Led by former resident Tahir Karmali, this three-part series of participatory roundtables uses recipe exchanges and the history of ingredients as a platform to discuss migration, immigration, and cultural exchange. Each session will focus on one specific ingredient to touch on themes around trade, exploitation, colonialism, and ownership. Participants are asked to submit a recipe (can be culturally specific, completely original, or fusion) that uses the specific ingredient behind the session, and come prepared to discuss the recipe’s origin and the inspiration for sharing.

During the first session of our roundtable, we will delve into garlic! Garlic consumption has tripled in the United States since the 1990s. Chinese prisoners are forced to peel garlic for commercial sale. In Ancient Egypt, a garlic crop failure caused a slave revolt. Submit your garlic recipe here.

Working across multiple mediums, materials, and photography, Brooklyn-based artist Tahir Karmali’s interests lie in manipulating materials that perpetuate colonialism. He draws from his own experiences as a Kenyan citizen to structure narratives around migratory identity. Karmali received his Masters of Digital Photography from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Selected exhibitions include “Jua Kali,” a part of “Making Africa,” High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2017), Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands (2016), and Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain (2015), among other venues; and “PAPER:Work,” Art Africa Fair, Cape Town, and Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, both 2017.

Michael Krondl is a writer, food historian, and artist. He has written several books about food, history, and material culture, most recently “Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert” and the forthcoming “The Donut: History, Recipes, and Lore from Boston to Berlin.” He has contributed to the “Cultural History of Food: The Renaissance,” “Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America,” and “Gastronomica” among many other publications. He is the associate editor on the “Oxford Companion to Sweets.” Krondl has lectured on the subject of culinary history at the Culinary Institute of America, the Smithsonian, San Francisco’s Exploratorium, City University of New York, Pratt Institute, and others. He teaches regularly at The New School and New York City College of Technology. He has exhibited internationally, and his public artwork can be seen in the New York City subway, Vail, CO, Vancouver, and, most recently, at the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport.

Join us for recipe exchange roundtables on the chili pepper on July 18 and potatoes on August 15.