Eds. by HANNA GARTH and ASHANTÉ M. REESE, 2020, Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice, University of Minnesota Press, 302 pp. ISBN 978-1-51790-814-0

Keywords: Black Space, Food Geographies, Food Politics, Food Justice, Food Deserts

Black Food Matters: Racial Justice in the Wake of Food Justice is an anthology consisting of articles by authors exploring phenomenon around Black food access, food geographies, and food justice, while challenging food justice practices that actively contribute to the cultural erasure and displacement of Blackness for the sake of what alternative food justice movements deem to be adequately “healthy” or “quality.” While explaining what food justice can mean from Black perspectives, authors make a point of including the historical persistence of Black food cultures in America’s food system that has not prioritized sustaining Black bodies since its formation. Mobility, entrepreneurship, cultural resilience, and Black ingenuity are some of the few concepts explored by authors as they define the varying means of how Black food matters in an anti-Black food system. 

To introduce the book, editors Hanna Garth and Ashanté M. Reese challenge the misconception that the only way to understand Black relationships with food is through its absence (p. 5). This is often defended with the history of soul food, however, it does not include forms of food access present in several Black communities that are often overlooked by non-community members. The post-slavery importance of Black entrepreneurship for economic security and stability in “Chocolate Cities” (cities with large populations of Black people) has a solid basis in growing and selling food. The formation of  “hucksters,” food trucks, and small grocery stores not only created food access in Black districts without chain grocery stores during the Jim Crow era, but also continued food cultures, built community, supported Black economics, and formed resilience. Different authors of the chapters exploring various food geographies provide similar accounts of entrepreneurship within Black food cultures.

Andrew Newman and Yuson Jung successfully evaluate common criteria for defining what must be absent for an area to be deemed a food desert. This includes consideration of how the words “access ” and “quality” are perceived by outsiders that can overlook long-standing Black entrepreneurship which provides food for the community through alternative means other than large-scale grocery stores. Common overlooked methods include mobile grocery stores, and small-scale grocery stores. The authors explain how “quality” in food justice often references the store’s aesthetic appearance and environment while shopping. The lack of consideration for smaller-scale grocers while deeming an area a food desert directly discredits Black grocers providing food for the community (p. 141). When gentrification occurs, neighborhood markets unable to upkeep aesthetics against wealthier competitors can no longer survive, in-part, due to a perceived “lower quality.”

Overlooked entrepreneurship is reiterated throughout the book, but significantly in Bill Hall’s chapter exploring the displacement and exotification of Black Food geographies in Miami. Marketable areas for Black food that provide the best aesthetic experience receive government funding to renovate businesses and bring in more tourists. The restaurants and shops able to provide this were largely wealthier gentrifiers who financially invested in businesses because of what the area’s history could bring in tourism profits. Older, Black shops providing culturally significant food to the community are greatly affected and displace