Wednesday, February 29, 2012
☞ READ: The New American Chefs
CNN has posted a story on how African American chefs are making headline these days with Marcus Samuelsson and Roblé Ali leading the way in popular media. The two chefs discuss how they have created their brands on their abilities and shy away from ethnic stereotypes. Chef Samuelsson mentions he never discusses race in Harlem but does identify himself as a black man while Ali (who has had a recent Bravo reality show) was a bit perturbed when a blogger called him a hip-hop chef. Read more about how these two chefs approach the challenges of being known for their talents and also representing a new point of view to the American culinary scene: LINK
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I read the article. While I agree that there is always the fear of being pidgeon holed into a certain segment when you are of color, what's at the heart of this article is the idea of the "celebrity chef" more so than the art of being a chef. There are tons of chefs (black, white, puerto rican, dominican, asian, etc) whose names we will never utter sheerly because they are not celebrities. That's just the product of media exposure and social media buzz sprinkled with a lot of luck. Now if you're talking about being a good chef in your own right, what you want in the approval and support of your immediate neighborhood. That is the barometer of excellence in my opinion.
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