Foodies Clan

Stacey Mei Yan Fong’s 50 Pies/50 States baking project is a love letter to the country she now calls home

Stacey Mei Yan Fong is stuck on pie number 44. The funeral potato pie, rich as a block of butter and built with all the flavors of a classic post-funeral hot dish, was not actually headed for a funeral when Fong made it on March 10. This particular funeral dish was more of a celebration, of the near completion of a years-long pie-baking project that has taken Fong on a dizzying journey across America.

Fong is the ambitious home baker behind a project she’s called 50 Pies / 50 States. Spurred by the Singapore-born baker’s desire to celebrate the country she calls home, Fong decided in 2016 to bake 50 pies, each inspired by the flavors of a state. To express her gratitude to the many friends who have welcomed her with open arms as she moved from one state to another, each completed pie would eventually find its way to a friend (or sometimes, a stranger), living in or from that place.

The project is at once wildly ambitious, and extremely whimsical. Scrolling through Fong’s Instagram, and reading her online pia-ary (that’s her pie-focused diary), it’s clear just how much research, care, and thought — not to mention travel — has gone into each of the 44 pies Fong has baked and given away so far. In South Dakota, Fong took cues from the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota tribes, and constructed a rice pudding pie, the pudding made with wild rice, fortified with homemade sunflower milk. Fong met the couple who would later receive her Oregon pie (it was marionberry and pear, topped with a salty hazelnut crumble) while the three were playing beer pong and listening to Springsteen at a mutual friend’s house. Mississippi’s pie, a chocolate graham cracker crust, pumped with chocolate fudge and covered in fluffy whipped cream and chocolate shavings, went to Rachel, who Fong met during a hazy night of Karaoke the day she graduated college. To read through Fong’s blog and scroll her Instagram lends a window into the mind of someone who believes deeply — and beyond any cliche — in the power of food as a means to connect, bridge divides, and express love.

But now, a pandemic grips the country, and Fong is stuck on pie number 44. She’s decided to wait to bake and deliver her last six pies until travel is less risky. But during this pause, she’s still baking up a storm, turning her attention to only slightly smaller pie-related projects. She’s recently baked her way through a number of desperation pies, the sorts of desserts one might have made in the past when a harvest was slim, or work was scarce: Think pies made with vinegar to replace the tartness of fresh fruit, and others that call for little more than sugar and water. This break from travel, research, and constant baking has also given Fong a chance to reflect on her adopted home, and the racism and hate that have become so prominent and noticeable this year.

I recently called Fong, who’s weathering the pandemic from her Brooklyn apartment, to hear more about her pie baking journey, and what she plans to do when her last six pies have been baked, boxed, and delivered.

Eater: Before you were a pie-baking New Yorker, what was your life like?

I was born in Singapore. Because of my dad’s job, we moved around a lot: We moved to Indonesia for a couple years. And then when I was five, we moved to Hong Kong, which is where I stayed until I came to college in America. I went to college in Savannah, Georgia, and then after I graduated, I packed up a truck and drove to New York. When you move a lot as a kid, you don’t really know where your home is.

In New York, what do you do when you’re not baking pies?

I am a handbag and accessory designer. And then all other hours are focused on food. Food is a huge passion of mine, and it’s the way I process my feelings. Growing up, food played such a major part in life, especially coming from a Chinese family. Everything is around a big dinner table. When I moved to New York, I worked fashion jobs with these crazy hours and were really terrible, and my moment of relief was definitely coming home and cooking for myself and my roommate. I would make roast chickens and cakes and just cry because I hated my job. I eventually found my way in fashion, but I’ve always kept food as my passion.

From working a fashion job and baking after work, how did you get started on the 50 Pies project?

In 2014, I was going through a really rough time, thinking about my life and where my home was. I was getting to a point where I had lived in America for about the same time I had lived in Hong Kong. My dad had just moved back to Singapore; one of my sisters was in Boston, about to move back to Singapore; my other sister lived in LA. Everybody I went to college with and everyone that I’m friends with, they can go back to their childhood home. I was just trying to discover what home meant to me. And during that time, my best friend bought me the Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Book. I was so lost and confused, and I was like ‘maybe I’ll just start baking from this, and that’ll lead me somewhere. Or at least it will give me some relief because I’ll be eating delicious treats.’

Around 2016, I got my green card. That really marked my decision that this is a place I want to call home. I’ve met so many amazing people from college and from traveling, and I was trying to think of a way to give back to them and in turn, learn more about the country that I’ve chosen. I feel like pie is very synonymous with America, so I thought: What if I bake a pie for every single state in America, that includes state foods or regional cuisine, and then give that pie to someone I know from that state as a symbol of my affection for them? If I didn’t already know anyone from that state, I could travel to the state and meet someone, or find someone in that state to give the pie to through a mutual friend. I wanted to interpret America in some way that would make sense to me.

What were some of your most memorable pie-centric adventures for this project?

For South Dakota, I realized I had never met anyone from the state. And it just so happened that my friend Matt, who got the Massachusetts pie, had recently done a graphic design project for a bunch of historians that live in South Dakota, that know everything about the Black Hills. I reached out to them, and I ended up going to South Dakota in January. They introduced me to Sean Sherman, the Sioux chef, and my South Dakota pie ended up being based on Native American cuisine. It was a wild rice pudding that I made with sunflower milk that I made myself. And then I made a maple-pumpkin sunflower seed crunch. It was one of those things where I would have never ever discovered this part of South Dakota or this part of Native American culture if I hadn’t gone through all these weird connections.

The biggest undertaking was for New York. I really thought long and hard about what I wanted to do, and how I could make the biggest gesture. I decided to make 150 mini pies. I made little cupcake-sized pies. I gave four to the staff at my favorite provision store, four to the people at my tattoo shop that I go to all the time, four to my bikram yoga studio. And then I threw a huge party at a beer hall, and all my friends came to eat pie together. I got to have all my friends in one place. I could not survive New York without them. it was my big grand gesture to them in pie-party form.

My most challenging — but one of my favorite pies — was Nevada. I couldn’t find a lot of state foods or fruits or vegetables that encapsulated the state. The first thing I thought of when I thought about Las Vegas was the all you can eat buffet, and I thought “how can I translate that into pie form?” I went on every casino’s website, and I looked at what was featured on each of their buffets. The Las Vegas pie ended up being an all you can eat buffet pie. Half of the crust was savory and half of the crust was sweet. The pie ended up being a tiny tasting menu. It started with a Caesar salad, and then a shrimp cocktail, and then a prime rib, and it ended with an ice cream sundae. It was all one pie, with little triangular sections.

