Thelma Golden: Hello! It is so fantastic to be here with the TED community, and here with you, Marcus, here in Chelsea, at Hav and Mar, to talk about Food for Good. So I'm so excited for this conversation because there's never a moment where your story and the way in which you think about food isn't inspiring. So let's start with your story. How did you get here today?
Marcus Samuelsson: Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm extremely excited to be part of this dialogue, and also to be with you, Thelma, dear, dear friend of mine, but also somebody that I admire in all things culture and sometimes food. I value your opinion on food. Yes.
TG: I appreciate that. It's not my expertise, though.
MS: No.
TG: It’s your space.
MS: Yeah. You know, I was born in Ethiopia, and I realized I always start with that. But like all our journeys, it's not linear. I was adopted, and my mother and I, and my sister, we had tuberculosis. And she took us from this tiny village to the capital, but not only to the capital, to the hospital, where she passed away, but we survived. So that walk of 75 miles with two kids ...
TG: Little kids.
MS: Little kids. I always ask myself, what did we eat? And my sister and I, we talked about this constantly. She never thought about what we ate. I say that because I think our journeys as people, even before we start thinking about it, can have impact on food.
So I realized that, after asking a lot, it must have been this chickpea flour called shiro, which is really a porridge. So my journey on food starts somewhere there, on that walk from Abrugandana to Addis.
I think we had dried nuts, chickpeas, dried injera, all things that are great when you travel and you can kind of just bring with you. We would consider them snacks today, but this is something that you eat throughout the continent as -- it could be your daily meal.
Once I got to Sweden, you know, and I went -- just an eight-hour ride. I went from being Kassahun Tsegie, which is my birth name, to Marcus Samuelsson. I traded injera, shiro and berbere for herring, salmon and mackerel. I still don't know which one I like the most.
But the big influence for me on food was my grandmother. And my mom was a decent cook, but my grandmother was an amazing cook.
TG: Grandmother Helga.
MS: Helga. Absolutely. And it wasn't just what we ate, but it was how she perceived the seasonality and how a food existed in her space. So there was always a foraging season of something. There was always a pickling and preserving time.
TG: What did she preserve and pickle?
MS: Mushrooms. Herring. Berries. Apple jam. The plum was always -- The plum jam was always by the plum that had fallen down. “You’re a fool. You got to know this.” That's what she told us. You can't give away the plums that have already fallen down. They were for us for plum jam. Something you had to know. But the plums in the tree that were really nice you can give to the neighbor over here, for example. There were rules with what food we gave away, what we kept.
So anyway, food existed at early days, never around luxury, but more around, this is what we do. I don't remember buying a lot of food with my grandmother. Of course she went to the store, but not with us. Most of the time it was food that we made, the craftsmanship around food.
TG: And it seems like in the home of your grandparents, there was also a deep respect for nature. Right? Like they were living deeply attached to the land. Can you talk about that in terms of the way you continue to think about space and land?
MS: You know, the funny thing with my grandparents, Sweden wasn't directly involved in the Second World War, but it impacted it. And they grew up very poor. So all the things that we put on our social media today, "I'm going foraging upstate," or "I'm pickling and I'm doing this." Those were necessities.
She didn't cure her salmon because she thought it was a better taste. She did it because she had to. She didn't smoke her mackerel because it was the new way to get a taste. It was a necessity to keep it three, four, five days longer. That cod soup on the third day, you know what I mean? That was to stretch the meal. So nature became the free kind of whole food, if you want. And if you didn't use it, you weren't smart. So just understanding food from that level was not around restaurants. It was always around just food as something that was part of what you did.
You know, then ... Again, being adopted, when you think about identity and food, early on, all the food that we had was Swedish food. Coastal Swedish food, because that's where we grew up. Eventually, as I started to have weekend jobs in restaurants, it was kind of French Swedish food.
But my identity around where I was from and where does Ethiopian food fit into this was kind of lost on me. And I always, when I share identity in conversations around other creatives, chefs of color, artists of colors, creators of colors, the identity around their own identity and the work, it's almost always a search where you kind of go in and out of ideas that are traditional, and how do you go back to your food. Where do you see yourself in food?
And I never saw or had the conversation around Black food or the identity around it. So for me, I went to art. You know, my biggest, sort of, idols at the time were Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat. I was like, how can this young artist live and exist in the world of art and link street and gallery? And that for me, if he could do it, maybe one day I could do it in food.
TG: Right. As a chef. So thinking about food memories, I know you have some spice here. Can you talk about, you know, what it means to think about food as a way that you understand your journey, your identity?
