Happy Kwanzaa! Kenya Parham and Tonya Hopkins, speaking to NPR in 2022, dish on what makes a Kwanzaa feast.
SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
So I know Christmas was just yesterday, and Hanukkah started last night, but buckle up because another winter holiday is just getting going. Kwanzaa is a weeklong celebration of Pan-African and African American culture that starts today and ends on January 1. At the end, a big communal feast called Karamu is held. The holiday was created in 1966 by activist Maulana Karenga and revolves around seven principles or community values.
KENYA PARHAM: We’ve been celebrating Kwanzaa my entire life.
MCCAMMON: That’s Kenya Parham. In 2022, she helped to create the first-ever Kwanzaa series for the Food Network, called “The Kwanzaa Menu,” along with her sister, Tonya Hopkins.
PARHAM: I joke with folks all the time that we come from a family where we’ve been dropping Kwanzaa banners from our house since I was born. So we are very unapologetically proud to be Black family.
MCCAMMON: So when Tonya was asked to write an entry for Kwanzaa foods in the “Oxford Encyclopedia Of Food And Drink,” she was well-prepared.
TONYA HOPKINS: There were a lot of questions. People were like, are there foods associated with Kwanzaa? And it’s like, yes and no. There’s not, like, an established official thing.
MCCAMMON: Hopkins says Kwanzaa foods and traditions are diverse because Black Americans have origins in a wide variety of cultures.
HOPKINS: Kwanzaa was a creative synthesis of harvest rituals from throughout the African continent. And Black people in America, even though were often diminished or shrunk down or homogenized, we come from many different national origins, cultures, religions. There’s food that goes with that.
MCCAMMON: For Hopkins and her sister, that means almond flour Kwanzaa cookies, black-eyed pea fritters and iced tea made with bright red hibiscus flowers. She says there are very few rules for the holiday.
HOPKINS: You can celebrate Kwanzaa relatively simply. You can go all in if you want, but you can also just raise a glass, pour a libation. It’s not rigid.
PARHAM: Absolutely. And I think Kwanzaa is a little different, is inventive and creative and, you know…
HOPKINS: And collective because also, you know, there can be a burden around holidays like, oh, my God, you know, where one person is expected to do their signature dishes for everybody. It’s, like, no, you come in there, you wash your hands, you roll up your sleeves, you work together, you prepare these things together. And I think that lessens the burden and makes it also fun and inviting and social and collective as well.
MCCAMMON: That was Tonya Hopkins and her sister, Kenya Parham, speaking with NPR in 2022 about Kwanzaa, which starts today. So happy first day of Kwanzaa to all who celebrate.
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