Not ‘a crime against our culture’: Black vegan chefs redefine Kansas City soul food
For two years in a row, Kansas City’s Black History Month Creole brunch series served up the foods you might expect: gumbo laden with pork sausage, po’boy sandwiches filled with fried shrimp.
But for the third annual event in 2022, there was not a speck of meat or seafood in sight. Every single vendor served vegan food: Creole tofu scramble. Unity hash. “Crab” cakes made from peas, beans and lentils.
And chef Taylor Carter’s very own Creole truffle mac and cheese — where the cheese is made with vegan coconut oil and potato starch.
“A lot of people have a stigma about vegan food,” says Carter, 23, founder of Happy Roots catering and meal prep service. “They think it’s bland food or just a bunch of vegetables on a plate.”
But as evidenced by the packed crowd at the event, as well as the growing number of Black vegan chefs around town, that reluctance is melting away, even among a wary Black community.
Carter is aware it will take more than an event like this to show the community that there are Black chefs who can make vegan food that tastes just as good as meatier fare, but it’s better for them. It will take people willing to venture out and be comfortable with changing traditions for the better and creating new ways for the sake of the next generation.
“We just have to show them that vegan food isn’t a crime against our culture or turning our back on it,” Carter says. “It’s tough. Sometimes, it sounds like a cult trying to convert people to the vegan path. But once you start taking the bad things out of your life, it’s only a matter of time before you make it the food you eat.”
Gigi Jones, a certified dietitian, blazed the trail in Kansas City, opening her own restaurant, Gigi’s Vegan + Wellness, and creating a line of kale chips. She credits a plant-based diet with saving her life, and she traveled to New York to study all-natural cooking to bring that food to Kansas City’s Black community. She knew it would not be easy.
“When I returned to Kansas City, it was like I couldn’t eat anywhere,” she says. “I would say I was able to eat at 5% of locations in the Black community, and that took some time. I would have to call restaurants about making food accessible for people who don’t eat meats or dairy. In our community we weren’t there yet.
“Now I would say that number is up to 70%. I am so proud to see all of the growth in the Black restaurants because healthy eating has exploded. We are making changes.”
A reluctant Black community
Their task is more difficult than one may expect.
Food is an essential facet of most people’s cultural identity, to some degree. For the Black community, it’s more complex. Through the generations, ranging back to slavery, Reconstruction and migration, food has been one of the few things in life a Black person could have some control over.
Black people didn’t have access to the choice pieces of meat or produce, so they were forced to innovate ways to make undesirable scraps into mouthwatering delicacies. Thus, the impressive testament to culinary ingenuity known as soul food was born.
Food made with love that was good for the soul became the cornerstone of many Sunday dinners in the Black community. With recipes and cooking techniques passed down from generation to generation, soul food is a link to their ancestors, an integral part of the African American experience, ingrained too deeply to divert from.
And yet Jones, who also hosts vegan workshops at a Florida wellness center, has watched the rising numbers of Black vegans around the metro and the country, so much so that she hosts the annual KC Vegan Soul Fest in October.
“The two main things I hear from members of the Black community from all over who are hesitant changing to vegan is it will be expensive or not being able to create delicious dishes for the family,” she says. “Once they get past those misconceptions, I have never had anyone say they are going back.”
A 2016 national study from the Pew Research Center found that 8% of Black Americans identified as vegan, compared with just 3% in the general population. But anecdotally, local vegan chefs say a vegan diet has been a tougher sell in Kansas City, until only recently.
Teeshia Madge, owner of Vegan Crave Burgers and Bakery in North Kansas City’s Iron District, has seen that reluctance.
“I decided to do vegan food because I really just wanted my people to eat healthier,” says Madge. “But at first there wasn’t a lot of support from our community. The majority of my customers come from outside the (Black) community.”
The local vegan community was all too ready to jump aboard for the ride. After one year of operating at her current location, Madge has cultivated an impressive following, gaining new fans from word of mouth and social media. She uses all natural ingredients, no processed foods, and every item on the menu is made from scratch.
“Thankfully people are loving it,” says Madge, who has been cooking professionally for 17 years, and owned two restaurants before opening Vegan Crave. “I have had people travel from St. Louis, Topeka, and as far out as Iowa and they all say either they saw someone post online or somebody told them they had to stop here just to try it.”
‘A lifestyle change’
For Black chefs like Madge the mission to go vegan, and urge others in the Black community to join her, is a personal one.