MS: Mhm. Well, I think when you think about Black food, particularly with the continent in mind, it's almost three chapters.
The first chapter is the origin where most of our food came from. We were early on the continent of, you know, trading food, traveling with food. A lot of the grains, like I have here -- I have teff, one of the oldest grains in the world, or fonio, for example -- old, old grains. You think about things like shiro, turmeric, za'atar or berbere, throughout the region of Africa and northern Africa, East Africa. Food in terms of -- it was currency. Spices were currency. These incredible markets of Marrakech or Cairo, these were trading places. And so much of the identity and so much of the food came from the continent.
Then, when colonization happened, all the great food that comes from the continent, we now have to start thinking about through a European lens. And this still sticks with us, right? When we think about a great coffee, we hear it through a French roast or Italian roast versus its origin of Ethiopia, for example. When we think about a great Belgian chocolate, you know, we don't think about it that the cocoa bean is from Ghana. It's not until the last five-ten years where we're kind of reshaping that, but obviously through all things food today -- it's such a major machine, it's such a major economy. So over the last 100 years, we’ve been taught that the great chocolate comes from Belgium and the great so-and-so comes from France.
Getting that identity back, this is what I think present and future work is about. If we think about good food, it has to be linked to its origin, identity and how do we rephrase this and reshape this, that the origin of the place actually gets acknowledged. And we're going to come back to that.
The other part that obviously Black food from the continent has gone through was -- You know, when I was growing up, the way people talked about food from Africa was very often through famines. So this identity around food was just something that we could help through aid. It's not the only way, of course, that we engage in food in Africa. So it's all of this misconception of one experience that we as creatives, as chefs today, almost have to share and keep telling the story in order so the value proposition from the receiver, wherever they are, sees this through the right lens.
But also in the continent. Why would I go into food today if there's no value proposition? But if we value cocoa beans and the value of a coffee farm, that talent stays in the continent and says, "Hey, this is as valuable as working for Microsoft."
TG: Mhm. Mhm. And it seems, you know, the name of this talk today is "Food for Good." But it seems that that narrative shift has been a part of your work as a chef from the beginning. So how did you become a chef? And maybe while we're saying that, do you want to eat?
MS: Yeah. Let's bring in some food. Yeah, absolutely.
TG: So I hope this audience -- I wish you all could smell and see all that is here. But, Marcus, let's talk about what we're having.
MS: Well, we’re going to have -- a simple dish that all hints and links back to the continent. And I think when you think about modern Black and modern food throughout the continent, it will taste and look something like this. This is a restaurant food. If you eat locally anywhere on the continent, it will be much more regional and not so much fuss around it the way we do as chefs.
But here you have a seared bass that we dip in teff flour. So again, the grain from Ethiopia. But again just a light touch. We use a fermented corn puree, which is eaten all throughout Africa. Whether you call it, you know, you think about ugali in Kenya, pap in South Africa, or almost the way we think about grits, right? So corn is such a big key to us.
I'm just going to -- have a little nice salsa that we use -- cucumber. Simple textures. In the salsa we have beautiful couscous, right?
These are all things that -- why not throw in some fresh herbs on top, and a little bit of berbere oil, just to drizzle.
But again, always thinking about, when I plate -- positive-negative space, really creating these dramatic colors. And, you know, my Ethiopian family will be like, "How come you don't put more food on the plate? What is this? What is this negative space for?" But as we evolve into modern, exciting food, this is how --
If you go to Accra today, Addis today, Lagos in a restaurant, in a modern restaurant, this is a similar dish that you could smell, eat and taste. Doesn't that look good?
TG: It's fantastic.
MS: Alright, you know what? That's yours. That's for you. That's all you.
TG: Thank you. So, Marcus, can you -- I want you to answer the question first of how you became a chef. But then I want you, as you've hinted, and as I know this dish represents, for you to talk about this idea of modern Black and what that means. But start with first how you became a chef.
MS: Well, I’ve only had two major passions in my life: cooking and playing soccer. And I was completely shocked when I didn't become a soccer star. But I took the same energy of training and working hard into the food game. Thank you, thank you.
TG: It’s delicious.
MS: It’s good, right? Yeah. A little fermented corn with some couscous. But I learned a lot of, you know, around -- Being black in Sweden, for me, the blessings of being Black in Sweden were really about clarity on my options. Clarity of being a kid that had to pursue excellence right away. It gave me clarity. When my other co-chefs signed out, I'm like, I'm not even started yet. So that clarity gave me experiences, and I got scholarships early on.