This is such an enormous undertaking. Could you talk a little bit about what goes into creating each of these pies, from research to delivery?

When I started this project, the first thing I did was put together what I call my pie chart. I wrote out all the states in alphabetical order, and did a bunch of research about each one. When I’m researching, I come home after work, make dinner, and then sit down and read books about pie, and read books about the state that I’m working on a pie for. I’ll talk to people I knew from that state, or I’ll look to recipes that are meaningful to my friends. For Ohio I used a recipe that my friend Meredith’s grandmother passed on to me, so it’s stuff like that — making connections and learning about everybody’s home life. These stories give me energy to push the project forward.

You’ve put a pause on 50 Pies / 50 States during the pandemic because you can’t travel very safely. What have you been doing instead?

I decided to pause because I couldn’t travel to go see the person that the pie is for. So during the pandemic, I’ve looked at other great times of turmoil in American culture. And of course, the Great Depression comes up, and I came upon desperation pies. I first thought that all desperation pies had to do with that era, but it turns out they weren’t just a product of financial burden. Desperation pies also have to do with seasonal depression. During winter months, you won’t have a lot of fresh fruit in your larder, but you always have things like, flour, vinegar, sugar, and different ways to work around that. And even without a lot of resources, these pies were so regional. In Appalachia for instance, there is a vinegar pie to mimic the taste of apples. There were all these people who were coming up with amazing ideas to sub fruit for something else.

I went into the desperation pie-baking project thinking it was going to be like when people try to make food from the ’60s and it’s all just weird aspics. But all the pies ended up tasting so good! A vinegar pie just sounds so odd, but when you eat it, it does taste like a tart apple pie! I find it so incredible that even during times of trouble, people were able to make the best of it.

This project has clearly connected you to America in so many ways. Have the crises playing out across the country these past six months affected your view of America, and your plan for the project moving forward?

It’s super disappointing when you put something on a pedestal — which I did with American culture — to realize it actually isn’t that perfect. What gives me hope is all the action and all the change, and that people in America aren’t just giving up; they’re taking matters into their own hands and trying to make a better future for themselves.

I remember delivering the Florida pie on the day after the election in 2016. It was the saddest day, and I remember giving it to my friends from Florida who were so upset, so disappointed. I was like, “all right, everything does suck right now, but Florida is still a beautiful place. Florida has one of the only national parks in America that is a coral reef! You have Islamorada! You have like Disney World! You have all these beautiful things in Florida like marshes and crocodiles.” There is a lot of crazy, but there is still a lot of good. And I only hope that me coming in with so much passion for learning all these new things about Florida or New Hampshire or Pennsylvania gives the pie recipient in that state a little bit of perspective that there is still good. I still have so much hope.

The tableside rinse has links to an enduring caste system and social hierarchy. So would it be better if it went away for good?

I was thrilled when I found out that Sagar, a low-key dosa place in Defence Colony (a neighborhood in South Delhi), had begun “no-contact” restaurant service. On a sweltering June afternoon, I was one of just three diners: a rarity in a place that, pre-pandemic, always had a waiting list. Soon after I registered this strangeness, I became preoccupied with something else: the absence of the finger bowl, a half-moon lemon bobbing in a tepid water rinse, often presented in a stainless-steel bowl. Usually, in casual restaurants like this (where there is typically just one course), the finger bowl appears on the table right after an order is placed. Now, instead, a bottle of chemical-blue hand sanitizer sat at the edge of my table.

“Finger bowls… not allowed anymore?” I asked the server, sure that this was a COVID-19 consequence.

I didn’t get the response I was expecting.

“Haan voh bhi [yes, that also],” he replied, a vague answer that indicated there was more to the story. When I probed, he revealed that “some servers,” particularly those in the “younger generation,” had complained about having to carry the diner’s used rinse, which sometimes had suspicious material floating in it. He excluded himself from this coterie, saying he was not bothered with “such small things,” and could still sneak me a bowl whenever I pleased.

But in just a few months, this everyday dining object, still used across South Asia in establishments both fancy and casual, had taken on an illicit feeling thanks to the pandemic. Around the finger bowl, I sensed contestation and possible extinction.

Behind what appears to be an innocuous culinary object is a tumultuous history with multiple, contested genealogies. The finger bowl appears and disappears on the tables of British, Indian, and American eaters, for whom it has served different purposes through time. It sometimes marked aristocratic splendor, and at other times economic scarcity. Food historians like Katie Stewart and Reay Tannahill teach us that it was key in upper-class English culinary rituals from the Middle Ages on. This was a time when sharing food was common, and having clean hands was all the more important.

In the West, the presence of the finger bowl was common at elite dinner parties and in expensive restaurants during the early 1900s, as the comma between the main course and dessert. As an affirmation of status, it suggested that diners were too privileged to spend precious steps on a trip to the restroom to wash their hands. In an email interview, food historian Alison Smith writes how the finger bowl is, for her, synonymous with her grandmother — born in 1892 — and leisurely meals in Cape Cod. A lover of a “proper dinner table,” and “butlers, chauffeurs, and cooks,” Smith remembers her “beloved granny’s staunch defense of the finger bowl,” which even then inspired a little light-hearted debate around the table. To a young Smith, the object appeared “somewhat archaic and ridiculous.”

Unsurprisingly, the finger bowl is center stage in etiquette books from the early 20th century. These texts were targeted at young women in the U.S. and England, and anglicized women in the Global South. In pedagogical language, the focus is on how to correctly use the object. A brief dabble that “resists the temptation to swish your fingers around” is the norm. Ideally, the ritual should leave the lemon or flower tickled, but firmly intact. Of equal importance to the proper way to use the finger bowl is how and where to place the dinner napkin on which the bowl typically sits. Once used, the napkin should be “loosely” folded and placed on the left side of the service plate, orchestrating progress toward a much-anticipated dessert.

Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

By WWI, many popular American dining restaurants had adopted the finger bowl along with live music. These elements were successful in attracting a wealthier clientele. While there is a record of a threat to the object as early as 1908 — when concerns around its hygiene were first raised — it was eventually ousted in the 1910s, when it came under scrutiny in the larger cultural efforts to “minimize excess” during wartime. It is harder to find mention of it in North America after the 1950s, when it, as one Southern Living article put it, “fell off” the “social radar.” If it appears thereafter, it is mostly in the form of upper class ridicule. For example, in 2002, “Miss Manners” — a moniker for the author of an etiquette column — writes: “If finger bowls don’t stop scaring people and figure out how to make themselves useful once again, even these remaining nights of theirs are numbered. They could be spending the rest of their lives in the cupboard, sulking.”

While Miss Manners indicates the object’s antiquity in the West, the finger bowl has found continued relevance in India, where historical evidence suggests that it first arrived as a colonial object. Early culinary records of regal life in South Asia and the Ottoman empire — where kings commonly had their finger bowls monogrammed with their initials — make only casual mentions of it, pointing to its natural place in these settings. In India, its easy adoption is perhaps related to the existing, pre-colonial South Indian custom of sprinkling a banana leaf — a traditional placeholder for a plate — with water in order to purify it before the meal is served.

Curator and art historian Deepika Ahlawat’s documentation of luxurious glass objects made between 1840 and 1930 in India suggests that finger bowls were important for maharajas, who fused Victorian and Edwardian culinary customs with local culinary influences. As a rule, the more upper-class and -caste the diner, the greater the ornamentation around the chasm between diner and server. Where there was a finger bowl there were indentured butlers, and at least a couple of dozen rich dishes during each meal. As historian Donald Clay Johnson wrote in “First Ladies of the Raj: Status and Empowerment in British India,” in one palace, a member of staff was reportedly responsible for not only delivering one bowl to the maharaja for a rinse of his fingers, but bringing him a second so that he could wash his rings, which may have been removed for the pleasure of his culinary experience.

As early as 1920, the finger bowl was also found in India’s colonial clubs like the Gymkhanas (member-only sports clubs, built by the British), where it still opens lunch and dinner service. In elite homes, it was reserved for the patriarch — the veritable king of the house. We see this in Anita Desai’s 1999 novel, Fasting, Feasting, where to describe the authority of the male figure, Desai writes: “he is the only one in the family who is given a napkin and a finger bowl; they are emblems of his status.”

Whether in the more courtly accounts or in aristocratic, domestic spheres, the finger bowl’s original function in India, we learn, is not really hygiene. Appearing alongside meals that are served individually, and that cater to expanding tastes, it becomes a symbol of power and status rather than a facilitator of cleanliness. Nevertheless, this is what contemporary discussions around the object often hide behind, concealing the more crucial questions of class and caste.

By the late 1970s, the finger bowl was found in many of India’s most upscale dining restaurants, and by the mid-’80s, it was not out of line to ask for one in a fancy restaurant if one wasn’t automatically provided. In an interview, a former hotel receptionist, now in her mid 60s, associated the object with Bukhara, a legendary Mughlai restaurant at the Maurya Sheraton, in New Delhi. In the late ’70s, this establishment was a place to see and be seen. She also links it to sophisticated Chinese restaurants in the 1980s, where it often appeared with an exotic flower, signifying to the eater that he or she was deserving of luxury.

The late 1980s and early ’90s, however, marked a steady trickle down, with the object ending up in spots like the dosa eatery where my server promised to sneak me a bowl. In a phone interview, Delhi-based food critic Marryam Reshii speculated that its introduction here was to the owner’s benefit, because it negated the need to provide functional wash basins — requirements in South Indian restaurants where everyone eats with their hands. It simultaneously pleased customers — even if the material of the finger bowl had changed from white or electro metal to stainless steel — who at this time counted it, along with air conditioning and carpeting, as signs of a “good” restaurant. Meanwhile, friends in the U.S. recall that by this time, the finger bowl had more or less disappeared from elite settings, but were still found in Astoria or Jackson Heights’ mid- to low-budget Indian restaurants (where a packaged toilette now replaces it).

After this decade, the finger bowl mostly vanishes from the memory of Indian-restaurant patrons in the U.S., while in India, it’s become increasingly democratized, and even appears in the odd dhaba — casual stalls typically targeted at less privileged long-distance commuters. At odds with the ad-hoc service and dirt-cheap food — which can sometimes be deliciously satisfying, and at other times just belly-filling — the finger bowl was, and still remains, a somewhat humorous anomaly. As one disappointed Tripadvisor reviewer wrote after eating in a Chennai-based dhaba: “the only thing served warm was the finger bowl.”

Of late, online discussions around its use in restaurants veer toward confusion about its relevance, though an appreciation, grounded in both functionality and nostalgia, remains palpable. On Quora — a public Q&A-style chat — the view that the finger bowl is a useful tool in removing “oil and grease” is common, as is the sentiment that it makes guests “feel like maharajas.”

But on platforms like these, as well as around actual restaurant tables I dine on, there is rarely a discussion about what the finger bowl, with its links to an enduring caste system and social hierarchy, means for servers. While I have witnessed public objections to fellow diners “misusing” the object — using the water to dampen their arm or the bowl as a spittoon — the discourse remains confined to correct manners, or, at the most, the object’s charming but strange place in our contemporary culinary rituals. Unfortunately, the expectations most diners have of servers — that they should deal with our bodily waste and risk their mostly insurance-free health statuses (even more precarious in the time of COVID-19) — are still marginal.

If, then, the finger bowl carries with it the power to not only mark class and caste divides, but reproduce them, is the sanitizer a welcome equalizer? Is Sagar, the restaurant where I first encountered the sanitizer as a substitute, in some ways ahead of the curve? I briefly debated whether this non-fancy establishment was perhaps participating in a cultural politics that is more progressive than those of other upscale establishments — which may continue to offer the finger bowl once they open for service after the pandemic — or of aristocratic homes where it never left.

My internal debate led me to reflect on the work of the sanitizer in this context. As there are no etiquette rules governing its use, we experience it as a medical pump that is difficult to romanticize. Introduced at the restaurant door, and then again before the order is taken, the sanitizer makes all diners appear temporarily equal, responsible for their own cleanliness. And unlike the finger bowl, which leaves a visible trace of dirt that must be taken away with urgency, the sanitizer becomes an invisible and continuous presence through the meal. Its use is typically quick, repeated, and almost missable in the course of dining.

