As we prepare to wind down this year, we are grateful for a year that shaped the purpose of our work.
We hit three milestones this year: Four years of formalizing our work under our nonprofit to increase our impact of storytelling, education and advocacy, 15 years of pioneering Black food stories under Cuisine Noir, which inspired the formation of The Global Food and Drink Initiative and two years of expanding our stories through our podcast, Diaspora Food Stories.
“I am extremely proud of our team, which is so passionate about telling stories representing Black food culture and history from within the African diaspora, ” says V. Sheree Williams, executive director. She continues, “Through Cuisine Noir and Diaspora Food Stories, we have been able to capture the voices of so many amazing people around the world in a way that no other media outlet has and this shows our creativity and commitment to this work.”
This past June, the James Beard Foundation recognized The Global Food and Drink’s work during its annual awards season as an Emerging Voice in Journalism. “To be a fairly young nonprofit, such a prestigious award let me know that they share the sentiment that our stories are important and very much a part of American history,” says Williams. “I am still in awe over it and just proud of the hard work that has gone into this part of the journey.”
What’s Next – Looking Ahead
“From the outside, many may only see that we just publish a media outlet and have a podcast, but this work is much deeper than these things,” shares Williams. “This work is about telling stories that shape how the world engages in food through a Black culture lens and making sure these stories can no longer be erased and have a safe place going forward in history. I am excited about what we are working on, which will begin to be revealed in 2025.”
Education courses will be at the core of the work to be done in 2025. Williams notes that just as there is a gap in teaching Black history in schools, there also exists a gap in teaching Black culinary history in culinary schools. “We’ve always built the table we wanted to be around and will continue to do this when fulfilling our impact pillar of education.”
Williams expanded Cuisine Noir this year with three new editorial sections: Cooking, Culture and Climate + Food. These have been well-received by readers and will continue to be a focus in 2025. She says they will give the recipes section a makeover and focus on adding new ones. In addition, The Culture section will continue to talk about fun topics embraced within Black communities that have existed for generations. Cuisine Noir’s coverage of fried fish and spaghetti and the use of bacon grease truly resonated with readers, and Williams says more of this is planned, especially for other Black cultures throughout the diaspora.
Look forward to more work that will bring the issues of climate change to the forefront and its impact on Black communities worldwide. “I am especially excited for us to be more active in this space as a media outlet and advocate,” says Williams. “We want to continue lifting Black voices and stories because, once again, they are overlooked and underheard and we aim to change that.”
Lastly, the organization is working on various special projects with partners in the U.S. and Africa that will be shared in 2025 as well.
“Behind the scenes, we are working very hard, and so many things take time and money to make happen. But we are committed and I know that our readers are going to be excited, and donors will be thrilled to see their dollars at work in having an impact on the world.”