I traveled to Japan, just lived with a family. I didn't know what umami was, which you have umami in this dish, until I went to Japan. I got a scholarship to live in Switzerland for two years. Completely game-changing experience, operating food at a hotel in French and German, and being 19, 20 years old. So I was like, "Oh, I belong."
Once I knew that I could do this abroad on multiple languages, I'm like, let's go three-star Michelin. And it took me a year to get to France, to a three-star Michelin restaurant, outside Lyon, Georges Blanc, and I realized, like, this is going to be my life. But I noticed there were Japanese kids there working, there were mostly European kids, even some South Americans. But no Black. And anywhere -- from dining room to in the kitchen. Nowhere.
TG: So front of the house, in the kitchen -- no.
MS: None. So for me, it was really about -- where do I fit into this, as a young kid? And it was very clear. It told me that -- you know, one day my chef said, "What do you want to do?" I said, "I want to open a restaurant such as yours." And he just looked at me and said, "It's not possible. There will never be a restaurant owned by a Black person with those ambitions supported by a customer."
And I said, "Well, I can't lower my dream or ambition." He said, "I don't know what to tell you. You can work in a restaurant, but can never own one." And that jump-off point really became a driving force for me to leave, and eventually come to the United States and New York City, and who knew what would happen, but I just knew that I could add value. I've proven it to myself and to my family. And that's how I got to New York.
TG: Mhm. Mhm. And when you got to New York, in many ways, that seems to be also where you began thinking about the kind of food journey and the food stories, and the food narratives that you wanted to be involved with. I've always imagined deeply the way in which you represent hybridity in such a fantastic way. You think about the ways in which you have brought the many pieces of your life and your culture together in food, but also the way you've been curious, in traveling the world, to see and engage with food.
So can you talk about hybridity as a way to talk about your concept of modern Black and the way in which it’s evidenced in these plates? Tell us about --
MS: Well, when I got to New York, I was also extremely fortunate because -- I was cooking and met other Black creatives. And little did I know that these creatives would be, you know, icons in their industry 15, 20 years later or ten years later. And to have the opportunity to be inspired and break bread, and drinks with people like -- Meeting Julie Mehretu, fellow Ethiopian. Being an artist, young artist, in the mid-90s, having the opportunity to talk to you. Meeting people like Sanford Biggers. They weren't in my field, but they were on a journey and they were never linear with their work.
I remember a night with Sanford. He's like, "I just came back from Russia." I've been to Russia. "I went to Japan." Well, I worked in Japan. And he did it as an artist. And his work, coming back, with these incredible trees, and it was his true Black version of himself, but through a lens that was worldly.
And wait a minute. I as another Black person that is not linear, is not -- It's my version. And meeting people that have had similar journeys, but yet very different, in different expressions, just inspired me so much. But also being around music, like being around, you know, Tribe Called Quest, for example. You know, Jarobi that was in the band, then left the band for cooking.
So being around these people that were similar in age, doing, talking about a modern Blackness that obviously had roots in Africa, but also in the migration, but also in music and art, almost combining. What would that taste like?
And coming to America where you thought, you were told all Black food was southern food, what we know as soul food, and I love southern food. But it wasn't the only story that we could tell, right?
When I went to a Haitian restaurant that I loved in Brooklyn, there was djon djon rice, there were pikliz. When I went to a Jamaican restaurant, there were these incredible foods, like ackee and jerk, not telling the story of the migration. And I loved both.
So being here in New York showed me that Blackness doesn't have to be one way. Yet through food, the way the media received it, they wanted to see us through one way, which is very often that when you don't have a majority culture, you can accept a minority culture through one lens.
TG: Mhm. Right. Tell us about this dish.
MS: Well, I think one of my favorite things to eat is beef tartare. The beef tartare of this dish has really origin in my wife's tribe Gurage, where you make a warm beef tartare. And -- this is really what you have here. It's a warm beef tartare with some fresh cheese, some pickled onions and dried injera bread again.
So we're just going to have you -- taste that with a little more berbere oil. And -- Food, modern food to me should be both tribal and modern.
TG: Why?
MS: Because that’s how we live our lives today. When you think about identity culture, you can't talk about the continent not thinking about tribes. The tribes are kind of the base. And then art, music, dance, spirituality, it comes out of that. You can be one tribe and you can have many spiritualities. But in terms of dress code, food, culture, how you celebrate weddings -- are all done through that structure.
So I'm very much inspired by the tribalism in Africa. It doesn't behold me to one is better than other. But when I ask a fellow African, where are you from? And he or she might say Nigeria or, let's say, Senegal. Second question is: what tribe? If I were to ask a European person, like, where are you from? Say, England. OK, then I would ask: what city? Maybe third, I would ask, what soccer team do you like? Which is a form of tribalism.