Still, while it may seem quite natural to treat hygiene as the fulcrum around which the debate between the sanitizer and finger bowl should take place, historical context reminds us that cleanliness was not the finger bowl’s primary function. Whether in a time of excess or limitation, the finger bowl has identified the most privileged actors in the performance of dining — the high caste, the aristocrat, the blue blood, the upper class, or just the paying customer. In contemporary India, where growing anxieties around food continue to center around caste, the sanitizer may create a visual fracture in marking hierarchy, or the void of a familiar tactile sensation. Its substitution of the finger bowl does little, however, to rupture the multiple ways in which food and its rituals continue to organize and reify social inequality.

Meher Varma is a New Delhi-based anthropologist and writer. Her interests include food, fashion, and gender in post-liberalization India.
Fact-checked by Dawn Mobley

Plus, a Utah restaurant is banning customers from wearing masks, and more news to start your day

The slider chain is installing its burger-flipping robot in more locations

Over the summer, White Castle partnered with Miso Robotics to test out a burger-flipping robot, Flippy, at one Chicago location. Apparently it went well, because the chain just announced it would be introducing Flippy to 10 more locations in 2021. “We believe technology like Flippy ROAR [robot-on-a-rail] can improve customer service and kitchen operation. This pilot is putting us on that path — and we couldn’t be more pleased to continue our work with Miso Robotics and pave the way for greater adoption of cutting-edge technology in the fast-food industry,” Lisa Ingram, CEO of White Castle, said in a statement.

This Flippy 2.0 is slightly different from the one White Castle piloted in July because it can move across different workstations on a rail. It’s also designed to work with human kitchen employees, who can load it up with food for it to dispense onto the grill. The pandemic has certainly heightened the allure of AI cooking, which would limit staff interaction while still producing the same amount of product. White Castle is especially expecting Flippy to come in handy during night shifts, which are harder to schedule for humans who need sleep. White Castle didn’t say whether it would be eliminating any human jobs to make room for Flippy, but maybe if they put googly eyes on it, you won’t notice the difference.

And in other news...

• White Castle is also closing its stores on the morning of November 3 so its human employees can go vote. [QSR]
• See if you can guess a Biden supporter from a Trump supporter by looking in their fridges. [NYTimes]
• Yaks Restaurant in Blanding, Utah has banned customers from wearing masks, and is now selling merch crowing about it. Over the past week, there have been an average of 1,512 COVID-19 cases in Utah, and the county in which Yaks is located “has had more per capita COVID-19 cases than anywhere else in Utah since the pandemic began in March.” [Salt Lake Tribune]
• Latina domestic workers are facing extraordinary food insecurity. [NBC]
• J.M. Smucker is selling Crisco to B&G foods for $550m, as it looks to focus more on things like pet food and coffee. [Fooddive]
• Slice, the third-party delivery service specifically for pizzerias, is removing fees for orders under $10. “The pandemic is far from over, and I challenge all online ordering services to make similar adjustments to their fee structures to better support small businesses,” said Slice Founder and CEO, Ilir Sela in a statement. [BusinessWire]
• Bud Light is releasing holiday hard seltzer flavors: Apple Crisp, Peppermint Pattie, and Gingersnap. [CNN]
• McDonald’s is launching its new pastries today. [CNN]
• Panera is now selling pizza. [Forbes]
• All this White Castle news may not even matter, because fuck sliders. [Defector]

Voting is often a long, frustrating, and hungry process. What if it didn’t have to be?

When Juliette Vincent arrived at her polling place — a public library branch in Antioch, Nashville — on October 14, the line for early voting already stretched out the door and along the wall of the ice rink next door. It was close to noon, and she hadn’t eaten anything all morning, despite being awake since 6:30. As temperatures crept up and the sun rose higher in the sky, she was thankful she had brought a bottle of water, unlike many others she saw around her in the line.

By the time Vincent, a nonprofit worker, had cast her ballot and walked back outside with her partner, nearly two hours later, she was ravenous. They beelined for a food truck they had spotted earlier in the parking lot, hoping to buy a belated lunch. Instead, they were handed meals for free. To Vincent, a self-described picky eater, the chicken and chorizo arepa that she received tasted amazing, and was a welcome gift after the wait at the polls.

“It definitely made my voting experience better,” says Vincent. “Our budget was tight before the pandemic and has definitely gotten worse since, so a free meal was a moment of extra happiness that day.”

The food truck, Delicias Colombianas RR, was serving food as part of Chefs for the Polls, one of several initiatives that have sprung up this year with the mission of feeding people at the polls. By providing free snacks, water, and hot meals at polling places with extensive lines — Chefs for the Polls, which is operated by José Andrés’s nonprofit World Central Kitchen, has used social media to document early voting waits as long as 12 hours — the organizations say they hope to use sustenance as a way to address food insecurity, improve upon a frustrating voting experience, and celebrate civic engagement and the democratic process.

“Elections are something where our whole country is participating in something together. Food is similar; food is about sharing a table and dishes with other people,” says World Central Kitchen CEO Nate Mook. “The idea was: How do we make this a little more uplifting and positive?”

Technically, efforts like World Central Kitchen’s aren’t specifically or exclusively for voters: Rewarding voters with discounts or food quid pro quo is illegal when federal candidates are on the ballot. Accordingly, generally, these kinds of freebies are advertised as being for everyone in the general vicinity, whether or not they cast a ballot.

Mook is careful to note that Chefs for the Polls’ fundraising is separate from World Central Kitchen’s disaster relief efforts: feeding areas affected by hurricanes and earthquakes, and, more recently, the people who have lost their jobs during the pandemic. “I certainly wouldn’t categorize our elections as a disaster, but there are a lot of problems,” he admits. “When we see a huge turnout — especially coupled with the restrictions around COVID, because you have fewer polling places and poll workers — you end up with long lines. And so that’s where this idea came from: Let’s tap into this incredible network of chefs, restaurants, and food trucks that we’ve built to respond to the pandemic, and support some of these communities where we’re going to see long lines now.”

There is evidence that events like free food near polling places can get more people in line to begin with, and thus help increase voter turnout. Donald P. Green, a political science professor at Columbia University and the co-author of Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout, has studied the effects of “election festivals” — featuring attractions like food, music, and games — held near neighborhood polling sites during early voting or on Election Day. In four randomized experiments held between 2016 and 2018 (building off earlier work in 2005 and 2006), the events drew in a higher average turnout increase of 2 percentage points. “These festivals do seem to attract crowds,” Green says. “They pull in people who would have otherwise sat it out.”

