Jamila Robinson, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s food editor and chair of the James Beard Foundation’s Journalism Awards committee, shares her thoughts about ‘building a longer table’ and what steps we can all take for more equity in food, media, restaurants and beyond. Drawing on her personal and professional experience, she offers a passionate and practical blueprint for change – read the full keynote address she shared during the 50 Best Recovery Summit
I always like to think about what we're eating right now, especially in this moment of a global pandemic. Before, media organisations were thinking about where to eat and the best restaurants. That then trickled down into communities: ‘the 11 best restaurants in your neighbourhood’, ‘five Chinese restaurants you can't miss’, ‘the best restaurants of the year’… We were focused on where to eat, because that's how media organisations gained audiences and that's how people spent their time.
But during that time, we also relied on institutional voices that left out many women and people of colour. Much of the restaurant industry has been cloaked in anonymity, secrecy, in some cases, abuse, and a lot of whisper networks. We upheld many unfair labour practices – we know that tipping in the US has been problematic since the Civil War.
The pandemic has meant that we've had to re-examine all these things, from our institutional voices to how we communicate with communities and how we think about chefs, their positions and their teams. Around 80% of independent restaurants in the US reported that they may not survive the pandemic, so we have to consider change. The systems that we've had in place need examination and sometimes need to be thrown out the window, and we have to consider how to build new relationships. As we consider these moments of social justice and becoming a more equitable society, I feel very optimistic, because we must remember that food is our cultural currency.
Now is the time to think about our impact and the cultural impact of restaurants. This is an entry point for building stronger connections. Food touches the economy, labour and social justice. Restaurants impact politics and immigration. They’re where we think about gentrification and racism, and also about entertainment, travel and sports – they touch every sector of our society. I like to say that food is the art form we all participate in. That means it's a building block and it means we can build equity into these systems.
We can start to think about books and how works like In Bibi's Kitchen by Hawa Hassan is about talking to grandmothers from Eastern African countries, or how Falastin talks about Palestinian restaurants. We can start to think about audio and the podcasts that have been coming online – Black Food Folks, The FeedFeed and Gravy by the Southern Foodways Alliance are bringing more people into the conversation. We've seen how television and streaming services from Bon Appétit to Netflix have brought more people into restaurants.
So, how do we get there? There are a few things I'd like for you to consider. The first is to reset your defaults, reconsider what you perceive as normal. If you’re a chef, think about who the people are who are coming to your restaurant. Who is your customer, what does that person look like? Do they share the same race, culture, religion, neighbourhood as you?
If you’re consumer or a journalist, think about the flavour profiles and trends that restaurants bring. Are those trends coming from European or Asian countries? Are we also thinking about the foods that are being eaten in Brazil, Paraguay or Argentina? What trends are those people thinking about? We also want to consider the imagery in everything that we do, from social media to our menus, our advertising and those RFPs when you're going to investors with your PowerPoint. Are all the hands the same?
Think about all the things that are cloaked in anonymity and how you can democratise information, how you can create a culture of transparency and openness – that's everything from salary to benefits. In the US, black women earn only about 60 cents on the dollar in comparison with white men. So when people ask me ‘what are some ways I can be a better ally?’, I say: tell me how much money you make in real, hard numbers.
Serving up a slice of equity
Consider cookbook advances. Some people may only make a few hundred dollars on a book proposal, while others are making millions. By sharing that information, we can become a more equitable society and we can start to break down some of the disparity in pay.
That also means re-examining investments and partnerships. Think about how women and people of colour do not have access to the same capital. If you're an investor, try to think about how to bring in new restaurants. Look around the room, see who's not there and examine those silences and those absent folks. How can you bring more people in and invest in communities? As we're thinking about how to build up neighbourhoods and communities, maybe those investments can also go to chefs and women of colour.
Think about being uncomfortable. We've seen a lot of this in food media and there may be some things that people just don't necessarily agree with or don't understand. That feeling of discomfort is normal. Even when we just think about what recovery is, consider the idea of having to work through some discomfort so that you can build the capacity to be stronger. Change makes people uncomfortable because it makes them temporarily incompetent. Think about how can you get better; how can you practice?
Robinson's keynote address was streamed as part of the 'New Horizons' session of the 50 Best Recovery Summit. Watch the full event:
If you make a cake the first time and it falls, my grandmother used to say: ‘just make it again until it's right’. We have to build up that capacity and practice equity. We have to practice asking ‘are we treating people fairly?’ Are we thinking about communities of colour? Are we including more women? That is something that we have to engage in constantly and it takes practice.
