Episode 7: A Chef’s Perspective on Food, Culture, and Community

In Episode 7 of Of Seed and Soil: Unincorporated Voices of Food, Farming, and Freedom, we sit down with Chef Ralph Motta—a St. Croix native whose deep love for the Virgin Islands and fresh, local ingredients has shaped his culinary journey.

From childhood curiosity to professional kitchen, Chef Motta shares how growing up in the Virgin Islands informed not only his palate but also his purpose as a chef. In this thoughtful conversation, he talks about the cultural importance of food, supporting local farmers, and why fresh, sustainable ingredients matter—especially in a place as unique as the VI.

In this episode, Chef Motta discusses:

--How growing up in St. Croix inspired his passion for cooking.
--Why the Virgin Islands’ food culture is worth preserving and celebrating
--The chef’s role in advancing local food systems and sovereignty

Whether you are a foodie, a farmer, or someone passionate about community-led food systems, this episode offers a grounded and flavorful take on the deeper meaning behind what we eat.

🌱 Learn more about Chef Motta’s work: mottacuisine.com

🌍 Visit Virgin Islands Good Food: www.goodfoodvi.org

📲 Follow us on Facebook: facebook.com/goodfoodvi

📸 Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/goodfood_vi

🎧 Subscribe and follow for more real stories from the people growing, cooking, and transforming our food futures in the Virgin Islands.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome to uh seed and soil podcast. I'm Summer Sidney Brown, your host, and of Seed and Soil, um unincorporated voices of food, farming, and freedom is a podcast that seeks to uplift the voices of farmers, fishers, chefs, healers, people, the people in the food system that are often invisible. And today on this episode, I am privileged and lucky to be speaking to one of my favorite chefs, um, Ralph Mota Chef. Ralph Mota, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I'm doing pretty well. How much is that?

SPEAKER_02 0:48

I'm great. You know, like every time I like to be honest, so it's like as soon as the camera turns on to close my episode, like you get a little bit worded out, but then it'll be like right away with a conversation. So you asked me, so I just said it. Yeah, it was weird five seconds ago. Now I'm good. Are you good?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

I'm doing pretty great, yes, I am.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

So one of the reasons um I wanted to have a conversation with you um is because I thought, you know, Ralph is an amazing chef. I truly mean that. And I was like, I wonder what his relationship with food is like. I wonder how much people know about like who he is outside of the title of chef. And so I'm hoping that in our next, I don't know, 45 minutes together, we can kind of just like explore the contours of Ralph and then what it actually means for your work and for food. So like conversation starter, who is Ralph Mota?

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Who is Ralph Mota? That's a really good question. Um, so to start, I am a 34-year-old, like young black entrepreneur living on the island of St. Croix. That's like a generic version of who I am. Um, if we want to dive in deep into who I am, I was born and raised on the island of St. Croix. I am one of five kids. Uh, came from a very loving household, but we grew up the majority of my life on a 10-acre goat farm in Rattan. So the essence of who I am started from a very young age on a farm in Rattan. Um, I would eventually graduate high school and my dreams of becoming a vet would be crushed as my dad would one day wake me up at six in the morning to birth a breached kid. And as a at that point I was in sixth grade as a sixth grader, um, having to stick your arm in a sleeve-length glove and insert that into a goat to birth a breached kid was something that was very traumatic. And the thoughts that I had of being a chef, well not a chef, but a vet, because I grew up on this farm with every animal, we had them all. Um was quickly crushed.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Whoa! I like so first of all, whoa. So you were like 12?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

I was yeah, that was 12, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

And you delivered your first kid.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

I I did, I did, I did.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Like that's a that's impressive.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

That's impressive. Well, yes, I mean that's what you do on a farm, yeah. But it's also very traumatizing.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

