WHAT DOES SOCIAL JUSTICE TASTE LIKE? By Maren Machles
This is just one of the reasons why Beevas cooks. But over the last year, Beevas has felt a deep connection to the healing powers of food, bringing comfort to himself and his community. And that idea of mending through food is rooted in his family traditions. “My grandmother says, ‘Food is glory.’ There is nothing like a good bit of food to heal a soul,” Beevas says. “[She] would use food to heal a community.” Beevas recalls that when someone passed away in Jamaica, where he grew up, his grandmother would make the very curry now simmering in the corner. Someone would donate a 50-pound bag of rice and another would donate a goat. The community would celebrate life through food.
And when Daunte Wright was killed, Pimento Relief Services (PRS) kicked into gear again, joining other organizations at Brooklyn Center High School to distribute groceries and vaccines to thousands of families over the course of 11 days. “What would it be like if other businesses, or the corporate sector in general, also took the time to understand what their neighbors are saying or their customers are saying or their employees are saying,” Beevas wonders. PRS is not just focused on making sure community members have food security; rather, the nonprofit has also launched a number of initiatives focused on health and wellness, political activism, and economic and financial liberation. “Economic liberation is achieved when a Black business can fail and it’s not breaking news,” Beevas says. “In Minnesota we try to do Black exceptionalism, and yet, I’m from a land where Black exceptionalism is everybody. “Now what I’m loving, is that Black people are finally free to come into their own greatness and to build something like what we’re building here at Pimento, for our community.”
Scotch bonnets are the main ingredient in Tomme Beevas’ ‘Kill DemWid It’ sauce. | Credit: Maren Machles
W ith picnic tables lining the sidewalk and dancehall music floating into the street, the front of Pimento Jamaican Kitchen and Rum Bar is open, and the vibe greets patrons like the warmth of a friend’s cookout. But tucked away in the rear of the restaurant? That’s where the real comfort is developed. Chicken, pork and goat are braised to perfection in baths of ingredients that are staples of Jamaican cooking, like scotch bonnet peppers, pimento and all-spice berries. Hundreds of scotch bonnets are charred black on the grill — the beginnings of a sauce that will tickle your throat with a kick. Gallons of an aromatic goat curry bubble away nearby, getting thicker with each passing hour as the meat tenderizes and melts off of the bone and into the stew. “To just be in the kitchen is to be in one’s garden, creating, crafting, the artistry of it all comes together in a way that is intangible, yet very tangible — because there is nothing more tangible than how we feel in our bodies,” says Tomme Beevas, chef and owner of Pimento Jamaican Kitchen.
From the kitchen to the community
Last May, when George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, Beevas used the lessons he learned from his grandmother about community healing. He had a conversation with his team about what the community truly needed at that time. In addition to providing a safe space for protestors, his employees stressed the pressing need for sustenance because of the neighborhood food desert. “That’s how Pimento Relief Services was created — because of them understanding what was going on and Pimento living its values.”
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