Food could play a significant role in that, depending on where the festival is held. During a trial held between 2005 and 2006, Green noticed that in lower-income urban areas, “there were legitimately hungry people,” and food did seem to draw more people. One reason, Green suggests, is “the instrumental value of the food itself”; another is “by making the election site more attractive socially.”

Encouraging voter turnout is an implicit part of many current feeding-the-polls efforts, although some organizations shied away from explicitly naming that as the primary goal. For some, addressing hunger is a major motivation. While food insecurity isn’t a new issue in this country, “the pandemic has obviously accelerated a lot of those problems,” says Chris Stang, the CEO of Infatuation and Zagat, which has partnered with nonprofit the Migrant Kitchen on the initiative Feed the Polls. The group plans to serve 50,000 people on Election Day by paying local restaurants, caterers, and food trucks to prepare thousands of meals each, at the cost of around $10 per meal.

“It’s important for us to make sure we’re fighting hunger and allowing you to continue your constitutional right to vote,” says Nasser Jaber, co-founder of the Migrant Kitchen. Hunger relief organization Feeding America estimates that 17 million people in the U.S. could become food insecure as a result of the pandemic, on top of hunger levels that were already at 37 million people in 2018. High-income earners often don’t understand the struggle of working for $10 an hour, as a lot of kitchen staff — including large numbers of undocumented immigrants and people of color — do in New York, says Jaber. “The idea is to encourage people to come out, to register, to take food home, and to make that grueling process, especially on a cold November day, much more tolerable.”

Photo: World Central Kitchen

Bad experiences at the polls can affect whether or not voters keep turning out to cast their ballots year after year. A recent study by Stephen Pettigrew, director of data sciences at the University of Pennsylvania’s Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies, found that “for every additional hour a voter waits in line to vote, their probability of voting in the subsequent election drops by 1 percentage point.” He also notes that long lines disproportionately depress turnout among minority voters, particularly Black voters, who are much more likely to face lengthy wait times at the polls.

“Long lines have a negative impact in many real ways, besides being annoying. We know that they’re limiting, especially in majority-minority precincts,” says Adelaide Taylor, co-founder of local grassroots coalition the Georgia 55 Project, which seeks to increase voter accessibility in Metro Atlanta. In Georgia, employers must provide workers with at least two hours of paid time off to vote, but that often isn’t enough time, even during early voting, especially in a state that has been called a “hotbed for voter suppression tactics.”

The Georgia 55 Project — which owes its name to the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as to the 55,000-vote difference that lost Stacey Abrams the gubernatorial race to Brian Kemp in 2018 — plans its line-warming initiatives as part of a holistic effort to improve the overall voting experience, in the hopes of encouraging people to stay in line and to keep showing up. The group began as a handful of people raising money to bring pizza to Atlanta voters in 2018, and recently expanded its focus to encompass all phases of the voter registration and election process. But food still remains key to its outreach methods. “Not only because it’s a facet of Southern hospitality and culture, but we believe … that it’s one of the best ways to find common ground with others throughout the community,” says Taylor. “It’s about having someone walk away feeling like they participated in democracy, and they’re excited to vote the next time, and it was a fun experience.”

What that looks like in practice differs slightly for each initiative. For Chefs for the Polls, it means first using data to identify geographical areas where there could potentially be long lines. Next, World Central Kitchen reaches out to local restaurants, food trucks, and chefs — including high-profile names like Hugh Acheson, Ashley Christensen, and Ed Lee — in order to mobilize people on the ground who can prepare meals in the hundreds and be ready to report to polling locations as needed. (Mook notes the best food options are “handheld,” things like tacos or sandwiches.)

It’s a lot of complicated logistics, but for World Central Kitchen, the whole operation — including scouting, constantly monitoring, and adapting in real time — is practically second nature, says Mook. “In a place like California, a wildfire might break out, and we have 12 hours to get a kitchen up and running and food out the door. So this is very normal for us.”

Pizza to the Polls, an established presence compared to the relative newcomers on the block, is trying something different this fall. In addition to the polling-place pizza deliveries it has been facilitating since the 2016 election, the volunteer-run organization has hired a handful of staff and is working with foundations, consultants, Uber Eats, and restaurant partners to launch a food truck program for the first time. Between October 24 and November 3, more than 250 trucks will be “deployed as roving voter support wagons,” stopping by poll sites across the U.S. to dispense free food and promote voting rights resources, according to Pizza to the Polls co-founder and director Scott Duncombe.

But just like it did in 2016 and 2018, the organization will still accept reports of long lines at polling places. Those submissions go to volunteers (there will probably be 50 to 100 this election, Duncombe estimates) who then validate the claim, look up pizza places around the poll site, and place an order for approximately six to 15 pizzas to be delivered. “I try to order a variety because you never know what people will like,” says Los Angeles resident Erin Haglund, a Pizza to the Polls volunteer since 2018. “Always classics like veggie, pepperoni, and plain cheese, but if the place has unique specials, I get one of those, like a white pizza or Buffalo chicken or super meat lovers. And if they have vegan options, [I] definitely throw a couple of those in.” More than 15 pizzas per drop, though, Duncombe says, and the pizzeria often can’t produce the order in time.

For this election, the Georgia 55 Project has come up with a model in which businesses and companies “sponsor” a local restaurant, which will then be able to use the funds to prepare meals for Election Day; the food is then picked up by volunteers, who bring it to a centrally located hub from which the food can be distributed. Taylor says her fellow organizers realized early on that restaurants wouldn’t be able to donate food for free, given the difficult financial position that the pandemic had put them in: “A lot of restaurants are financially strapped, but now more than ever, they want to be more involved with voting rights.”

According to Mook, these efforts not only help support restaurants, but can also highlight the crucial spot that restaurants can occupy in a community, especially in times of crisis. “The restaurant industry is so important to our communities,” he says. “I hope this can be another example of how important that industry is and the role it can play in supporting our neighbors.”

Photo: World Central Kitchen

None of these initiatives, which brand themselves as “nonpartisan,” were particularly keen to directly name President Donald Trump as a raison d’être behind their efforts. (As Mook puts it, somewhat ironically, on behalf of Chefs for the Polls, “No politics involved, just tacos.”) Yet the specter of his presidency is difficult to extricate from the context behind issues like long lines, voter suppression, and the COVID-19 response, and from organizers’ explanations for why this election, why now?