We can also build up that capacity by creating new relationships. We are a community, from food media to the restaurant industry – we are intertwined in our space. My challenge to my reporters, and almost anybody that I work with, is to think about how we can tell stories about people who aren't in the communities we live in. That means getting out there and creating opportunities for people outside that community. It means reconsidering everything in your supply chain, the bakers you work with, the winemakers and the farmers. Are you buying from community gardens that may be in your neighbourhood? What about a women-led butcher’s? Have you thought about how the supply chain can be a way to keep people out?
We also have to audit those relationships. If you are going to host an event for your restaurant, there may be marketers or event planners involved. So find out if these people are treating their workers and their staff fairly. Do they have a diverse staff? It's not enough to just say ‘oh, I'm working with women’. You also have to ask ‘are those women all white?’ As our demographics change, we have to make sure that we are creating opportunities for people outside of our communities, and we have to be sure that our relationships uphold our values.
Taking responsibility for a better world
How do we do this? We can define new structures, seize this opportunity to be bold and ask for more. At The Philadelphia Inquirer, we have this North Star to dismantle systemic racism in our culture and our coverage. That's a very, very big idea. But we also think about how we break that into smaller pieces and create new structures. This year, for our guide, we are not doing the 25 best restaurants – we are looking at the people who bring the food to us. That is a new structure for less than change. It's also going to bring in more women and take us into neighbourhoods that may have never been in a Philadelphia Inquirer dining guide.
These changes also come from planning. When we think about people who've been enrolled for a long time, there has been a lot of talk in food media about those who just need to step aside. I prefer to think about succession planning. How do we make room for emergent talent? Can we create access and development plans so that all of us, no matter what position we are we're in, can start to create entry points for other people?
Consider a busser who may be a great restaurateur, or in intern with the potential to become a food leader – how can I create opportunities for them? Can I build a development plan so that person can succeed, and I can move onto other things I want to do and be a stronger member of society? We can ‘pass the spatula’, as the kids at the Food and Finance High School in New York say. These are kids who all could be potential stars and should be on Netflix and TikTok. We have to create opportunities so they can grow to be restaurateurs.
Succession planning is not necessarily stepping aside. It's asking for more. I do wonder whether people need to be a food critic in the same city for 30 years. But we have to change that conversation and start to think about how we can make sure that other people have the opportunity to raise their critical voices and talk about restaurants as they change, as demographics change, as flavours and trends change.
Sometimes, we need to give opportunities for people to think about those changes. This year, the James Beard Foundation’s Journalism Committee wanted to honour publications that were doing outstanding work, but we found that we were constantly going back to the legacy institutions – The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio. We thought they had the best presentation, the best editing and the best clarity. But we also knew that they had the best resources, and there were other publications that were doing extraordinary digital work. We needed a way to honour them.
So we changed the model. We decided to create the Emerging Voice Award to honour publications like L.A. Taco, which was born from an idea of tacos being a universal truth, but also told stories about communities. This publication was doing some very interesting work, building strategies to bring young people in and training them to be writers and to tell stories. They found that when people talked about tacos, they also started talking about gentrification, voter suppression and immigration.
Javier Cabral, L.A. Taco’s editor, found a way to train writers so that they could tell stories about their communities. That's what the James Beard Foundation’s Journalism Committee wanted to see. So instead of asking ‘is this the best publication?’, we decided to ask, ‘is this the award we need to give?’. We changed the criteria and created the Emerging Voice Award with the idea of making a lasting change so that we can start to see what we want in society.
We want publications not only to think about how they cover restaurants and the industry, but also how they cover the community, the impact and the beauty that restaurants have on society, and how they are a lens for all these broader issues. That's a change, and it is going to help cultivate not only how restaurants function in LA, but also the stories we tell about them. That is something that the restaurant industry can really consider, changing the criteria, re-examining those relationships, and thinking about how you can be stronger in your community.
We can build a longer table. There's this cliché that we always like to say: ‘food brings us together’. But we also know that food – through food insecurity, poverty, the environment – also keeps a lot of people apart. As journalists, as restaurateurs, as chefs, and across our industry, we can find ways to build stronger ties with all those communities and build a more equitable system.
Restaurants are pillars of the economy. If we are telling great stories about restaurants, we are telling great stories about communities. And as we look for recovery from the pandemic, I'm looking forward to building a stronger system where we leave behind a lot of the things that weren't working for us, take the best parts of the restaurant industry, and share that with the rest of the world with great storytelling.
‘50/50 is the new 50’ is a content series created by 50 Best and supported by S.Pellegrino with the shared aim of promoting equality, inclusivity and balance in the hospitality sector and beyond.
The 50 Best Recovery Summit featured nine inspiring sessions in a variety of compelling formats, now all available to watch on demand, for free, anywhere around the world. Follow 50 Best on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to catch up on anything you missed.