But I think that's important. That's what you do on a farm. Correct. Right? A lot of times, I didn't I've never stopped to as much as I work with farms and farmers, I never stopped to think about the reproduction cycle.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Um, like outside of understanding like the monetary value, like you know, there's a certain age you won't slaughter. So I thought you were about to tell me a slaughtering story that changed your like vet experience. But I think that that'll happen for most people, like when they actually have to slaughter an animal. But yours was a birthday story.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's completely different. Yeah. So I, you know, that ended. I got dressed, I went to Lumuckle, I attended class, like nothing happened, but the dreams of becoming a vet died there. Um, and I would go to high school and eventually find a love for art. And I would then graduate, head to Miami. I did my freshman year, I transferred up to New York. I graduated from Pratt um with a Bachelor's of Fine Arts and Painting. And I thought that's where it all ended. I was like, okay, I'll have a love for art, I now have an art degree. This is gonna be it, this is my life goal, this is gonna be the career path. I'm an artist, I'm an artist, and I'm in New York, it's the mech of art. I made it, I'm at the pinnacle. That life was perfect, yeah, yeah. And then reality sets in, and you have to get a job to afford bills. Um, and that's where catering came in. But when I got to college, my freshman year, I only made it six months on the meal plan. And then I was like, I'm done. I came home for Christmas and I told my mom, I was like, I can't do it. I I have to cook for myself. I can't do it. And I was in a dorm where you had access to a microwave, and that was it. So I cooked in a microwave for six months. I went back, I did not eat from the cafeteria, I just cooked in a microwave, and then I transferred to New York, and I was like, I don't know what we have to do, but we're gonna get a dorm that has a kitchen. And so we did. And so I cooked for me, and then inadvertently all my roommates and like some people from down the hall.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

So let's reverse when and how did you learn to cook? Who was who?

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Uh, I was one of five kids, and so it was mom and dad, and mom was an attorney, but she was also the cook. Um, and so you know, some days she was in trial and she's not getting out until 7, 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night. They're still in court, so somebody had to cook. And my dad was a pescatarian, so he could cook, but he wasn't cooking meat dishes because he wasn't tasting the meat dishes, so it was left to my sister, and then a portion of that became left to me as I, you know, her limitations as to what she could cook and how good it was. Um, and so then I picked it up because at that time, this is let's say this is like early 2000s into like 2004, 5, 6, 7. Um, chopped is really big on TV. And everybody's watching TV. So chopped was like the it, and you wanted to be, you wanted to make what they were making and be on set with them. Be a chef, yeah. I was like, yeah, I could do that.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

So I'm laughing because my nephew right now, currently, anytime I ask him about what he's cooked and his sister, he's always like, I could definitely make it better than Ryan, like for sure. Like I mean, yeah, and thought that was good. So, like, I could see you in the house. Like, yeah, you think she'll cook it?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

I got five kids, I can feed Alaya, no problem.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Yeah, I could totally like the chef of the house.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

She's I so it started there, it started in high school. Um, and then I got to college and I was like, well, just like push me off a ledge. I can't eat pizza and burgers and fries anymore. I have to eat like real food. So I just started cooking for myself. And then I didn't realize how hard it was to really cook one portion. So you just, you know, you go to the grocery store and it's like, oh, you buy pork chops, you buy four pork chops, or you buy chicken, it's like seven pieces of chicken in a package. So I would just have so much excess that my roommates would come home and be like, What the f is that? What is that smell? And I was like, Well, they got Benya in the kitchen, or I just make Johnny Cake, or like there's some peppa steak and some rice, like go feed yourselves. And so, but I fed them for the three years I was in New York. Um, and then I graduated and I stuck around and I got a job. Um, my first job was at a catering company, and I was a driver. I used to deliver food to photo shoots, a lot of movie sets. Really? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Any interesting ones?

SPEAKER_00 7:49

Everybody, yeah, yes. We we saw everybody, but the the greatest one was the not this first catering company, but the second. So I I worked at that first one and we met everybody from Jay-Z to Beyonce to um J. Cole, uh Brad Pitt, movie stars, models. We we were on shoot for everything. But I left that catering company and I started a business called Moto Cuisine. And I worked at Christie's The Art Auction House for three years. And I left, or not three years, sorry, three months. And when the temp position was over, I left and started out a new catering company called Nas. And Nas catering company was located on St. Mark's in the Lower East Side. And one day we worked a job in Dumbo. And where is Dumbo? Dumbo is in Brooklyn, like right over the Brooklyn Bridge, like right where it connects, it's right below the Brooklyn Bridge. And we worked this job in Dumbo at 5 Water Street was the address to the building. I could never forget because I had no idea who the talent was because they would never tell you who the talent was. And normally you would deliver catering and be out of there before the talent showed up because everything had to be perfect. And that day everything went awry. And we showed up early, so I was sitting in the van with the food, and none of the PAs had done their jobs correctly, so everyone was confused as to when the talent was coming. And I'm sitting there and I'm calling, and the building's still locked up, they won't let me in. The people don't know how to get in, they're not sure when the talent's coming. And all of a sudden, this black escalade pulls up in front of my van and just stops, and the doors pop open, and everybody's like scrambling. And I was like, Oh shit, this is the talent. Oh my god, this is the talent. And out pops Oprah Winfrey.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Wow!

