Bringing Food Justice to BPS and Roxbury

By Megan Donovan

ROXBURY----At the Hi-Lo market in Jamaica Plain, Didi Emmons picks 10 bags of white beans, five onions, eight carrots and a head of garlic which will work as the base for her vegetarian bean chili. She’s preparing for a test run that could result in her chili recipe as the main entre in the cafeteria of some of Boston’s poorer public schools located in Roxbury, Dorchester and Jamaica Plain.

Emmons says too many children eat processed foods and wants school cafeterias to be able to prepare more than ready-made foods high in saturated fat. She wants to get more calories on a healthier plate so that these students get the right nutrition and aren’t hungry later. Her solution: teach “food justice” and put fresh vegetables on the menu.

“These students need to know they are at a disadvantage,” Emmons said. “Because some come from lower income families, they are a fast food target.”

Emmons set out to make healthy, filling and delicious food for kids three years ago when she started a program called Take Back the Kitchen, along with Boston Police Officer Bill Baxter and curriculum manager Kelly Dunn. The program offers cooking classes to middle school students about how to eat healthy foods that taste good. It includes ‘side-by-side’ lessons for parents and children to learn how to shop at the grocery store and how to prepare simple meals.

“Didi’s recipes and honesty has gotten through to them,” Dunn said. “She’s in touch with the community and realizes that they don’t have a lot of time or money, but she finds a balance and comes up with delicious food.”

Once in Emmons’ class, the students claimed to have an allergy which suddenly disappears when they smell fresh vegetables roasting in the oven.
Emmons has opened four restaurants, Veggie Planet in Cambridge, DeLux and Pho Republique in the South End and the café portion of Dudley’s non-profit Haley House.

“I’m still wrangling with the idea that I need to make a name for myself and to be appreciated for my culinary creativity. But that’s not always satisfying. I want to know, what can I do to help?” Emmons said.

Bing Broberick, currently the Business Marketing Manager at Haley House, said that the lack of healthy food options in the area is what drew Emmons to the area.

“I had a vision of over-stepping the black boundary,” said Emmons who is white. “There is a whole world I was not aware of. The non-profit scene in Roxbury is so huge.”

At Haley House, ex-convicts make up the majority of employees. Emmons says she has never been the victim of a crime in her 5 years working in Roxbury. Instead, she has gotten to know the community and says she has met incredibly resourceful men and women who have changed her outlook on life.

“They were my adoptive family,” Emmons said. “There is a lot of concern for other people [in Roxbury] that you can’t find in JP or Brookline.”

Emmons has moved on from Haley House but is still teaching Take Back the Kitchen courses and is writing her third cook book.

She demonstrated her veggie white bean chili recipe to 50 public school cafeteria managers last Thursday and is optimistic change is coming to menus.