Takeaway Q&A: Food Chats with Shaka Clark

Caesar died for our salads. 🥬

Shaka and their favorite mug.

Shaka lives in Chicago and loves cinnamon rolls.¹

---

Shaka! I’m so excited for our chat today! I’ve talked about food with a lot of people on the East and West coast, but no one from the Midwest so far. Do you feel like there's a specific food or meal that represents the Midwest to you?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, I'm originally from Cleveland and I was just watching Laverne Cox's Amazon TV show. At the end of one of the episodes she comes out as vegetarian which I thought was funny, because it’s similar to my story of coming home and being like I’m trans, and oh yeah, I'm also vegan. I grew up on ribs and fried fish and lots and lots of meat. To the max. So that’s the first thing I think of when I think of Midwestern food, just because that’s how I grew up.

Also I think being a vegan in the Midwest has shifted a lot over the years. I’ve been vegan for about 10 years now, but lately I find myself going back to the things that I liked when I first started being vegan in the Midwest. I used to eat a lot of Lebanese food, for example, when I lived in Detroit which has a huge Lebanese population. Being vegan really pushed me to eat in a lot of different neighborhoods. I tried a lot of food that I didn't eat a lot of when I was growing up. In Chicago there are a lot of Jamaican folks and there's a huge Indian and South Asian population on the North Side. Tons of vegetarian and vegan restaurants there. Ethiopian food when I was living in Detroit too was so great. The place I liked to go was called Blue Nile.

So when I became vegan, it was my first time venturing out in a certain way, which was really cool. Of course those restaurants have always been there. Me and my mom remember this a little differently too. She has told me she used to take me to Ethiopian food a lot as a kid, which I don’t remember!

I would say that the difference now from when I first started being vegan, is that there’s a ton of vegan restaurants, at least in Chicago, but most of them are plant-based processed food places. I'm not saying that as a judgment. It's just like a different wave, right? There's burger spots, there's hot dog spots, there's pizza spots. They are all totally dedicated to that and that's definitely a different vibe than 10 years ago for me. And that food is also usually more expensive and sometimes not tasty. They're kind of just like, we did the thing that you expected. We made you a vegan hamburger. Be happy.

For sure. When you were venturing out to those restaurants for the first time, were you doing it largely by yourself? Or did you have a community of folks that were taking you around to places?

So when I first started being vegan I was living in Detroit. I've lived in Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago. I think that makes me more Midwestern than a lot of people! And when I was living in Detroit I worked for a place that did food security work, and everyone I worked with was vegan. But there weren’t a ton of places to go to back then. Luckily the person I was dating was vegan.

That helps.

That helps for sure. We would go to this one place, I have no idea it’s still open, they had a drumming circle and there was a natural doctor there too! It looked like a house and it was also a restaurant. But it was one of those restaurants where they're like, “I guess we'll fire up the grill right now, you're gonna be here for a while.”

Welcome to the lifestyle, you get your own doctor now!

Yeah. Exactly. You don't need to be in a rush. You need to slow down. So yeah, I feel like there used to be more places like that. Or it used to be more common to just buy food directly from people or to get it catered from people in the community. I was an organizer in Detroit, and I wanted all the meals that were community meetings to be vegan, so I always had to buy from people who were caterers. I really loved that because I was literally getting access to home-cooked vegan food from folks who had probably been making food since the 70s. That’s just different from how I eat now.

Do you cook a lot?

I cook a lot. I'm the main cook in my household! I wasn’t much of a chef before I became vegan either. Being vegan made me someone who cooked more, because I didn't have a lot of options. The first few months I was eating a lot of oatmeal and I realized pretty quickly that I needed more than that. And I cannot eat oatmeal at all anymore. It definitely made me try things and just work with a lot of spices. I think that's always important.

Being in Chicago is also awesome because I'm fortunate to know a lot of farmers. We’ve been a part of farm shares where they give you boxes and you kind of don't know what you're going to get. There used to be a really awesome collective of Black and Brown Queer farmers that produced a weekly box and they also gave free boxes of produce out to the community. We would get so many hot peppers though. They were so hot that all I could think to do was make sauce, and you had to open all the windows. That kind of vibe.

What a spice trajectory. Starting with oatmeal I guess you could only go up from there! You have a toddler right?

Yeah.

Do you end up eating a lot of the same food because you’re making it for them?