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Curlers in her hair, like getting ready to go upstairs to be prepped for this shoot. And I'm sitting there at the car, like, oh shit, it's Oprah. Like, there's a billionaire standing in front of me on Five Water Street in Dumbo on like a Monday morning. Like, what is life right now?

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

That was that I've met so many celebrities and so many models and so many artists, but that one, and it only made it that much greater because I went upstairs behind her, obviously. They have put her in a room the size of this. Like, she's sitting at the head of the table, there's people on either side, and it's like, you just have to set up, set up right here. These four, yeah, four feet set up catering for 20 people on four feet of space. Like, that's impossible. And do it quietly because we're all in this tiny little room, and I was like, it has to be perfect. The pressure, oh my god, the pressure. And she's there and she and she gets up and she asked me my name, and I told her my name. I was like, My name's Ralph. And she's like, nice to meet you, da da da. And I set up the food and I left, and as I'm walking out, a door around the corner opens up. And I had just graduated from art school and Chuck Close, which is this very phenomenal painter, he did like really oversized life science portraits, and they're all pixelated because he was um handicapped, and so he would paint with a paintbrush in his mouth, and he would paint in these big squares and do these massive portraits of celebrities and everyone. And so here he is behind a camera getting ready to shoot Oprah for I think it was the 20th anniversary of Vanity Fair's like Christmas issue, and I was like, What is life? And that was that was like the pinnacle of my existence. I was like, and when I went back that afternoon to pick up the food, down comes the hallway, Oprah and her team, and she's passing it. She goes, bye, Ralph. And I was like, Done. Shoot me dead. Yeah, I was like, I'm good. I'm good.

SPEAKER_02 11:41

I just want to pitch that Oprah's an Aquarius, so you know, that's the only relationship I have with her. That share our sign, and so like, yeah, she's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Me, you and her.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

In one universe, yeah. In one universe, the three of us.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

It was the epitome of like my existence. I was like, this is life, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Wow, so right, you graduated, you're in New York, you're having these great experiences. Let me ask, why did you come back home?

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Uh, that's a good question. Um, and it's it's it's a really good question because when I graduated and I moved to Miami and then ended up in New York, me and all of my friends, one friend ended up in Chicago, one friend ended up in Rhode Island, uh, somebody was in Miami, somebody was in Philly. Um, me and all my friends were like, we're settled. This is gonna be it, we're gonna be here until our 40s, maybe our 50s, and then we might go back home for retirement. Like, we're not going home before then. We cannot go back to St. Croix. That was the goal or the thought that we had at that point was we have to do everything possible to stay on the mainland. We have to make it. And I was in New York, I'd been out of school for three years, and I was actually getting ready to move to the West Coast. I was gonna move to Oakland, California. And that summer 2016, my dad fell ill, very young, 63 years old, and it progressively got worse in a very short period of time, and my mom called us, and we all flew down to Puerto Rico, and he was airlifted, and within five days, he had passed. And this was the beginning of August, and my lease was up the end of August, and I was moving to the West Coast, and my dad had just passed. We live on a 10-acre goat farm. I was in New York, I think one brother was in DC, the other one I think was in New York with me too. And I think my two other siblings were here, but that was it. And I was like, I can't leave my mom with a 10-acre goat farm to tend to herself. Like, of all my siblings, I am the only one with an empty schedule that could like clear my calendar and decide to move home. And so I called my job and I put in my two weeks, and I was like, I'm still in St. Croix, but I'm gonna come back. I'm gonna give you guys two weeks, and then I'm gonna shut down my apartment and I'm moving back home. And they were like, no, please, no, no, no. I was like, I have to do this. And so I went back and gave my two weeks, um, packed up the apartment, and I left New York. And I actually didn't immediately move back here. I it took some time, but I I realized that a part of it was knowing that when I came back, he wasn't gonna be here, and so it was difficult for me to just come back. So I left New York the end of August and I packed everything into uh suburban and I drove it up to my friend's place in Rhode Island, moved it into her spare bedroom, and I stayed on her couch for six weeks, and I came home October 20th, 2016.