“This has been a really hard year for all of us, with the pandemic … and people losing their jobs, it feels like a lot of people can’t sit on the sidelines,” says Duncombe, pointing out the number of people — as well as corporate brands and businesses — that appear to be more civically engaged this year. Another organization he’s involved with, Power to the Polls, has far surpassed its goal of signing up a quarter of a million people to volunteer as poll workers for this election. He can’t accredit the momentum he’s seen — from the ongoing protests against racial injustice to intensity surrounding local mayoral races — to the top-ticket race alone. “Everyone wants to make sure they’re part of this,” he says.

Stang attributes the mobilization this year to the pandemic and what may be “a heightened sense of empathy,” as people have seen colleagues, friends, and family members suffer and lose their jobs. Moreover, he says, “I think more and more you increasingly understand how your elected officials and the policies that are in place affect the outcomes for all of us.” What remains important, he adds, is making sure that “this isn’t just about November 3.” Beyond the election itself, he says, Feed the Polls is thinking about how it could potentially help effect legislation in the future.

Taylor concedes that the Georgia 55 Project’s efforts and the public’s broader involvement can’t necessarily be divorced from “the current political climate,” but she believes that it was inevitable that people would start to demand more from their elected officials. “We rarely talk about the president when we’re organizing and planning for our efforts; we are just so focused on helping Atlantans, people in Georgia, and our community vote, especially because voter suppression is so bad,” she says.

While her organization is still all volunteer run, and she and her co-organizers all have day jobs, she says she can’t imagine “just now tuning out,” after ramping up so much this year. Even beyond this election, there will be local races, as well as other efforts to reduce voter suppression. Per Taylor, “That is a goal and a mission that will withstand the latest vote, sweatshirt, or messaging from advertisers.” Where there are lines, there will always be hungry voters.

Eater is part of Vox Media. Find more coverage of the 2020 election across its other 13 networks: how to vote, in-depth analysis, and how policies will affect you, your state and the country over the next four years and beyond.

Khói Barbecue is known for smoky brisket pho and bò lá lốt sausage

“Growing up in Texas, in Houston especially, where there’s a ton of Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian people, Korean, Japanese, Pakistani... that has a huge influence on how and what we cook,” says Don Nguyen, who along with his brother Theo, co-owns and operates Khói Barbecue in Houston. “When we cook [at] Khoi we ask ourselves: ‘What dishes can we riff on that brings us nostalgia?’”

That’s where notable dishes like Khói’s brisket pho come into play. Growing up eating both Texas-style brisket and pho often, they figured this combination of smokey meat and noodles would work perfectly. The Nguyens also make a bò lá lốt sausage, turning the traditional lá lốt leaf-wrapped beef dish into a sausage, and smoked chicken rice and yuzukoshō dish that’s a play on the chicken and rice they ate growing up.

“Viet-Tex means few different things,” says Don. “It’s a term that we feel encapsulates our identity. We’re Vietnamese Americans that grew up in Texas, it’s as simple as that. But it’s also the type of food that we like to do. We love traditional Vietnamese food, we love traditional Texas barbecue — that’s what started the essence of Khói.”

The chain filed for bankruptcy in June

Indoor dining had returned in June

Not all that long ago it seemed like if the pandemic weren’t exactly over by now, then at least the worst of it would be. But the summer didn’t make things any simpler. Cases continued to spread, and fires and hurricanes ravaged the West and Gulf Coast. As the weather turned colder, more states began allowing indoor activities and face-to-face school. As a result, the virus appears to be surging once more. It is increasingly clear that not only will thousands more Americans likely die as a direct result of COVID-19 by the end of 2020, but the mass misery of the economic devastation it has unleashed — suffering disproportionately endured by Black and Latinx communities — will not lift anytime soon.

Benefits like the federal $600 a week unemployment expansion ran out or contracted for more than 25 million Americans in July and the federal government has failed to agree on the terms of a new aid package. Organizations that provide food and housing assistance to low-income people across the country, already strained by the last several months of the pandemic and the government’s appallingly incompetent — and at times malevolent — response, are scrambling to meet a tidal wave of need. As roughly 40 percent of restaurants on the brink of closing forever, programs that aid people in the food industry are also seeking further support so they can continue to provide assistance to worker who remain unemployed or underemployed. Groups representing Indigenous communities, undocumented immigrants, farmworkers, and people of color are also mobilizing to get assistance to marginalized people and lay a foundation for a more resilient food system — because while it’s an extraordinary time of need, it’s also not new.

Hunger and poverty have always been the U.S.’s most shameful open secrets. Despite being the wealthiest country in the world, as of 2018 more than 13 percent of people in the U.S. lived below the poverty level, according to the Census Bureau, while a full 78 percent of U.S. workers lived paycheck to paycheck. The pandemic and its economic fallout have put those statistics into ever starker relief, as the nation’s working class and its poorest residents have faced the largest health burden from the virus. Several studies have estimated that pandemic-related job losses and increased food costs have roughly doubled food insecurity in the U.S., and No Kid Hungry estimates that one quarter of children around the country could face food insecurity in 2020 due to the novel coronavirus.

In this guide, Eater has identified a range of programs, organizations, and charities fighting hunger, developing sustainable food networks, and providing support to the roughly 31 million people who are unemployed or are working less than they’d like to be due to this global medical disaster. These are places that are stepping in to do work in their communities where governments and elected officials have left people behind. Collected here are opportunities for giving and volunteering in and around the United States and its territories, at both the national and the local level, as well as in the U.K. Editors have done their best to vet the charities included here, but it’s always important to make sure when you give money or time that the organization you’re supporting aligns with your values and has a transparent, proven track record. If you only have time or resources to give, give it, but monetary donations — especially those offered over an extended period — can be even more impactful because charities tend to know where the greatest need is. If you’ve chosen a group and aren’t sure what’s the best way to help, it’s worth reaching out and asking.

To read more about how to help locally, check out the guides from Eater city editors:

• Eater Austin
• Eater Boston
• Eater Chicago
• Eater Dallas
• Eater D.C.
• Eater Detroit
• Eater Las Vegas
• Eater London
• Eater Los Angeles
• Eater Montreal
• Eater New Orleans
• Eater New York
• Eater Philly
• Eater Portland
• Eater San Francisco
• Eater Seattle

Brittany Holloway-Brown

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The spreadsheet contains sheets for each city editor, but the data object is derived from the sheet labeled “final”.