But when it comes to the continent, the tribe directs so much what we eat, when we eat it and how we celebrate it. So that's kind of the core here with work of this festive dish out of the Gurage. And then we bring in the -- these chips do not exist that way. So they're long. They're static.
TG: Can you talk about these chips? Because I think that's, you know, a perfect example of the kind of hybridity. So you're interest in teff that then has led to a thinking about how to use it, both in ways that honor their tradition culturally, but also make it new.
MS: It's -- One other thing you have to be as a Black creative, you have to be your own cheerleader, your own Flavor Flav. Because there's nothing out there to tell you you're heading in the right direction. When you see terms, "I just had this great Italian dish," or, you know, "The way they do their French cooking over there is amazing." We don't have those reference points coming to us through media. So you have to actually create it yourself.
And sometimes you don't know if you're in the right direction, so then you have to create this friendship and colleagues that are really helping and part of the editing process. But when I eat teff from the most sour fresh form, I always think about, what would this be like, dried. And then you start seeing teff chips coming up, like, what if I stretch this? What if this looks a little bit more like an Alvin Ailey show. Like the way the ballerinas stretch. What if I would look at the structure of a Julie Mehretu painting, where it's, like, stretched, you know? So this is kind of the duality.
When I listen to Burna Boy, or when I listen to, let's say, Fela Kuti, I -- see the linkage together. It's not so much one was done in the 80s or 70s and one is done in the 2020s. It's I hear the tonality of both, the linkage. Same thing with food. And that's why music and art is such a good guidance for me. Because art, great art, it's past, present, future. Great music, it's past, present, future.
And with food, if we don't know our past, how are we going to know if it's delicious or not? How are we going to know the reference point? We know this in French cooking and in Italian cooking, but we don't know that about the continent. And that's what we're here to unlock. And how would you know what's good food if you don't even know the past and the present?
TG: So let's talk about Food for Good. What does that mean for you, and why is that such an animating sort of idea in the work that you are doing, in your own artistry as a chef, in the restaurants that you’ve created, in the world, and the ways that I know you're interacting in thoughts around the future of food and the ways in which we understand them.
MS: Well there's several. The first is I want young Africans to feel like this is a field you can go into. This is a field that has value. This is not just a labor of anonymous laborers where there's no value proposition on the other end. So if you're a young cook in Uganda, Ethiopia, Nigeria, this is a field that -- we got you. And there's an arch. And here's what these traits looked like.
But on the other hand, too, is what can we from the West learn from the continent, eating based on a spiritual compass, knowing how sometimes to fast, holding off certain animal protein. Thinking about how to break fast. How do we celebrate that? These are all things that we need.
I mean, we have the crisis here in terms of, you think about eating too much red meat, we're thinking about, you know, green and the environment. So we are all collectively in need for eating better and having better systems within food. That is all linkage. Both for the environment, but also for our own body and health.
So much of the world's superfood is in Africa. We talked about fonio and teff, but there are many: amaranth, moringa and so on. So with everything else, with technology or with other modernity, we go into depth of finding the origin, honoring the origin, and then that forms us to move forward.
In food, we have taken food from Africa without actually paying enough respect and tribute back. And why should anyone value their land and properties when there's no value proposition on growing these things? Even in the most high-tech food we can think about today, let's just think about something like a Beyond Burger or Impossible Burger. Well, a lot of those modern patties are based with chickpeas.
Well, Africa got some of the largest, it's one of the best places in the world with chickpeas. So if you're a chickpea farmer today in Africa and living off two dollars a day, to get the right value proposition off your teff, off your chickpeas, maybe you can live on 20 dollars a day. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it's game-changing for that family.
So there's a value proposition in all the different steps, but it's also something here that we can learn. We want to pay the right price. We're talking about that constantly here. We want to make sure that we honor where it comes from. And we also want to eat gooder, more delicious. And we don't know how delicious it is until we kind of go through all the options and how it got to us.
TG: Your work has been a lot about just opening people to new flavors and allowing, in your restaurants, you're constantly experimenting in bringing these flavors from Africa, from the world, you know, in these incredible collisions often. And that's where for me, it always seems the base of your artistry is. Being able to sort of think about how to put things together.
MS: Yeah.
TG: Why?
MS: Um. First of all, I think I've been extremely blessed by having, you know, my family and mentors around me. Family members, non-family members that said, "Hey, you know what? We're going to bet on you." And I met some of the most amazing people in food, like Leah Chase, that broke barriers when it comes to dining in America. Color barriers.