SPEAKER_02 14:43

Wow, thank you for sharing that very personal part of your story. Um, I hope that it motivates and moves people who could be watching as much as it just like moved me because I was like, oh wow, this is like you know, and you see people like oh you come back home, or you you know, like you never really get to stop and ask people like why you made the choice or what what positioned your transition, right? And um, for that's deeply personal and moving and difficult, and also I hope has been a little bit wonderful in some ways.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

It has.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

I know it's been hard, we could talk about that too, yeah, but like the so even though you said, hey, I don't want to be a vet no more, like thanks, 12, got it, keep the goats, right? Um, here you are, like making the choice to come back and be like, I'm gonna be well suited to support my mom in this. Yeah, um, so you were almost like back to being maybe not a vet, but now in a vet farm. No, a vet, a vet. No, a vet. So you were like back in it on a 10-acre farm.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, living it on a daily with all the troubles that come along with the reproductive cycle of goats.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Oh no, you were back in the reproductive cycle of goats.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

I mean, there's no dad to call on you. I was now that person. So yeah, I lived it. Whether I wanted to be a vet or not, I lived it. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Um, my question was like, did it feel like muscle memory, like certain things you just knew, or were you oh yeah, were you now fumbling along as right? Because you were like Ralph the vet became Ralph the artist, right? And the artist dabbled in like the catering world, and like this is how you understood yourself, yeah, and now you're back to I am these things, and now I'm also Ralph the farmer again. So, like I'm curious, muscle memory, or it was a struggle or both.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah, no, it was it was very much muscle memory, um, and a lot of it as it played out, it immediately came back to me, and I was like, Yeah, that's what my dad used to do, and this is exactly why he did it, because this had to be done. I never fully understood, but I get it now. Okay, I got it. Okay, do it. That's it. But a lot of it was just muscle memory. I think during the whole experience, and came back in 2016 and I didn't leave the farm until 2022, May of 2022. Um, so I think during that whole what, like six-year experience, um maybe one or two times I had to search for something on Google to figure out how to fix it. But besides that, everything was like he taught us this as kids, as five kids, four boys on a farm growing up with every animal and manageable, imaginable. We were taught everything and we were prepared for this. So like I knew it all, and there were no surprises.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

