A few years ago, I was asked to speak at a PechaKucha event in Fresno. If you’ve never experienced PechaKucha, its a super cool concept. It is a storytelling format where a presenter shares personal presentation about their work - 20 slides with 20 seconds of commentary each. It forces you to be concise and yet pack the presentation with enough information to share why you are so passionate about your work.
Tonight I came across that presentation while cleaning up my files, and thought I would share it with you here. Just the text, no photos. It says a lot about why I do what I do, why it is important to me, and what creating this community is all about. It feels especially important after this past year of COVID to think about our connections with those around us (and yes, I crammed it all into 20 slides at 20 seconds a slide!).
Hi. I’m Amy Jaye. I’m founder of Fresno’s Underground Suppers and I’m here tonight to encourage you FOR THE SAKE OF OUR CITY to sit down and eat with us.
We are at a pivotal point in the story of what Fresno as a community will be. We have the chance to create something vibrant and funky and new. And I believe something as simple as sitting down to eat together will make the difference between moving forward or falling back.
Food is powerful. It brings us together, shapes our memories, and empowers our communities. Though easy to forget while we’re rushing through our day, sharing a meal is an intimate experience, and those who sit beside us at the table can feel this intimacy: Bonds with loved ones become stronger, and strangers feel like strangers no more.
There is something about being willing to bring the same thing into our bodies that builds trust with the people around you. If everyone at the table is gnawing on a pigs foot - you will be more likely to gnaw on a pigs foot too.
Eating together increases trust and cooperation. An experiment was run where volunteers played the roles of a manager and a union rep, and they had to agree on an hourly wage. When they both had a sweet snack, or both had salty snacks, it took 3.6 rounds to reach an agreement. But give one a sweet treat and the other a salty one? 7.3 rounds!
Another study found that people who eat socially are more likely to feel better about themselves, and have a wider social network capable of providing emotional support. Social networks are important in combating mental and physical illness. A significant proportion of respondents felt that having a meal together was an important way of making or reinforcing these social networks.
Yet a third of weekday evening meals are eaten in isolation, and the average adult eats 10 meals out of 21 alone every week. In these increasingly fraught times, when community cohesion is ever more important, making time for and joining in communal meals is perhaps the single most important thing we can do – both for our own health and wellbeing and for that of the wider community.
Food can help us create our identity. Who we are shapes what we eat, and what we eat says a lot about who we are. For instance - tacos have been a huge part of the culture of the people who live in Fresno for years. And taco trucks have been as staple in our community as well.
A couple years ago, Mike Oz and the Fresno Grizzlies started the Taco Truck Throw Down. They brought together things I am super comfortable with - baseball and food - and exposed me and thousands of others to a part of Fresno culture and pushed it into the spotlight.
Now, when people talk about Fresno and Food, this is what they talk about! And what we choose to support is who we are. If we support small farmers and chefs who want to produce good food and great plates, rather than processed commercialized food, that is who we are. Whether you are sitting down to a high end dinner or you are sitting on the curb in front of a taco truck, eating together creates a community identity. We have control over what people know about Fresno. I think it is exciting!
I also want to offer up shared food experiences as a means of escape. Our world is full of scary things, filled with conflict and commitments. We rush around trying to get ahead when often times what we need most is to slow down, take a deep breath, sit down with a friend, and have some damn cake.
Time passes differently when we are sharing a meal with people we love to be around. We can be in a crowded restaurant but all we remember is the conversation shared. We can set aside the stress and just BE.
We don’t have to leave our city and travel across the world to get a taste of India, or Morocco, or Italy. We don’t have to take time off work, pack our bags - we just have to open a recipe book, or do a search on internet. And if we are really lucky, we just have to put on some shoes and show up at the table to experience amazing flavors and hear great stories of where it all came from. Well, if you have ever been to an underground supper you know that sometimes shoes are optional!
You can see how all this might be important to Fresno. We want to be a community where despite our differences, we can come together and compromise. Hopefully we can negotiate like those reps who at the same types of snacks and come to understandings in 3.6 rounds rather than 7.3!
When we sit down to eat together, we are creating new bonds and securing new trusts that that move us from being a city full of strangers into a city filled with friends. People we can go to when times are tough or when we want to celebrate.
When we meet people we may never have met otherwise, we grow our networks. With new perspectives and new eyes we can see possibilities that before were hidden. We can collaborate on projects that are innovative and new and uniquely FRESNO.
We get to say who we are, what we stand for, and the more people feel like they belong, that there is a whole community of others who on the surface seem different but deep down are just the same and have their backs, the stronger we will become.
Remember what I said at the beginning. We are at a pivotal point in the story of what Fresno as a community will be. We can either turn around and go back to what we have always known, doing things the way they have always been done, getting the same results we have always gotten…
Or we can go forward. I know where I’m going. Come Eat With Us.