Kwanzaa Karamu Catering in Brooklyn

What food belongs on a Kwanzaa Karamu table?

The Karamu is a shared feast, and the tradition of it is deliberately Pan-African. Food from across the continent and across the diaspora on one table, at one meal, eaten by a room together. That's the brief. It isn't a fixed menu and there's no canonical dish list, which is part of why people find it harder to plan than a Thanksgiving.

What that means in practice for a Brooklyn household is a table that reads across more than one tradition instead of settling into one. From our catering menu the working core is Pan Jollof Rice at $85, Lamb Suya at $165, Fried Chicken Suya at $120, Pan Collard Greens at $60 and White Rice at $40. West African dishes and Southern dishes on the same table, which is what the feast asks for and also what this kitchen already is.

Kwanzaa runs from the twenty-sixth of December to the first of January, and the Karamu is traditionally the feast held toward the end of it, on the evening of the thirty-first. Beyond that we will leave the seven principles to people better placed to speak on them. We cook.

Why does a Karamu table suit a kitchen that cooks both West African and Southern food?

Most catering orders make you pick a lane. A jerk specialist gives you a jerk table. A soul food kitchen gives you a soul food table. If you want both, you place two orders with two vendors and coordinate two arrivals.

We are a family kitchen rooted in Freetown, Sierra Leone, cooking West African and Southern food out of one kitchen at 1172 Park Place. For most of the year that's a convenience. For a Karamu it's the actual point, because the spread you want is precisely the one that crosses. There is a longer version of that argument in our piece on West African catering in Brooklyn.

The connection between the two halves isn't decorative either. Rice cooked as the center of a meal, greens cooked long, peppers, groundnuts, one pot doing the work of many. Those things traveled, and they turned into Southern cooking on the other side. We wrote that out properly in how West African cooking shaped Southern food, and it's worth reading before you plan a Karamu, because it changes how you think about which dishes sit next to which.

Which trays build a Pan-African spread in Crown Heights?

Here is the shortlist with full-pan prices, so you can build the order before you call.

A table with jollof, suya, greens and a plain rice already reads across the diaspora without anybody having to explain it. Everything after that is a matter of how many trays you want.

What does suya bring to a Kwanzaa table that nothing else does?

Suya is grilled meat carrying a dry spice mixture built on ground peanuts, and it is street food in northern Nigeria in the way that a sandwich is street food here. It isn't a subtle dish and it isn't supposed to be. It arrives with its own smell and it starts conversations.

On a Karamu table that has a specific value. Most of the spread is familiar to everybody in the room. Suya usually isn't, and it is the dish that makes the table feel like it genuinely crossed the Atlantic rather than gesturing at it. Lamb Suya at $165 is the fullest version. Fried Chicken Suya at $120 gets you most of the same character at a smaller number.

People ask how hot ours comes out. That's a completely fair question and it deserves a real answer, not a line in a blog post, so call 718-799-7160 and ask us directly.

How much of a Kwanzaa spread should be Southern?

More than people expect, usually. A Karamu is a Pan-African feast, and Black American food is part of that, not an afterthought to it. Collard greens at $60 belong on the table on their own merits, not as a concession to the children.

The balance that tends to work is one clearly West African centerpiece, one clearly Southern anchor, two rices, and then whatever else the household always eats. That gives you a table where nobody is stranded, which matters at a meal designed to be eaten by a whole room at once.

What should you settle with us before a Karamu order?

Two things, and we would rather you ask than read a guess.

How far one full pan goes is the first, and it depends on how many other trays are on the table and whether people are seated or moving. We size that with you on the phone instead of publishing a headcount that would be wrong for most households.

How much warning the kitchen needs for a specific date is the second. That moves with what else we are cooking, so ask about your date and you'll get an answer for your date and not a generic one.

The full tray list with every price is on our catering menu. If you are planning further out, the same kitchen handles the completely different problem of Super Bowl party trays for a living room and the deliberately half-sized Fourth of July order for a host who is grilling, and the whole year sits together in our guide to holiday catering across the Brooklyn calendar.

One call to 718-799-7160 and the order gets built around whatever shape your table already has. Start it with the jollof at $85 and the greens at $60. Those two carry the rest of it.