“The transition started when my mother got breast cancer,” Madge says. “I thought about how every member in my family who has passed from medical reasons was due to some form of cancer. So I started researching, and (for many diseases) it’s the food that we eat.“
The unfortunate reality is that members of the Black community die at higher rates from ailments that are often preventable, such as heart disease and diabetes. Though she has only been a vegan for two years, she began heading that way in 2017, first as a pescatarian, then to vegetarian and finally making the jump fully to vegan.
She felt compelled to use her gifts in the kitchen to craft gourmet burgers and sandwiches that can go head-to-head with any meat-based option available.
With her success within the vegan community, Madge never let go of hope of guiding the Black community away from the unhealthy foods a vast majority had been raised on. Though initially hesitant, many Black residents are beginning to take a risk on something new.
“I think people are just afraid of change,” Madge says. “I think all communities have unhealthy foods, but not like ours. It’s hard. I don’t try to change people’s minds and the way they think or the way they eat because it causes conflict.”
She says she received a fair amount of pushback from customers of her previous restaurants, where she served fried soul food.
“People would ask me why I was cooking vegan now and not cooking regular food,” she says. “I would explain it was a lifestyle change for me to prevent myself from getting those diseases that killed members of my family. That usually makes them stop and think about their own family history.”
For Madge, who runs Vegan Crave alongside her daughter Ravionne Samuels, the task is hard but worth it. Seeing more Black vegans arise slowly and venture to North Kansas City to experience her selection of vegan meal options is always a joyous thing to behold. Madge may have cut out the dairy and meat for her cooking, but she still manages to pour in the same amount of love and care.
Her menu shows that sentiment, with each food item named with a positive affirmation: the Love Beef Burger, Unique Chicken Sandwich, Peace Portabella Mushroom and Sensational Jalapeno Burger. For Madge this naming tool reaffirms and reminds people: You are what you eat.
“My mission and my process is all about love and life,” she says. “I cook with love, and I want you to live a long life eating it. I have to keep my energy in a positive place because that’s what goes into my food. People can feel that, and people taste it.”
‘Open people’s eyes’
Jones started her journey of healthy living after learning she had colon cancer.
“I learned that there are foods that are medicine and affect your health,” she says. After a year, her cancer was gone. “A year later I decided to go back for training and got certified as a health educator,” says Jones.
Carter, of Happy Roots, has been cooking and learning her craft since middle school. The Olathe native recalls one of the reasons: a boyfriend who suffered from Crohn’s disease. She researched recipes for meals without red meat and dairy. Carter also witnessed the heavy toll unhealthy eating took on multiple members of her family. She didn’t want her 4-year-old son to see the same habits from her.
“My parents didn’t have the best diet, and their parents didn’t have the best diets either,” says Carter. “I just grew up seeing them eat foods that weren’t good for them and seeing them all go through different surgeries. So it’s important for me to open people’s eyes to how harmful meats and dairy can be.”
She used her talents to experiment and develop Happy Roots into something original and healthy. This year’s Black History Month brunch was the young chef’s first time contributing her cooking for an event of this level.
The annual brunch is the brainchild of Alycia Hightower, who has been involved in several community events for food, fashion, music and more. Several like-minded chefs joined Carter at this month’s vegan brunch, held at KC Daiquiri Shop downtown.
Rebecca Oakman and Markwan Gordon, who have cooked together for the past four years, created their own alkaline water and have marketed it at vegan festivals around the country. They see the slow but steady growth of the Black vegan community in Kansas City.
“The culture here in Kansas City is underdeveloped and needs to change,” Oakman says. “Vegan events are in bigger cities like Atlanta or Chicago because the culture is huge. We have really seen growth tremendously with Black influencers sharing their journey, which lead more in the community to being open to plant-based cuisine.”
At the Kansas City event, customers from all backgrounds packed the room, both vegans and people looking to experiment.
“I’ve been plant based going on three years now,” said Joseph Macklin, a well-known music artist in the city who goes by the name Jo Blaq. “And when I say I love supporting the (Black) community, I truly mean that. When I found out who would be preparing the meal, it was a no-brainer for me. Food was amazing, the energy was amazing, I mean everything about this brunch was amazing.”
Some of KC’s Black vegan providers
▪ Vegan Crave, 1599 Iron St., North Kansas City, vegancravebb.com
▪ Gigi’s Vegan + Wellness Cafe, 1103 Westport Road, gigisvegancafe.com
▪ Happy Roots, happilyrootd.com
▪ WyldKard Lyfestyle, WyldKardlyfestyle.com
▪ Stacey Hardman, KC Girl on the Move
This story was originally published February 28, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
