The activist chef: How Saqib Keval is using food as a tool for social change
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Saqib Keval, who will be featured in one of the episodes of the upcoming Netflix series 'Chef's Table: Volume 7', is an activist chef who uses food as a powerful tool for social change, gracing culinary skills with a commitment to social justice. Born to a family with deep migrant roots in South Asia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, migration and cultural fusion remain at the core of gut feelings for Saqib while leading his life and doing his cooking. His multicultural upbringing is reflected not only in flavors and techniques but also in the story of his food.
Keval's activism began when he was a program director at People's Grocery, a food justice organization in Oakland, California, where he designed programs to support community-driven food businesses. Later, he worked with ROC to support the organizing of worker-owned cooperative restaurants around different parts of the United States. This kind of role has enabled him to bring together food systems with labor rights, pushing forward fair wages and better working conditions for restaurant workers.
In 2007, Saqib co-founded the grassroots organization 'The People's Kitchen Collective', driven by food to create social change. Later, together with his wife Norma Listman, he opened the restaurant 'Masala y Maiz' in Mexico City in 2017, a restaurant led by social justice interests and the investigation of migration, mestizaje, and the places where food and identity intersect. Some of the focuses of this restaurant are worker rights, sustainable food practices, and community empowerment.
Keval's approach to food, through his ventures, underlines collective leadership, financial transparency, and radical hospitality. He believes food can be one vector of political education: encouraging diners to hold conversations about social issues while nourishing both body and soul. His approach emanates from the idea of food helping to decolonize systems, spark movements, and build community.
Keval's impact goes way beyond the restaurants he has created. He travels the world, lecturing; he actively speaks out for food justice and consults on projects important for social change. Essentially, his cooking is not about taste; it is about creating a food movement that catalyzes change, challenges structures of power, and builds solidarity with communities that have been marginalized.
'Chef's Table’ star Saqib Keval learned cooking from his grandmother
The star of 'Chef's Table', Saqib Keval learned to cook from his grandmothers, aunts, and cousins through passed-down traditions and insight. Born and raised in California to a diasporic community, Keval cooks South Asian food but pulls from the diversity of flavors his family once encountered when living in Ethiopia and Kenya.
Early kitchen lessons situated him in a line of migrations and legacies, affording him a relation to food that was beyond taste but into the story of identity and community.
'Chef's Table’ star Saqib Keval wants to change the ‘boring’ white food served in Europe
Featured on 'Chef's Table', chef Saqib Keval is working to defeat the Eurocentric standards of cuisine often too similar throughout Europe for fine dining. Having lived and worked in the South of France, Keval grew frustrated with the lack of diversity in the food world; it seemed the culinary techniques of white Europeans were dominant. For him, the food in these spaces is always "boring" and filled with blind sights to global influences and stories that shape food culture.
Keval thus hopes that an inclusive approach toward cooking will include celebration of ingredient stories and the cultural meanings of dishes. He strongly feels food should be used as a tool to inspire social change by decolonizing the food industry, allowing traditions and flavors from every corner of the world to be included.
'Chef's Table’ star Saqib Keval has received more than ten global recognitions
Saqib Keval of 'Chef's Table' has been awarded more than ten international accolades for his remarkable work in the food industry mingled with activism. Notable ones include the 2017 Center for Asian American Media: CAAM Advocate Award because of his tireless advocacy on behalf of communities of color for opportunities within the food industry, and his 2017 Rainin Foundation: Open Spaces Fellowship due to his efforts in making spaces inclusive.
In 2018 Keval was awarded the 'SF Chronicle: Rising Star Chef' honor for his innovative genius in the kitchen and dedication to social justice. His restaurant 'Masala y Maiz' was mentioned in Time magazine's 2019 World's 100 Greatest Places, due to the restaurant's cultural impact and the groundbreaking nature of the work he has done there.
'Chef's Table: Volume 7' will be released on Netflix on November 27, 2024.