And when you meet someone like Leah, that own Dooky Chase in New Orleans, only been in business for 83 years and still going, it wasn't so much about the food. I mean, her restaurant is really about -- is a gathering spot. But civil rights movements, opportunities like myself being here in this country, that opens opportunities for Black chefs across the world. So if I've got an opportunity to travel and live out my dream, I have to kind of bring people into this space and open up other opportunities.
So food -- I think food can get even better if you invite more people to the party. For so many years, a chef had to come from France or cook French food. It had to be a man and sometimes, almost always angry. Well, that's a small, slim space to look at greatness. Why not open it up? I love food and I love dining, so why not open up the door and make it more inspiring for a larger scale?
You think about the World Cup or you think about big things that we want to celebrate, NBA, it's better because of the larger pie as part of it, not better because it's narrower. So I love food, I love my trade, and I know we can do better.
So when I have an opportunity to open a Red Rooster or Hav and Mar, open kitchens, closeness to the guests and who cooks it. If the customer wants to come up and talk about, you know, what they liked and didn't like, if they want to create this close relationship with the chef, watching a chef on a journey, like we have here, incredible Fariyal that, you know, origin in Ethiopia, but also lived in America for a long time. If you want to talk to her, well, she's right there.
Before, when I started, kitchen was this hole that you were never supposed to peek into. And it was anonymous label. Same thing at Red Rooster. It's an open space that -- it's a back and forth -- that you can have a dialogue. And I think that food gets better the more people lean in, not better because it's held in a certain zip code.
TG: Mhm. And so really I want to ask you about -- you have restaurants all around the world. But I know Harlem is very close to your heart. Close to our heart. And so can you talk about the inspiration that Harlem is for you?
MS: Harlem is truly everything. I think about Harlem as the Black Mecca for culture. It's the place where, if you're an author in South Africa, you want to come to Schomburg or have a dialogue with the Studio Museum to show your work. If you're a singer, you know, like Tems in Nigeria, or for the world, she's going to come to the Apollo and perform. So it becomes really through its history and generations of intellectuals, and incredible people like James Baldwin and Maya Angelou, and the list goes on and on.
And the other thing that Harlem has, institutions do matter. We have them both in people and in buildings. Just within a five-minute walk or ten-minute walk you can go from the Abyssinia to YMCA, to Schomburg, to Apollo, to the Studio Museum. But you also meet the people that work in there. So all of the people of Harlem, the institutions, informed me, really, before I got to Harlem, like, this is a great place. This is where great Black culture comes from. And now it's our job to take that to the next level, to both aspire and inspire the next generation.
And there's a Harlem everywhere: in Berlin, in Cape Town. And some places are obvious, but there's also a Harlem in Tokyo. There's also a Black identity in São Paulo, in these cultures where we think about it, or in Mexico, but sometimes also where we don't think about it because there's people of color that have creative, of course, ambitions, but they need a focal place to see, where can I show and tell? And Harlem is that place for me.
TG: Mhm. I could keep talking and keep eating, but I want to get to some of the questions that this incredible audience has offered here. I'm just going to move this over a little bit. OK. George would love to know how your philosophy differs or has similarities with the Slow Food movement.
MS: I think there's a lot of crossover and a lot of the people that I admire, like Aliya, for example, were part of the Slow Food movement when it started. And I think that we, they're all about figuring out originality and broadcasting that, an identity around food, and broadcasting that to a larger audience. Because if you think about Native American culture, if you think about native culture from Africa or native culture from South America, there's a lot of incredible cooking and pickling, and preserving, and nature-driven things that we still actually trade off from today, whether it's barbecuing, whether it's smoking, or whether it's jerk, that we still work off today, but we're not giving enough credit to the origin. Why should that be, you know --
TG: Authorship.
MS: Authorship. Who gets to tell that story, who gets to share that story. Authorship, right? We live in a time of AI where you can search for all that stuff. But if we don't talk about that and document that, it will never show up on AI, and therefore what people are going to think about as the most reliable place is not reliable.
So I think it's having these incredible, respectful, but also past, present, future-looking organizations. It's important that we do bring up origin, authorship, identity, because if you don't have value around that, why should the next generation opt in? There's so many things you can be part of. Why food? And we have to make our case and make it much more inclusive. So we get -- to become a place that strives and people feel like, I’m part of that. I want to be part. There's a place there for me.
TG: And they want to be in it in ways that are positive.
MS: Absolutely.
