Smackdown: Chefs Marcus Samuelsson and Eddie Huang Disagree About Soul Food and Who Knows Harlem Best
Apparently there’s a little beef cooking up in Harlem, and it ain’t the on grill. After chef and writer Eddie Huang wrote a critical review of Marcus Samuelsson’s soon-to-be-released memoir, Samuelsson had a few words for his fellow chef: You’re irrelevant.
In yesterday’s New York Observer, Huang ripped both Samuelsson’s memoir and his Harlem restaurant Red Rooster to shreds, basically calling them both inauthentic.
Huang explained:
With Red Rooster, the Ethiopian-born chef behind Aquavit has given himself a difficult assignment — writing the report for a book he never read.
But it’s the book he wrote, his new memoir Yes, Chef, out June 26 from Random House — that most glaringly demonstrates the shortcomings of his approach to Harlem. As successful as the restaurant has been as a business proposition, it fails utterly in its goal of paying homage to the neighborhood, coming off instead like an embarrassing exercise in condescension, much like the book.
“I had seen the photographs of Harlem in its glory days,” Mr. Samuelsson tells us at one point, “stylish men in bespoke suits, women so well dressed that they’d put the models in Vogue to shame…. I knew that Harlemites loved to dance, to pray, and to eat.”
Thank you, Marcus, for that ride to the intersection of Stigma St. and Stereotype Blvd., but we’re not looking for the Cotton Club.
Here’s what the chef has to say about the area today:
“Harlem is not a playground for rich bankers and consultants. It’s got students of all colors. It’s got old people who keep history and tell tall tales. It’s got musicians and artists and I swear I know a guy who is the next incarnation of Prince…”
The entire book reads like it was ghost-written by Rudyard Kipling with an assist by ‘Girls’ heroine Hannah Horvath, who infamously never encountered a black person in all of season one (except that homeless guy).
To prove how inauthentic Samuelsson’s restaurant is, Huang went to Red Rooster with a local Harlem rapper (uh, ironic, much?). The two talked about the fact that local residents rarely score a table at the Uptown hotspot; its location on famed (and crowded) 125th street; and the lack of a take-out option.
In the article, Huang also went on to wonder why Samuelsson receives accolades for dishing up revisionist soul food while other black American-born chefs don’t garner the same sort of praise as the Ethopian-born, Swedish-bred Samuelsson. And he takes Samuelsson to task for ignoring Harlemites and thinking of himself as sort of a pioneer in Harlem, despite other restaurants being in the area for decades.
In light of Huang’s scathing review, Samuelsson had a few words for his fellow chef: You don’t matter.
“I feel that the more you try to be positive, the more you try to make change, the more people are going to have a point of view on it. It’s not like he’s a relevant person in this place, but we live in a diverse environment where people have every freedom to comment. I can live with the fact that we have created jobs and that we make people happy. I stand by our work every single day regardless of who has a comment,” he told Paper magazine.
What I find interesting is that neither man, Huang nor Sammuelsson, is from Harlem and both dabble in stereotypes of the neighborhood and its people. But does it matter or is their “beef” just much ado about nothing?
You be the judge.
Haung isn’t slick. Notice how he said that Samuelsson is garnering praise that other African American chefs do not garner? Classic divide and conquer move. Don’t fall for it. If Haung believes that other African American chefs deserve fame, then why doesn’t he spend his free time writing op eds on how great those chefs are? Haung, have one of these: __/
As a fellow American born African. I gotta say I agree with Huang. I feel that Huang knows Harlem and the American way better than Samuelsson. I feel Samuelsson knows the American way that is all about the paper chase. His book excerpts do sound a tad artificial and cliche (it really could be the most likely ghostwriter he used). It’s no surprise to me hear that he praises Harlem but doesnt realize that it really isnt as multidimensional as he (or his ghostwriter) wants it to seem. If you ask me Samuelsson by excluding Harlem residents it just contributing to the gentrification of the neighborhood by wealthier clients he favors. I live in Boston right now, and my Dominican/Black neighborhood (well part of the neighborhood) is undergoing gentrification itself and it’s not an edifying experience at all. (Especially because Boston is the city of money).
PS. As an aside, I feel I should mention that traditional African foods are not in any way related to Black American soul food. So he is himself no closer than Huang. Also, I kinda want to say that older Africans tend to look derisively upon Black Americans, especially if they werent raised here and are from back home. So if, you other Black Americans are giving him the benefit solely because he is dark. You guys might wanna fall back and reanalyze that.
Thank you Higher ThanMight for saving me from having to write that paragraph
As an African American (who’s never been to NY btw), I completely agree with you. I see both of these men as outsiders giving their opinion on a culture that isn’t native to them but obviously means a lot to them.
Those Samuelsson quotes made me cringe. Huang made a whole lot of sense; however, i find myself questioning why this discourse isn’t happening between two African American Harlmenites instead of a European-bred Ethiopian and an Asian American?
How is an Ethiopian given more credit on the African American Soul Food genre than African American chefs? Surely there are successful African Americans who have mastered their own people’s food who are critically acclaimed Soul Food chefs, right???
In all honesty, this is about as “flattering” as Koreans taken an interest in Black hair and selling specialty products to AAs in Black neighborhoods :/
@ S.
I agree, I think it’s wholly stupid for Black Americans to not have a strong presence in a product that they consume. Im often torn because I see it from both viewpoints. A Black American and a Black American of African extraction. Though, nothing grinds me gears more to see how pathetically un-unionized Black Americans (as in born here with no immediate relation to Africa) are here. Perhaps it’s because they are born in the land of opportunity and really this country is pathetic when it comes to educating it’s citizens on entrepreneurship. Though, still there is no reason that Samuelsson or Huang should be forenames for Black American cuisine. There is absolutely no reason that Black Americans should have little option other than buying hair products from Koreans.I watched “Good Hair” a documentary about this phenom. It’s trippy to see that not only are Black Americans should are the number one consumers of such hair products but that are the most represented at the hair conventions/shows/fairs. Though basically have NO immediate representation in the actual industry of selling the hair. It’s not common to see White haircare stores owned and operated by Koreans.You dont see Black people running American-Chinese cuisine restaurants. So it perplexes me to see the main users seriously underrpresented. I tell you that money is not flowing back into American communities, let alone theirs. SMH.
I’ve been to Red Rooster for dinner and the food IS condescending. On the menu is a dish called “yard bird, ” whose title alone makes me shudder. Quite frankly, it’s a tourist trap – sub-par food, pricey and leaves a lot to be desired. He has the concept for Red Rooster and it makes great business, but a far as dining is concerned – it needs an overhaul.