Essence.
06:05And welcome to Hulu's Black Stories Always Searching for Soul Food panel.
06:09I'm seated here with the wonderful chef, Elisa Reynolds, the renowned executive chef
06:14and star of Onyx Collective's food and travel series, Searching for Soul Food on Hulu.
06:20And Tracy A. Curry, who is Searching for Soul Food's Oscar-nominated showrunner.
06:25Show them some love, please.
06:28Yes, yes.
06:29I love it.
06:30I love it.
06:30So the Searching for Soul Food clip that we just saw is a beautiful example of the special
06:35moments that Chef Elisa creates through her soulful connection with food.
06:39Chef, the series seems to do a great job of encapsulating love, compassion, and the celebration
06:44of resilience.
06:44Can you speak to that?
06:46I can.
06:46But first of all, thank you, everybody, for coming out and supporting.
06:50Thank Essence for me being here.
06:52This is my first Essence, not my first time in NOLA, but hello to everyone that loves the
06:56show.
06:56And it was.
06:58It was an experience that I will never forget.
07:01Jamaica, the Maroons, like you said, eating the struggle and we don't even know it.
07:07This story of resilience is our story, too.
07:12And that's some of the fascinating things that I found out on my search.
07:16And Tracy can also speak to that, too, because if we really had a every.
07:22OK, first of all, I cried every episode, y'all.
07:25I cried because it was so beautiful.
07:28And just to hear the stories and to see the similarities in ours.
07:33So, you know.
07:35Yeah, I think.
07:36Yeah, she did cry in every episode.
07:38So we had to edit out a lot of those tears.
07:40But part of the reason was because we were able to create a space for Chef to have such
07:45genuine connections and moments for all of the people that we were meeting on our journey
07:50and really tried to create space for those people to share in as authentically as possible
07:56a manner their stories.
07:58And what's so great about this woman is that there's just something about her that makes
08:01people want to do that.
08:03And I think the end result is what you see on the screen in the show and why it feels
08:07so authentic and real to the experiences of these people.
08:11Now, let me ask you guys a question.
08:13Who out there has a dish that takes them all the way back?
08:17That's their favorite soul food dish.
08:19Raise your hand.
08:20Who who has a dish?
08:22Let me see.
08:23In the green.
08:25Tell me what it is.
08:28Red beans and rice on Monday.
08:30That's amazing.
08:31I need that.
08:31What's today?
08:32I need it today.
08:33It's Friday.
08:34Am I coming to your house?
08:35It's Saturday.
08:38The woman in the hat back there.
08:47One more time.
08:52Curry gold.
08:53Booyaka, booyaka.
08:54Yes.
08:56Yes.
08:57I had some curry gold in Jamaica.
09:00Nice.
09:00You want to ask anybody else?
09:02One more.
09:02Anybody else?
09:04That's that meal that you hold dear in your heart.
09:08Let's go on this side.
09:08The one woman in the yellow.
09:09The one woman in the yellow.
09:17Oh, we smothered chicken, collard greens, and sweet potato.
09:21Y'all know about that.
09:22Y'all know about that, don't you?
09:23Okay.
09:23Let me get a round of applause for yourselves for searching for soul food, y'all.
09:29Nice.
09:29I love that.
09:30And, you know, Tracy, you've been a part of quite a few compelling stories over the years,
09:35such as Attica, 30 for 30, the Michael Vick story, and the black experience in business.
09:40By the way, can we give it up for those receipts?
09:42Because this is an Oscar-nominated woman that you're talking about right here.
09:46Show her some love.
09:47Show her some love.
09:49So you're a brilliant storyteller and a true gem in this industry.
09:52So let's talk about your work with searching for soul food.
09:54As a showrunner, what steps did you take to ensure that each location's unique perspective
09:59about food was told in a pure and authentic way?
10:03Yeah, I think in some ways it was easy because, so one thing I want to clarify, because I've
10:08seen some Twitter comments, is that our show is not about redefining, changing in any way,
10:15taking away what soul food is to black people, right?