TG: Here is a question, one here, from Les. "I have a nine-year-old daughter, and we have an amazing variety of foods where we live in Uganda. What do you advise as a good way to build a healthy life and diet for her as she grows?" And I know you have some very deep personal experience with this.
MS: First of all, I see you Uganda, I know ugali, we just talked about it, second time we talk about ugali here. That's amazing. Which is one of the staples in Uganda and Tanzania, and Kenya as well.
I think if you can, variety of your food. So bringing in seafood when you can to that diet, bringing in a blend between animal proteins, so it's like, it's not just red meat, it’s not just meat that has been braised for a long time. So you have different types of cooking methods that goes into that. And of course, vegetables and grains. You know, having -- like a couscous salad that we -- or a cracked wheat salad that you bring in tons of vegetables into.
So I think the variety of your diet, and then maybe, you know, I think the key for me is really flexitarian, where you are vegetarian-leaning, and maybe bring in meat two days, three days tops a week.
TG: But how would you do that? Like with her nine-year-old? How do you do that with children?
MS: There's no age limit to that, you know. Trust me, Zion and I, and even Grace -- My son Zion is seven, almost eight.
TG: And your daughter?
MS: Daughter Grace, we cook all the time, and very often it starts with "no." But what Zion loves is going with me to the market and picking out ingredients. So really bringing in the children early in the process. Maybe two days before you're going to cook, on a Thursday, I say, "On Saturday we're going to go to the market, and we're going to meet Jim, our fish guy, and he sometimes throws in an extra piece of fish. Could be swordfish. Oh how exciting." So it's not on Saturday at 9 o'clock because that might be too early. It's really about building the week around that.
Or if we go upstate, you know what? The pumpkin growers are amazing. And really talking about it early. You got to make food cool to any age. Whether you're a child or someone working in an office, you got to find a way to engage, and really talk to your children about it, and not just presenting the food, cooking the food -- include them in the process.
TG: Mhm. Thank you. This is from Dana. We're sitting in Hav and Mar. And the question is, "How do you create the vibe in all of your restaurants? There's always a good vibe in a Marcus Samuelsson restaurant."
MS: Well. I would say one of the great things about Black culture and African culture is that regardless of the moment, the energy is always high. It's always lit. Whether -- you know, if you've never been to a funeral in Africa, it's hard but it's always through music. So that level of joy, that is truly in and of Black culture.
You see it in our music, see it in our culture. That's something I want to share with our audience. It's not just for -- its of Black culture, but it's for everyone. When you enter the space of Red Rooster, it's a celebration of -- Maybe you weren't welcome at other places. Maybe you had the question, will there be Black people seated at the table? Will there be a Black server? All those silent questions that we, Black professionals ask ourselves. Will this server come to my table? None of that will happen at our restaurant. You are here as a guest and we're going to celebrate you.
We start that off with high-level energy, because this might be the only time you come to one of our restaurants, we want you to have that experience. So that is baked in the cake, have to be --
TG: For all the spaces you create.
MS: All the spaces. Absolutely.
TG: How do you start the process of thinking about how you get to that?
MS: Well, I’m very slow in my process. You know, Red Rooster took eight years. Hav and Mar took four years, which was fast. But it starts very often through artists, you know, like here we have the luxury to talk to you, but also through our dear friend Derrick Adams that has made these bespoke, incredible Black mermaids work here.
And Derrick and I, we stood here, in an empty location here in New York, and we talked about water -- I knew that was an important part -- and the dual identity, Nordic and Africa, and he came back and said, it should be about Black mermaids. Once he had the mermaids, then that decided the shape. It wasn't just Derek hanging his art. Derek's identity and his thought process around the mermaid has been the leading force of creativity for us as a restaurant.
So going into space, knowing that you don't have all the answers, but working with incredible, talented people that think about it from a different lens, but with a similar goal.
TG: So real collaboration in creating that.
MS: Real collaboration, yes.
TG: Yeah. So from Fernando, "How can chefs navigate the delicate balance between culinary innovation and cultural preservation, especially in light of controversy surrounding the interpretation and adaptation of traditional dishes by foreign chefs?"
MS: I think that, first of all, an amazing question. Very hard space. I think that when you create, you have to separate home food, traditional food, and restaurant food. You have to think about restaurant as Broadway. You're putting on a show. You're coming from a place that the chef and that restaurant's identity decides where you're going to go in this play.
A restaurant is a gathering spot where you're talking about what you've been inspired by, what do you want to share. It's not a place à la a museum or a library where you're kind of trying to preserve and present. It could be, but the restaurants in the way I think about it, it's not from the authentic point of view of only originality. I want to respect where it came from, but I also want to show, we are going through this process.