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Lost the energy to cook? Look to the Instant Pot

Now that we are over the sourdough-and-regrowing-scallions part of the pandemic, but in no way over the actual pandemic, we must prepare for The Hunkering. Every winter is a time for stews, roasts, and hearty pasta bakes, but this winter it feels extra important, both because most of us are going to be indoors way more than any previous season, and have completely lost the energy to do anything but throw a bunch of stuff in a pot. Which obviously means it’s time to break out the Instant Pots.

A few years ago it seemed like electric multicookers, especially the Instant Pot, may have just been a fad. But the fact that in one appliance you can cook anything from soup to pudding to bread makes it pretty ideal for cooking during quarantine fatigue. Eater’s staffers rounded up our favorite go-to Instant Pot recipes, perfect for the many nights when you’re in the mood for something delicious, but you know, wanting to do as little as possible to make it happen. And as Eater Dallas and Eater Houston editor Amy McCarthy noted, you could always go with “just some fucking chicken breasts,” and let the machine do the rest.

Beef barley soup: This is the first that comes to mind. It’s basically a textbook version of this classic soup, and perfect for chilly weather. It’s low-lift, reasonably quick to put together, and freezes well. — Missy Frederick, cities director

Dakbokkeumtang: I make this recipe when I’m craving a savory chicken dish with the volume turned up. All that delicious flavor comes from the sauce. It’s a perfect balance of sweet and spicy from gochujang and sugar. Doenjang and oyster sauce adds another layer of depth. Typically to make this Korean comfort dish, you would need to watch over the pot, making sure that the chicken pieces are soaking up the sauce. But everything is done in the Instant Pot, so the result is fall-off-the-bone, tender chicken with potatoes that just break apart with no effort at all. Also, who doesn’t love a dump-everything-and-press-the-button recipe?! — James Park, social media manager

Mac and cheese: I make this one once a week when I’m lazy and cooking sounds hard. I use whatever cheese is in the fridge, add a little brown mustard to the mix, and usually skip the milk or add it at the very end. Would suggest you grate the mozzarella or it becomes a blob. — Brenna Houck, editor at Eater Detroit

Chinese poached whole chicken: Basically, I get a whole chicken every week, and I got tired of roasting it. This recipe is a really easy — not entirely foolproof, but a good enough way to poach a chicken whole in about 40 to 50 minutes, with not too much work on my part. You can use it specifically as white-cut chicken over rice with, say, a ginger scallion sauce, but just as often I pull the meat off the carcass and use it for meals throughout the week. Two caveats: You really do need an instant-read thermometer to tell when it’s done, and I find it’s much better to salt the chicken 24 hours in advance (I use the method in Salt Fat Acid Heat), so it has enough taste. And after poaching the chicken and pulling off the meat, I often toss the carcass right back into its cooking liquid, cook it on manual for another 60 minutes, and end up with a bunch of chicken stock. — Meghan McCarron, special correspondent

Kosha mangsho: This is a traditional Bengali goat or lamb stew in a heavily spiced, yogurt gravy, and it’s intensely rich and comforting. This recipe uses a pressure cooker to save time, but on the offchance you landed on this page and don’t have an Instant Pot or the like, you can still just simmer it in a large pot. — Jaya Saxena, staff writer

Lemongrass coconut chicken: The sauce is unbelievably tasty for just a few ingredients and it comes together so quickly. The labor to flavor ratio makes it one of my go-tos when I get bored with cooking or can’t be bothered to put in much effort. It’s also great over rice or any other grain. — Brittanie Shey, Eater Houston and Eater Dallas associate editor

Basic chicken noodle soup: I make a basic chicken noodle soup in the Instant Pot probably every week in the winter: The base recipe is two chicken breasts, a carton and a half of broth, a few cups (I eyeball it) roughly chopped diced celery, carrot, and onion, and whatever spices you want. Cook everything together on high pressure for 25 mins. You can quick-release the pressure and remove the chicken breasts, and shred them — while you’re shredding, set the pot’s saute function so the broth remains boiling and add egg noodles. Once the noodles are cooked, dump the shredded chicken back in and you’re done! This is perfect because frozen chicken works just as well (and at the same cook time), and you can experiment with any leafy greens at the end (throw them in when you add the noodles) and any noodle types you want. — Erin DeJesus, lead editor, Eater.com

Pork chile verde: This recipe is very good; I found it last year when I had a truckload of tomatillos from my garden. It is a great comfort food and works well as stew or tacos. — Brenna Houck, Editor at Eater Detroit

“It is our hope that the Legault government will also take this time to reflect and reevaluate their unjust treatment of the restaurant industry”

Plus, Burger King’s questionable Halloween stunt, and other news to start the day

Four Loko releases new flavored shots because nothing matters

After a brief foray into the intersection of wellness and apocalypse with the release of a Four Loko hard seltzer last fall, the brand whose boozy energy drinks were once known as “blackout in a can” has returned to its dirtbag roots with a new line of flavored, bottled shots. Available in Sour Blue Razz, Lemonade, and Sour Peach varieties, the ready-to-drink shots clock in at 13.9 percent ABV (except in Tennessee, where it’s 10 percent). Their official name is “Pregame,” which tells you everything about the way these baby Four Lokos are meant to be consumed: hard, fast, on your buddy Mike’s stained living room futon surrounded by people who you know you will see fighting a bouncer by the end of the night.

In a time when some college students are getting busted for throwing parties despite the risk of COVID-19 transmission, one might be tempted to ask Four Loko, “Now, really?” But this is a company whose FAQ boasts the question, “Is Four Loko currently banned or illegal anywhere?” (The answer is no.) Its mission is proudly, unrelentingly one of getting people fucked up. For now, that will only be in the Southeast states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee. Just hope that those shot drinkers are pregaming nothing more than a quiet night in.

And in other news…

• Despite a huge number of permanent business closures during the pandemic so far, there are also a “significant number” of new restaurant openings, nearly in line with numbers from 2018 and 2019, according to Yelp data. [Forbes]
• Which grocery stores fared the best from March through September? Local and regional chains saw the smallest decreases in business, while Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods suffered the most. Trader Joe’s eventually recovered, but Whole Foods still hasn’t quite rebounded. [The Takeout]
• Months after holding a virtual summit in which McDonald’s CEO vowed to fight systemic racism and discrimination, the chain has filed a motion to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit filed by more than 50 Black former franchisees. The corporation called the suit “illogical” for its accusation that McDonald’s “steers” Black franchisees into low-income areas with high crime rates and underperforming sales. [NRN]
• As part of its Halloween promotion, Burger King is giving away free Whoppers to fans who visit shuttered rival fast-food chain locations, which seems … questionable, in a pandemic in which thousands of eateries have closed and millions of people have lost their jobs. [CNN]
• Chipotle’s digital ordering system now comes with a sustainability tracker for all ingredients. [Restaurant Business]
• KFC’s fried chicken-scented fire logs are back. [MarketWatch]
• Behind the Times’ decision to credit the original sources of recipes in its Cooking section bylines. [NYT]

• All AM Intel Coverage [E]

“It has come to my attention that some of you feel as though you are crockpot masters and are elevated beyond helping new crockstars... If this is you, congratulations, you do not need to be a part of this group and you may find the exit at the top of the group page with three little dots.”

