Chefs Of Color At Kohler Food & Wine Highlight The Potential Of Food To Unite

“Look at the news and you see how divided our world is,” celebrity chef Roger Mooking tells me following his cooking demo at this year’s Kohler Food & Wine festival in Kohler, Wisconsin. The Trinidadian-Canadian chef says people have encouraged him to get into politics recently, but he believes he is more effective in changing minds through his cooking. “I want to deliver the genuine love I have for connecting people through this amazing vessel we have—food, which is primal.”

This primal connection to food was evident in Mooking’s cooking demo at Kohler Food & Wine, in which the audience devoured chili oil dumplings inspired by his Chinese-Trinidadian roots. Given the traditionally “Eurocentric” nature of food and wine festivals, Mooking hoped his demo would highlight that every culture has mastery of their culinary craft. “[Food festivals] still very much revere French cuisine, but French cuisine is not the epitome of cuisine,” says Mooking. “If you look at Chinese knife cuts, there are about a 100 to the dozen or so in French cuisine.”

Despite this, food festivals have historically failed to showcase the world’s vast array of culinary craftsmanship, with the typical lineup of talent being mostly white. The tide appears to be turning. This year’s Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, for example, saw chefs Marcus Samuelsson, Kristen Kish, Kwame Onwuachi and Carla Hall take the stage. In response to criticism that its programming is too White, Charleston Wine and Food Festival has begun showcasing the Black chefs responsible for much of the Southern cuisine that the city is known for.

While Martha Stewart was the headliner of this year’s Kohler Food & Wine, the rest of the talent was diverse with celebrity chefs of color including Eddie Jackson, Eric Kim Haugen and Derrell Smith. By sharing family recipes and showcasing the ingredients and techniques of their cultures, chefs of color at Kohler Food & Wine demonstrated the potential of these festivals to bridge racial divides and forge connections through food.

Compared to a restaurant where the diner is in-and-out, culinary festivals—due to the high ticket price and time commitment—in theory, attract an audience invested in learning. “People flew from Toronto, California, Mexico to come to this, it is an investment—emotionally, financially, culturally,” says Mooking. “By the time they’re here, they’re halfway through the door; they’re receptive. It’s a great opportunity if they’re not there yet, to bring them one step closer.”

The reality is paying a high ticket price doesn’t always mean there is the motivation is to learn, with guests of food and wine festivals often appearing less interested in the cooking and more in the drinking. “Sometimes it seems people are too interested in the alcohol,” says chef Daniela Soto-Innes, reflecting on past food and wine festivals she’s attended. “I like it here because it’s not a party scene, it’s not too crowded, there’s less people and it’s more concentrated.”

Chefs of color at this year’s Kohler Food & Wine took advantage of the inquisitive audience by transporting them into their family homes: by sharing childhood antidotes about food, stories of their ancestral food-ways, and cooking techniques and ingredients unique to their cultures. Former NFL athlete-turned-chef Derrell Smith surprised the audience by bringing his mom on stage to demo his chili and cornbread recipe while Roger Mooking started his dumplings demo by asking the audience to share their earliest childhood memories of food.

Later, one audience member compared Mooking wrapping wontons to wrapping tortellini. “I didn’t mind the tortellini reference, every culture has a dumpling: a pierogi is a dumpling; a wonton is a dumpling; gnocchi is a dumpling,” said Mooking later in an interview. “I love to use this recipe because it’s a really good gateway. I don’t have to euro-size the recipe—they can relate to dumplings because everyone has a dumpling.”

Mexican chef Daniela Soto-Innes similarly chose mutual reference points the audience would understand, like substituting Mexican queso for Wisconsin sharp cheddar in her pumpkin tamale recipe and recommending cooks assess their corn like they would assess their steak (rare, medium, well-done, etc.). “You can’t just say this is my culture, and you need to listen and I want you to make it,” said Soto-Innes in an interview following her cooking demo. “You have to find a connection between you and the person you’re speaking to.”

By making her recipes relatable, Soto-Innes hoped to get people interested in incorporating Mexican recipes into their diet. Her approach appeared to work as audience members asked thoughtful questions and many took notes, much to Soto-Innes’ delight, “a group of twenty ladies were like ‘where can I find the recipe this is so good!’”

The interest from the audience in incorporating new ingredients into their pantry at home was also expressed in reaction to Mooking’s dumplings. One attendee shouted out mid-demo, “what happens if I can’t get wonton wraps!?” Roger Mooking responded with a smile, “You can find wonton wraps, just go find a Chinese grocery store—there are lots of Chinese people in America.” A few minutes later, Mooking went up to the man and spoon-fed him the steaming hot wontons. “It showed me he’s never looked for them,” said Mooking reflecting on the interaction in a later interview. “After tasting them, now he’s going to be like, ‘I can make this?’ I’m going to find a Chinese grocery store and buy wonton wraps.” This moment of connection and cultural curiosity is exactly what Mooking was hoping for.

While culinary festivals—and the food industry at large—still have a long way to go when it comes to improving representation, this year’s Kohler Food & Wine demonstrated how showcasing chefs of color can be transformative in forging new, or deepening existing, cultural understandings. “You saw what happened today,” said Mooking, referring to the way his dumplings made the audience interested in Chinese cooking. “If I can just inch someone’s toe that much closer to the bridge through this vessel—ultimately food is a tool to connect people.”

Some interview responses have been edited for length and clarity.