That's why I talk a lot about Black modern. It's not a place where it's only backward. That's why I think music is so amazing because it allows us to see a new version, hear new versions. It's still of the continent, it's still of Black creatives. And music throughout has helped us to understand this. You know, like you think about gospel to jazz, to R&B, to funk, to hip-hop, to Afrobeat. It's all sounds that come out of Black culture, that is out of joy and out of all the moments sometimes when we go through tough times. But it guides us through and I think the same with food.
But there is evolution -- and it's almost like a five- to a ten-year peg around that. Same with food. We evolve. We can be both tribal and tech. We can be -- because I feel like as a Black, modern individual living in the world, living as close to Addis, Stockholm, Frankfurt to New York. It's not -- When we present our restaurant in Addis, on the 47th floor --
TG: Which opened when?
MS: In November of 2023. It was never about serving traditional Ethiopian food. That building by itself is such a beacon. So it's really telling Ethiopia, here's where we're going, and you are part of this journey. And the young chefs cooking in this kitchen, they are also part of that journey. Come back three years later, you're going to see them out in the world.
TG: Thank you. From Patrick, "What's your basic rule for how to combine the breadth of ingredients to end up with an interesting meal."
MS: Well, I think it's not about forcing the interesting. It's really -- one of the beauty of being a chef is that the craftsmanship, just the basic fundamental, takes a long time. And that's the beauty, because you have to do it a lot. Once you have the basic fundamental of cooking, now you can mix and match the way you understood, which is both traditional and has a level of uniqueness.
But without having that -- that's why I feel sorry for young chefs that are so fast, just want to push through it. That's not where the great craftsmanship is going to come from. It's going to come from repetition. You know, when you look at amazing artists, even amazing filmmakers, some of the best work is somewhere between 70 and 80. You know, you think about Scorsese still making incredible movies. And I look at amazing artists. It’s not because how fast you’re running when you do it, the better you get at your craft.
So for me, it's about being passionate and being fascinated at the craft at the same time. Through the blend of passion and fascination you will evolve. And if you evolve, great stuff will come. If you only want to get there fast, you can have hits and it could work for a moment. But you have to constantly fall in love with your craft. Constantly be curious about yourself and the craft, and the team that you want to kind of build around you.
And I, you know -- my father was a tribe leader in Ethiopia, watching him engaging with the tribe, not understanding the language, but understanding how, watching how he moved people, fascinating to me.
TG: Yeah. Yes. How do you -- from Kat. "How do you define your personality through your dishes?"
MS: I don't think there's separation. I mean, I'm the most fluent when you taste my food. But I never were -- maybe it's because I've been an immigrant six times. Language. I always mix them up. Sometimes it could be German. Sometimes it could be Swedish. Sometimes it could be English, of course. But if you want to know who I am, taste the food.
TG: I think also, if I might answer this, I think your dishes also give us a view into the different aspects of your journey.
MS: Yes.
TG: In different moments in the decades that I've known you. Your interest in certain ingredients, in dishes you've made really have been an indication of a moment where you've been exploring and investing, thinking about the past, but also thinking very much about the future. You know, I think now, some of these plates remind me a little bit, of maybe a hint of something that you made 20 years ago. But then I also know it's a hint of something you're going to make 20 years from now.
MS: Oh, absolutely. And that's the joy of being in a place where you can trust the craftsmanship, but also being introduced to new things and new ways.
When I go to the continent of Africa, I'm still learning how to eat in a new way. Like if you speak to anyone from Ghana or Nigeria, even more Nigeria than Ghana, I would say, swallow. Swallow is a whole way of eating that is so clear to anyone that is Nigerian. And if you don't know how to do it, people are going to laugh at you and talk to you about it at the table. I learned that maybe at 35, and I've been cooking and I was like, what if swallow would have been from France? It would have been something we've been taught in cooking schools.
So again, like, food, dining culture has so much breadth and depth. You know, we learned how to eat with chopsticks when Japanese food became popular to the world. So there's still new ways of eating, not just new ways of cooking. And I can't wait.
TG: To see some of those emerge. Yeah. Alright. We have time for a few more questions. There's so many great questions here, and I want to thank everyone for these fantastic questions. Someone asked, "I love how you mentioned that cooking is an art. What are your must-have tools as an artist chef you can't live without?" And I'm not sure if this question are meant quite literally tools, but I'm going to say any tools, not just the literal tools of cooking, but what tools can't you live without?