I mean, they're classic toddler. I don't want to say picky, but it's just like they're still figuring out what they think is worth it. They're definitely not going to eat it because you want them to. That’s not them at all. And I respect that. I grew up with a lot of pressure around finishing your plate and stuff.

They definitely like seasoning. They're pro that. What’s funny is the only time I’ve seen them eat tortillas was when we were in Mexico City with my partner's family. Currently they don’t like the factory stamped tortillas here. They need to be in the Puebla. So I’m like, that’s real, you hold yourself to a different standard. I don't want to change that for you. So, we're going to have to learn how to make those better at home.

But yeah, they mostly want to eat vegetarian. If food is cultural in a certain way, we want them to try it. But they also just reject a lot of meat. When they go to their Abuela’s house she offers them carnitas, which everyone else is usually eating. And then they're just like, "No, no, no to that."

We'll see what they choose. But yeah, we try to eat the same things, but they do love oatmeal. That's their favorite meal. That's literally what they want when they wake up first thing in the morning. Oatmeal. If they could eat it every meal they would.

That’s really funny considering that you can’t bring yourself to eat oatmeal anymore! What do you eat for breakfast now?

Yeah, I'm definitely a thing on bread kind of person. Doesn't matter. Put a thing on bread. Let’s keep it moving. Maybe that’s kind of sad. I definitely make a lot of tofu scrambles on the weekend, but I definitely used to be an egg girly. I haven't found anything that feels as satisfying as eggs in the morning. I mean, maybe I go through phases of smoothies and stuff, but bread is still where my heart is.

It’s funny when I eat eggs and when I haven’t had them for a while, I forget how they're just a single source meal. You just crack it, put a little salt on it, and boom a meal. Tofu is usually a process.

That’s real. I was in New Orleans recently and you can buy a lot of tofu made in the city. There’s a lot of tofu culturally specific to Southeast Asian folks in the area. I bought this Thai chili marinated tofu in a pack that was made a few hours away. It was so good. I barely cooked it. But yeah, usually when I'm making tofu it’s seasoning, seasoning, and I’m making a mess.

Nutritional yeast is one of those things that I know a lot of folks add to that just give things a quick boost. Put it in soup. Put it on popcorn. It's nice to have those things that sort of give you the hit of flavor that if you're in a hurry you can just throw in.

And color too. Always a good thing to add.

Yeah no one needs a one-tone beige situation. Vegetables are always going to be the most colorful thing you can ever add to any dish. Nature’s bounty.

Absolutely! I was really into making dressing for a minute. I usually get into that during the summer. I was growing a lot of vegetables the first year of lockdown. A lot of Romaine which grows super easily out here. By July I could not eat another Caesar salad. No Caesar anything. I was totally totally over it.

Anything Caesar-related is a huge comfort to me for some reason. Like Caesar wrap. Anytime. In any condition. I will go out of my way for a Caesar situation.

It was the best thing Caesar did for sure. His salad legacy.

Yes! Iconic. Anything else to add about Chicago food?

Yeah, I would say that Chicago has the best food out of anywhere I’ve really been. A place that really surprised me though, was Denver. It had great vegan food. The pizza in particular. I have a really strong food memory - never gonna forget the pizza of Denver. Oh and Mexico City has great food too of course. I would love to travel to try food from more places though.

When I was in New Orleans more recently, I went to a really yummy Jamaican vegan spot that had vegan ribs. I've never had a better vegan rib. It was a jackfruit base and it just tore off perfectly. And then I called back the next day to order it again and they're like, "We’re out of it." I almost cancelled my order, but I couldn’t do it. I think I ordered some mushrooms instead.

Totally. I would do the same. I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to cancel from a local place!

Oh man, I totally meant to talk more about dessert! That’s literally all I care about. I meant to mention Cinnamon Rolls. There used to be this vegan bakery in Cleveland when I was living there, it was started by two young younger black folks in high school. They were selling square donuts. So, first of all, that's a flex, right? It was yeast based, and there was a lot of beautiful icing, and they weren’t super expensive. I'm pretty sure they're still open. But I just love donuts and cinnamon rolls too. Oh yeah, it’s called Cinnaholic. It’s interesting though because they don’t advertise themselves as a vegan spot. I feel like that’s a new wave - not advertising when something is vegan.

For sure I’ve noticed that too, also at dessert places! I want a donut so badly now.

Thanks so much for chatting with me today Shaka. That’s a Caesar-wrap! Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

.

.

<3

1. This is the only bio Shaka would give me which I respect. But I do have to add: SHAKA IS AWESOME.