10:18In America.
10:19We're in this moment now where it's real cute to, like, take black things and make them
10:23into something else.
10:23Like, I rue the day that white people ever learn the word woke, right?
10:27That is not what our show is about.
10:29Talk about it.
10:29What our show does is it centers blackness, and it centers the black soul food story through
10:35this woman, this particular black woman-specific experience as a black woman who's from L.A.,
10:41who's an executive chef, who's classically trained, but who also has her roots in the
10:46South, which is why we started the first episode in Mississippi, right?
10:49And so what happens is when you center a black story in that way and then look at the world
10:55through that lens, all of a sudden all of these other things start to pop out, right?
11:00And so I think part of what is so great about having this woman and a black woman as a host
11:04is that we've seen food and travel series that, like, let's be honest, have been mostly
11:08hosted by white men for a long time, right?
11:10Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:11And, like, no shade to Tony Bourdain.
11:12I love him.
11:13Love you, allies.
11:14Right?
11:15But when white men host these shows, because whiteness is seen as a default category, they're
11:20not explicit about the experience they're bringing to their travels, right?
11:25About the privilege and what it is to move through the world as a white man and how that
11:29influences where they want to go and what they want to see.
11:32And what we're doing with our show is we're making the implicit explicit by saying this is
11:37a black woman.
11:38She has a particular story, she has a particular point of view, and it influences the way that
11:43she sees the world.
11:44And so what happens is that when you do that, you look around the world and suddenly you
11:48see that there are a lot of cultures that have a story of struggle, of survival, of endurance
11:54and creating something beautiful out of all of that ugly.
11:57So in some ways, once you understand that black point of view is how we're seeing it, it was
12:02very easy to kind of look around the world and around the country and find all of these
12:05other stories that have soul stories of their own and their food.
12:09Nice.
12:10I love that.
12:10Also, let me add on to that.
12:12Know where it came from, where it got its name from is us.
12:17So we started with that because we wanted to be exclusively clear that soul food came from
12:25America.
12:26We created the name here and then we expanded that.
12:29And I think it's about elevation.
12:31And sometimes as black people, we don't have to beat our chest all the time.
12:34We can pat ourselves on the back.
12:35Amen.
12:36Amen.
12:37Is it Saturday or is it Sunday?
12:38Because I feel like they're preaching to my soul and, you know, I just got to let you
12:42know that.
12:43So, chef, we have seen many, as she noted, we have seen many traveling chefs on television
12:47before, but very rarely are they chefs of color and especially they're not women of color.
12:53So how did bringing your full authentic self to searching for soul food help you to connect with
12:57each of the communities that you visited?
12:59I think me being just me, again, I am a regular, normal person.
13:06I have a business.
13:07I have the struggles.
13:08I have the stress.
13:09I did not create this show to be a celebrity.
13:11I created this show to inspire us, to discover, to show us the world through food, but also through
13:20our eyes.
13:20There's been so many shows, food shows, international shows that they've never put us in that place.
13:26And so me being in that place, I now can show the stories through food, but I also can inspire
13:35us as people here in America to travel, to discover, to ask questions, to learn something.
13:43And it's all on our plates.
13:44And we are, we're amazing.
13:47And, you know, think about it.
13:48Our original recipes were not written down because we weren't allowed to read, let alone
13:54write, when these recipes were originally invented.
13:57So that shows you our resilience.
13:59That shows you our compassion.
14:01And I just wanted to show that on the screen because all the time we have this narrative
14:06of negative.
14:07But it's about time that we start showing positive, how positive we are.
14:13We are people that love.
14:16It's in all of our DNAs.
14:18And we can't help that.
14:19And so our love language is food.
14:21And I wanted to show our love language.
14:23Yes.
14:23It's love in the food for sure.
14:24I love that.
14:25And speaking on that, in many ways, the recipes are stories that are an example of how history
14:30lives on through cooking.
14:31So, and, you know, culturally, what is at stake if these type of stories and these recipes
14:36aren't amplified on platforms like Hulu in the way that you guys are getting to do with
14:41searching for soul food?