Some truck owners are doing better than they could have imagined. Others are struggling mightily.

Since the pandemic, more people are cooking at home; many more people are tired, desperate, or sick of it. Enter frozen meals.

Over the past couple months, I’ve done all sorts of things in the kitchen. Rolled out and folded up light and springy milk bread. Peeled and cored pears before preserving them in sugar syrup. Pureed celeriac in a food mill, made apple sauce in an Instant Pot, endlessly whisked stock and roux into gravy. Taken the Amy’s mac n’ cheese out of the freezer, cut a slit in the plastic wrap, and microwaved it for three minutes. If I’m honest, I’ve done that last one the most.

Seven months into lockdown, my culinary ambition isn’t gone, but it’s shredded. Sometimes it’s cake from scratch; others it’s the microwave; sometimes both at once, like last Sunday, when I baked brownies but neglected to make dinner. I don’t think I’m alone in my hi-lo cooking derangement, though I do have a strange, specific excuse. Back in May, I thoughtlessly placed a burbling, superheated spoonful of bechamel sauce in my mouth to taste for salt; my mouth ejected this morsel of lava by swallowing, searing my esophagus (my doctor has almost concealed her horrified fascination with this injury). For months, I’ve been on a soft food diet to help it heal, rendering restaurant take-out more or less impossible, and requiring me to peel every vegetable and porridge every starch. When I can’t bring myself to puree another soup, there is the Amy’s mac and cheese, which me and my miserable esophagus agree is good enough.

Frozen food sales have been rising throughout the pandemic. The reasons are twofold: In the early months of lockdown, food shortages and supply chain breakdowns lead to freezer-stocking; as the crisis has worn on, the convenience of ready-to-eat meals has become increasingly appealing to those sheltering at home. Many more people are cooking more at home; many more people are tired, desperate, or sick of it. And beyond the unique, horrible crisis remaking how Americans eat at home, the slower-burning economic crisis is pushing middle class diners toward their freezers, too — frozen food booms during recessions.

Frozen food companies have spent the past few years trying to attract younger consumers with healthier or at least updated options. In 2018, the CEO of Con-Agra Foods said, “a millennial does not know what a Salisbury steak is,” so when the pandemic hit, the Adobo Chicken Power Bowls with Pepitas were waiting. Whether Power Bowls taste better than a Salisbury steak is an open question, but they fulfill the real purpose of frozen food for a new generation: an acceptable simulacrum of a meal you crave.

Unlike a lot of people in their thirties, I’ve always bought a lot of frozen food — but not for me. My girlfriend finds cooking baffling and aversive. When we got together over a decade ago, her freezer was stacked to the brim with organic-branded frozen food and her refrigerator was bare. When she did dishes, it was only forks. I now do all the cooking, and she does all the dishes; she subsists on a small, rotating set of favorite frozen dinners (currently: chicken tikka masala, fish sticks, and cheese ravioli) when I’m out of town or otherwise unable to cook us both dinner. I can’t even get her to reheat leftovers.

Until a few months ago, I basically refused to join her in eating frozen dinners. It went beyond taste or health or satisfaction. Frozen dinners felt closer to non-food than food, and sharing them together felt like a dire verdict on the state of our household, relationship, and maybe the world. Even though (or likely, because) I spent my childhood eating my own portion of Healthy Choice turkey with gravy while my mom and siblings did the same, to do so now threatened my sense of being a competent adult, one who’d taught herself to cook and cared about food for a living.

But that was before I was humbled by the bechamel. When you have to change your diet to take care of yourself, you’re forced to confront how many shoulds and arbitrary rules guide your eating. I was sure I couldn’t eat scrambled eggs without toast, sure that lettuce soup would be unbearable and cheese sticks a bore. But as it turns out, they’re fine. (Lettuce soup is delicious.) Also fine: frozen meals.

In an ideal world, there’s always time and mental energy to cook a meal; in a shitty world, cooking that meal creates a sense of accomplishment and meaning otherwise unavailable; but in all worlds, there is hunger, and a body needing to be fed. Now, on some exhausted Fridays, I microwave a perfectly fine chicken tikka masala for my girlfriend, and then a soft and comforting mac and cheese for myself, and we eat them together on the couch while playing video games, and I feel satisfied.

Photo credits: Frozen dinner, CSA Images/Getty; flowers, Fine Art Photographic/Getty

The nonprofit No Us Without You feeds more than 1,300 undocumented families in Los Angeles that have been impacted by COVID-19. Here are some of their stories.

It’s said that prep cooks, dishwashers, and bussers are the backbone of the restaurant industry, but when the pandemic arrived, forcing restaurants to shutter, it was these workers who were hardest hit. About 10 percent of restaurant employees in the United States are undocumented immigrants (many studies estimate that number to be much higher); although they pay taxes, with few exceptions, undocumented workers are unable to receive government aid like unemployment benefits. When COVID-19 put them out of work, many were forced to use up savings, and in the worst cases, choose between paying rent or buying food.

As mutual aid efforts sprung up in response nationwide, Los Angeles-based grassroots organization No Us Without You started feeding the families of undocumented restaurant workers. The founders and weekly volunteers, who are all industry veterans, see their efforts as a way to give back to the essential workers that made their own careers possible. (Read more about No Us Without You here.)

Below are some of the stories of these workers, in their own words.

Gaspar, prep cook originally from Oaxaca, Mexico

José, busser originally from Oaxaca, Mexico

Esperanza, lonchera cook originally from Michoacan, Mexico

Maxima, prep cook originally from Chihuahua, Mexico

Samanta Helou Hernandez is a multimedia journalist and photographer based in LA covering culture, identity, and social issues.
Copy edited by Emily Safrin