Just after the 2016 election, as the reality of the impending Trump presidency began to set in, groups of people gathered to ask themselves what happened. They wondered, and worried, about how the new administration would threaten their communities and values. And then, they mobilized. This sequence of events wasn’t limited to activists. Across industries, people asked themselves what they could do to support their communities in turbulent times — the food and hospitality industry very much included. As headline-making culinary pop-up organizer Tunde Wey puts it, “Everybody’s woke.”
“A lot of what the mainstream is now has moved toward activism,” Wey says. This includes food brands that have adopted progressive language and imagery to sell products, sometimes to disastrous effect. But the chefs and organizers of many culinary industry pop-ups aren’t performing wokeness. They’re using their hospitality skills to spotlight personal causes and issues, raise money, and simply provide space for open discussions and a sense of belonging for marginalized communities — because it feels necessary to this moment. In other words, while cooking anchors their work because it’s what they know, the food itself is often ancillary to the point. READ MORE