The 32-year-old New York is not an influencer Food like the others. Each of its recipes distilled on its Instagram account or in its documentary series is a militant act in favor of ecology and food justice.
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few chefs have experienced hunger. This is however the case of Sophia Roe, raised in social homes in Florida, who draws her energy from this childhood anger: “I did not understand why some of my friends had a fridge filled when I had to be satisfied with me ‘One meal per day, at the school canteen. “Working today in a fabulous studio in an old industrial zone in Brooklyn, halfway between the kitchen and the artist’s workshop, the New -Syork of 32, who abandoned his studies in a cooking school to devote himself to his activity of private chief, is far from fueling the frenzy Foodie.
“Food is not trivial, it’s just a need,” she said. Originally known for recipes designed at his home and shared on his Instagram account with more than 445,000 subscribers, the African-American charismatic, also animator of the documentary series Counter Space, on Vice TV, is constantly wondering about behind the scenes of the food industry. What is the ecological impact of what we eat? Where do the chocolate tablets devoured in three minutes come from which require years of work and liters of sweat before landing in a supermarket? Why do those who work in cocoa plantations will probably never taste the tablet in question? And why do Mexican farmers risk their lives so that others can continue to order an avocado toast?
If she travels around the world to try to answer these questions, the committed head also continues her fight at the local level. Obsessed with the terrible statistics that 60 million American children set their stomach empty, it is working to combat ignorance and injustice it observes in New York and in the rest of the United States. An involvement which has earned her to be nominated twice at the Emmy Awards – to date, she is the only black woman quoted in the Outstanding Culinary Host category (“exceptional culinary journalist”) – and to receive this year a James Beard Award , the price awarded to the biggest talents in American catering.
She was one of the ten chefs in charge of the vegan dinner of the Met 2021 gala, for which she embarked on a reinterpretation of … the Niçoise salad . But Sophia Roe’s goal is not to convert to any food diet. Denouncing the racist foundations of our lifestyles and our food whims, she thinks that imposing veganism – which she sees as a model thought by and for white man – would be like eradicating traditional symbolic dishes of many cultures. She also points to false good ideas, “like sending fresh vegetables to the poorest when they have disappeared to cook for decades and the system does not leave them time!”. For Sophia Roe, cooking is an act of love, self and others. But also a political gesture. “Everything is political,” she said without chewing her words.