The second session of the Soul of Food was full of sooo many delightful moments as we observed Juneteenth (two days before the official holiday) by learning about its history alongside uplifting Black Liberation movements across the Americas and preparing a meal of red foods together.

This session was extra special as we were in collaboration with The Laundromat Project and some of their Create Change Fellows who’ve formed Foodprints. Foodprints is a group of archival artists that include Fei Li, Katherine Miranda, Steven Anthony Johnson II, and DaeQuan Alexander Collier, and they led and documented portions of the session alongside Maya.

Before getting into preparing the food, Maya led folks in a discussion on what liberation means for different people but especially what it can mean to Black folks; looking back at the history of Juneteenth; the Afro-disapora led movements that preceded and followed Juneteenth; and ways that Black people have celebrated moments like Juneteenth and our autonomy through our foodways.

Red foods in particular were of significance to this jubilee, as they are to many Black foodways and rituals, and were center stage during this session as we prepared Watermelon Lemonade, Sorghum Glazed Chicken and Oyster Mushrooms, and a Summertime Corn Succotash with Sea Island Red Peas. Many of these red themes and foods were pulled from our Rituals of Red booklet (which participants received in goodie bags The Foodprints team assembled) and is available in our shop.

Following a few culinary and food safety demonstrations, everyone got into preparing the different elements of our meal together. Once we were nearing things being completed we came back together to set the table and begin serving as the Foodprints team led everyone in an art-making reflection activity. Katherine hand-crafted these beautiful hibiscus cards for folks to write on, and the Foodprints team collected some of these to preserve and display as a short-term art installation in the Phoenix Community Garden’s gazebo (photos below).

We closed the afternoon out by finishing the meal, conversing, and browsing the library of books offered at many Deep Routes events. This session continues The Soul of Food series, and there’s more to come this summer and fall, stay in the loop by signing up for our newsletter here.

So much gratitude to the Foodprints team for combining all their amazing talents to put together the grounding and reflection portion of the workshop during the meal, designing the reflection cards and goodie bags for participants, and photographing and filming the event (footage coming soon)!

Big thanks to @greenthumbnyc for making series like these free to the public and also capturing portions of the event, and to Phoenix Community Garden for hosting us.