14:41I mean, listen, like, not to get too serious with it, but we're in a moment in our country
14:46where there is an active effort to erase us and our stories from the story of what this
14:52country is, right?
14:53Like, there are people who are running for president on the promise that they will erase
14:58us.
14:58We just saw what happened in the Supreme Court in the last week.
15:01They're trying to turn history back all the way back to the beginning, right?
15:05And so not to, like, get too deep about a food and travel show, but it really is about,
15:10like I said, centering our stories at the center of what the story of this country is,
15:15right?
15:16And so now there is a show that you can go to and no election, no Supreme Court, no elected
15:22official is going to take that away.
15:24It is there.
15:24It is on Hulu.
15:25Like, God willing, it will be streaming forever.
15:27And there will be more seasons to come.
15:30And so the more that we can find places to really, like, establish that as an act of
15:34resistance to the people that are trying to erase it, I feel like the stakes are very,
15:39very high.
15:39And it very much matters that we have shows like this and more of them.
15:43There are Tracy go preaching again, y'all.
15:45Go ahead and clap for it.
15:46But that's what it's about.
15:49There's so many beautiful stories from food to discovery to inventions that we don't know.
15:54And it's not only that we don't know it, they don't know it.
15:58It's not that they're erasing it from only black people, they're erasing it from everybody
16:01in the country.
16:02We need to tell more stories of our beauty and not live in the narrative of the beating
16:10of the chest.
16:10Pat yourself on the back.
16:11We created the stoplight and the refrigerator.
16:13Let's go.
16:15Tell them.
16:16Tell them.
16:16I love it.
16:17You're giving food.
16:19You're giving our history their flowers.
16:21And in the words of Boyz II Men, talking with you two has been food to my soul.
16:26No, that was the best.
16:27I tried.
16:27I tried.
16:28For all, I just wanted to give you your flowers now, for all that you've poured into
16:32us on this stage today alone, and for all that you have given to countless others through
16:37the TV screening, on behalf of Onyx Collective and Hulu, we would love to give you your flowers
16:42and say thank you.
16:43So, I'm giving you your flowers.
16:46So sweet.
16:47Here you go.
16:48Thank you so much.
16:50Thank you so much.
16:55Show some love to them, please.
16:58Please accept these flower bouquets as a token of appreciation for your dedication and creative
17:04commitment to telling our stories our way.
17:07So, everybody clap for them one more time.
17:09Thank you so much.
17:10Thank you so much.
17:11And you know what?
17:12With these flowers, I want to pay it forward.
17:15And I want to give somebody in the audience, I'm giving you a gift certificate, I believe
17:21it is, to one of my favorite restaurants in NOLA.
17:25I don't know what it is, because I'm not going to tell you it's going to be under your seat.
17:28So, everybody look under the seat to see what you got, if there's a number under there.
17:32Behind your seat.
17:33Look behind your seat.
17:34Behind it.
17:34Can you see the numbers on the back of your seat?
17:43Big 141.
17:44Who got 141?
17:46You going to dinner tonight?
17:48141?
17:48I hope it's not an empty seat.
17:54I hope it ain't empty.
17:57Is someone say, look on the back of somebody else's seat.
17:59Clap for her, 141.
18:01She going to dinner tonight.
18:03Where's she going, Chef?
18:04You are going to one of NOLA's amazing restaurants, and I'm not going to tell you.
18:09It's a surprise.
18:09Congratulations, congratulations.
18:15Well, ladies, you know, we thank you both for this incredible conversation, and we're
18:20really excited about Searching for Soul Food.
18:21If you guys didn't know about it, make sure to stream all episodes of Searching for Soul
18:25Food on Hulu.
18:26Please give it up for Ms. Tracy A. Curry, and our lovely, lovely, lovely chef, Elisa Reynolds.
18:33Clap it up for them.
18:35Thank you, everyone.
18:36Thank you, guys.
18:37Thank you so much.
18:38Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Comments