MS: I think they're very different for each chef. For me, it’s really about protecting your sense of flavors. So for me, I'm very sort of cautious about what I eat. Like for example, I would never smoke. Not because I think people who smoke are bad people. It's just I protect my sense of flavor.
TG: So that's a tool.
MS: No, no, it's the tool. Right? Being curious. The day I stop thinking about food in a very primal sense, the day I don't enjoy that, I should quit. So keeping that, those are tools for me that are -- you have to keep the joy in there and you have to be curious, but you also have to protect your body in a sense that you can't operate on that high level. Right? Yeah.
Iron-cast pan -- great. Great with a good spatula. When I look at the great cooks that I've been around, Leah, my grandmother -- they were never defined by the tools. When I go to Ethiopia and we run, even if we send tons of shoes, the kids never wear the shoes because they protect them for good days, not running. And I got my new Nike's, Adidas, whatever, and still they're like 30 yards ahead of me. And looking back, it's like, are you coming? It's never, for me, about the tools.
TG: It's more talent than tools.
MS: And it's also the love of the craft. So for a home cook, eat your food, eat out, and keep that love of curiosity, and stay hungry.
TG: Alright, for our last question, I know there are so many more that we all want to ask, but tell us what food, ingredients, cuisine is inspiring you now. What would you send us all to think about, look at and taste?
MS: I would say, wherever you are in the world, support your local Black restaurant. Follow a chef of color in your neighborhood or outside your neighborhood. Because through that lens you will learn new things. And it doesn't matter if you're of color or not because if you want to know about the mystic, about djon djon from Haiti, it's not going to be through that major platform that you read it. It might be through that local restaurant, and you are missing out if you have not had djon djon. If you want to know about what's happening in the underbelly of cooking, that then becomes the pop culture, follow the chefs in your community, support them.
You know, Chef Maame, there was a line cook with us for years at Red Rooster, she moved back to Ghana in order to come back and start a food conference called Black Women in Food in DC -- sold out, by the way -- today is coming back to Red Rooster to do a pop-up.
Now that 360 for me of her coming back, I mean lived in Harlem in Little West Africa, as we call it, on the 116 Street on the West Side, working at Red Rooster, taking that experience, going back, opening a restaurant where former Rooster staff had actually worked in, and then coming back to America through a conference that she created, and in order then tonight to do a pop-up, that for me is truly understanding connectivity. Watching her evolve as a great chef and as a contributor in the food space, that is really what inspires me and keeps me going. Things like that. Chefs like Maame.
TG: Yeah. Well, I think in many cases that's possible because of the inspiration you've given so many chefs to understand how they can root in culture, how they can use their ancestry, the places they are from, the places they've been as inspiration, and also bring some of the many ways in which our cultures show up into the space of restaurants. I mean, you know, so much of your work has provided that path for so many.
So what's a word of inspiration that you give to young chefs? What would you say to them?
MS: Absolutely.
TG: As a way to give them the charge. Because your inspiration, of course, was instigated by someone saying to you, you cannot do this. And here we are now, you know, after decades, where you have done this to -- you know, James Beard Awards, and a memoir, and TV shows, and restaurants around the world, and cooking for presidents and musicians, and, you know, the whole world --
MS: And art curators as well.
TG: And art curators as well. And you've done this so deeply throughout the world. What would you say to a young person now who comes and says, how do I do this?
MS: A, welcome to our community. You will always be busy. Stay curious. Learn the craft. Learn the craft. Keep cooking, keep cooking. And then -- I literally, like I mean it -- stay hungry. Write your food. Both write your food and cook your food. Even at its worst stage, it's a starting point. I've written so many, I cooked so many bad dishes before I get to the good dishes.
So for me, it's really understanding the past and learn the history, learn the craft, keep cooking and stay curious. Because if you do all that, somewhere you will learn about yourself and the joy of breaking bread, and the joy of doing bad dishes. Because if you do ten bad dishes, that 11th time, that might be a great dish.
TG: I think that's a great metaphor for any creative pursuit. The ability to stay curious, stay hungry, keep allowing oneself the opportunity for failure. Because, as you say, that 11th dish, that 11th try is then where the joy is. Marcus, thank you so much.
MS: Thank you so much.
TG: Not only for this fantastic meal, this fantastic conversation, but also for the great opportunity you've given us all to learn so much about food and culture.
MS: And I want to say thank you to Thelma Golden for being here, as always, here at Hav and Mar, but literally here for us in the TED community. And thank you to the TED audience for giving us this platform. We really appreciate it. And I'll see you here at Hav and Mar, or at Red Rooster, or anywhere where our paths may cross.
Thank you so much for having us. And stay hungry.
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