Bryant Terry (Eco Chef) "Redefining Soul Food: Politics and Pleasures of Food and Eating in the Black Communities"

Bryant Terry is an eco chef, food justice activist, and author of Vegan Soul Kitchen (VSK): Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine. For the past nine years he has worked to build a more just and sustainable food system and has used cooking as a tool to illuminate the intersections between poverty, structural racism, gender, and food insecurity. His interest in cooking, farming, and community health can be traced back to his childhood in Memphis, Tennessee, where his grandparents inspired him to grow, prepare, and appreciate good food. Terry is currently a fellow of the Food and Society Policy Fellows Program, a national project of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. He has garnered many honors and awards for his work including receiving the inaugural Natural Gourmet Institute Award for Excellence in Health-Supportive Food Education. Terry's first book (coauthored with Anna Lappé, foreword by Eric Schlosser), Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, is a winner of a 2007 Nautilus Award for Social Change. Since the publication of Grub, Bryant has traveled to dozens of cities, doing cooking demonstrations and speaking at public events as well as at universities and colleges. Terry also contributes essays and recipes to a number of online and print outlets, and his work has been featured in Gourmet, Food and Wine,The New York Times Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, and many other publications.Terry has a regular column—”Eco-Soul Kitchen”—on TheRoot.com and he has made dozens of national radio and television appearances (Fox, NBC, PBS, BET, and Sundance) and was a host on The Endless Feast, a 13-episode public television series that explores the connection between the earth and the food on our plates. In 2002, Bryant founded b-healthy! (Build Healthy Eating and Lifestyles to Help Youth), a multi-year initiative designed to empower youth to be active in creating a more just and sustainable food system. Bryant Terry's new book, "Vegan Soul Kitchen," will be available for purchase at the event. Co-sponsors: Program in African & African American Studies, the Program in Human Biology, Modern Thought & Literature, Black Graduate Students Association, and Feminist Studies.