to gate keep or not to gatekeep

in conversations about cultural defense, one tension frequently emerges: the contradiction around gatekeeping. on the one hand, withholding certain food knowledge (recipes, techniques, or rituals) is a vital act of protection and preservation. it guards against appropriation, erasure, and exploitation, especially for communities like mine whose culinary traditions carry deep histories of displacement and resilience. on the other hand, this very secrecy can sometimes reinforce barriers to recognition and legitimacy, especially when compared to the pedestalisation of western culinary traditions like classical french cuisine.

french culinary techniques have been canonised globally, taught within formal institutions and professional kitchens, and treated as a fixed body of knowledge. their kitchen rituals are written, codified, translated and widely accessible through culinary schools, textbooks, and certifications. this accessibility is a key reason why french cooking is often lauded as the pinnacle of culinary art. it has a defined language, clear standards, and a structured pedagogy — all of which make it legible and prestigious within the dominant culinary establishment.

by contrast, many black foodways and diasporic culinary traditions are rooted in oral transmission, improvisation, and embodied knowledge rather than written texts or institutional training. these practices are dynamic, fluid, and deeply relational, shaped by histories of forced migration, colonisation, and survival. this history has made black culinary knowledge less likely to be “fixed” or codified in the ways western traditions are, which means it often resists the neat categories and hierarchies that dominate culinary discourse.  black culinary traditions are less often “allowed” into the canon, not for lack of value or richness, but because their forms refuse and resist codification. 

this creates a paradox: black food knowledge is both protected through secrecy and yet often rendered invisible or illegible in the mainstream culinary world. the act of withholding recipes or refusing to document certain practices is a form of cultural sovereignty — an effort to protect sacred knowledge from exploitation and to maintain intimacy within communities. but it can also inadvertently contribute to the marginalisation of black foodways, even as it protects cultural integrity. it raises difficult questions about how we balance preservation and protection with accessibility and recognition.

the tension is not new. it echoes broader questions about who gets to define expertise and value in cultural production. the culinary canon has historically excluded or diminished the contributions of black, indigenous, and other marginalised cooks by privileging techniques and traditions that fit colonial and capitalist frameworks — those that are static, teachable, and easily commodified.

what’s needed is not to force black foodways into these rigid frameworks but to broaden our definitions of culinary knowledge and expertise. oral traditions, improvisation, communal cooking, and embodied memory must be recognised as equally legitimate ways of preserving and transmitting food cultures. these modes honour the living, evolving nature of black foodways and resist the settler-colonial impulse to fix culture in place.

ultimately, honouring black culinary traditions means holding space for multiplicity — for knowledge that is simultaneously private and public, oral and embodied, fluid and ancestral. it requires us to dismantle the hierarchies that position fixed technique over relational practice and to celebrate the rich, dynamic ways food nourishes not only our bodies but our histories, identities, and futures.

we must continue to build spaces that honour and share these rich, living traditions on their own terms, outside of colonial frameworks of value. chef wu from ounje co is doing incredible work in this area for nigerian cuisine, check her out here.