So, in like in my head, it weirdly enough, it feels to me like if it were me, I could imagine it feeling to me like a renewing of my dad, like in a different way, because it's like now I'm walking in the shoes that you actually walked in every day, and your thinking makes sense to me. Yeah, but you could almost imagine, oh like dad is pretty smart, right? Like, there's there's a smartness or ingenuity or brilliance to the things that as a boy I was watching, yeah, and it's just like okay, these are the things we do, and now you're like walking and like understanding this is the reason why. Like, we're smart, like absolutely beautiful. So, from so now we're at Farmer. How do we become chef? Because you are like, I think world renowned. You're you were the um ambassador for the Virgin Islands, right? Most people know you just for being a chef. So when does like whole chef persona kind of like that part of your life become and also this now?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Um that really kicked in uh I want to say what 2017, 2017. So if you tread back to 2014, I started the company in April of 2014. Um, and I was in New York, so you're not really gonna get much traction as a small company with no capital in New York. Um, but I found this online platform called Feastly, and I was able to upload onto there and become basically like a private restaurant in my apartment on the weekends. Okay. So I would work at the catering company, and then Fridays I would host a dinner, and Saturday and Sunday I would host brunches. Um, and they became popular, and people would drive in from Connecticut or take the train in from Pennsylvania, and everyone in the tri-state was there, and we'd pack out all the seats, and we'd have these amazing brunches all weekend long. Um, and it was a really great experience, but you weren't gonna get much more traction than that because it took so much capital to say you were gonna open a restaurant or have a commercial kitchen or any of that. And so um, you know, I did that for about two years, and then I left New York and I came back home. And right before I left that summer, that summer, that or it was it was in winter, so I think it was spring because it was a little cold still. Um, the Department of Tourism was renewing their marketing contract, and I had been hired by two companies, one out of New Jersey, one out of New York, and they hired me to cook for the governor was coming into town, and they were gonna woo the governor and the department of tourism to buy for the contract. And so the one company hired me to cook in the Delta Sky Suite of the Yankee Stadium, and the next one the following day hired me to cook on a yacht in the Hudson River. And so I was kind of in the realm of chefs that could potentially be uh the next culinary ambassador. Um, starting then, that's when the Department of Tourism really picked up my name. Um, and so then fast forward my dad passing, me moving back to St. Horror later on that year. And the following year, when Digby's um reign was up, they called me and offered me the contract, and I took it, so I became the culinary ambassador in May of 2017. Um, and so because I came home under the pretense that I was here to help with a goat farm and basically grieved the loss of my dad, I had basically put down all things chef. And anything culinary was not even in my purview. I was at home dealing with goats and grieving, and that was it. Um, and so when they called me to do that, I was like, well, you know, yeah, let's let's let's do it, let's do it. And so I remember it was early 2017 that I got my first gig on St. Croix, and I did a 50th birthday party, and that kind of launched me back into the world of catering. Um, and so it was like goats and food and goats, but goats stick up all day. And so when the goats aren't taking up all day, I can do food. And then I had to do food because they were flying me out to places like Atlanta Food and Wine, and then the Dallas Father's Day events and events. In New York and things in Puerto Rico and in Philly, and we were doing trade shows. We did things in Fort Lauderdale. So I was up and down, and I was now the face of the culinary scene in the Virgin Islands. And I had to be. And so it kind of propelled me into well, market the company, push the company, get more clients. Let's do this thing. The goats are gonna be there, but let's do this thing. Are the goats still there? The goats are still there. Okay, good, good, good. I'm just joking. I'm just joking. The goats are still there. Um, and so I I pushed myself. Um, and so it really was 2017 that launched me into pushing the idea of this culinary path as like a career. Um, but prior to that it was very much still art, and I do food on the weekends. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

So I can remember my mom went to a wedding. You catered, it was at CMCA art. So I won't say who the people I mean, I know who they are, but my mom went to a wedding, and she came home just oh my god, I just had the best food ever. And she was like, and it was so clean, and it was so good, and it was so beautiful, and this young man did it at everything, and she was like, let me tell you, she was raving. If she could have given you 20 stars instead of 10, like you would have received it. She was like, You know this person? I was like, Yeah, mom. You know, Ralph, but she was like, Oh my goodness, if I ever have a party, it have if I ever celebrate anything, it has to be Chef Mota. I was like, So that's in the back of my mind as my mom's like 70th birthday comes up. Like, if you have a party, well, you better get around because the woman done said who she wants. Um, so I feel like you you have like well, it sounds like you made a mark nationally, internationally, and also at home. Yeah, which I don't think is an easy feat.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

No, I would say not, not no, not so much.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

And so, you know, of seed and soil, like we are Virgin Island's good food. The thing that I do every day, it is really thinking about the food system. We focus on what we believe the smallest actor is, and the smallest actors in the food system, um, they're farmers, they're especially in the Virgin Islands, they're small subsistence farmers, they're your dad, they're you. The people who are on a Tanika boat farm who like they're doing this for legacy purposes, they it's been in their family. Um, it's the small consumer, right? And in this case, it's the small chefs, right? It's also it's all of these very tiny actors that make the food system, they pull levers in the food system. And so tell me, when you think about an ingredient, what do you want out of it?

SPEAKER_00 24:56

For me, um I I want I want the essence of what it is, I want the essence of its journey, I want the essence of the thing. So for instance, it's a we're on synchroi. Like I can drive down the road and see a farmer on the side of the road selling something, and I can stop and buy it, or I could take the knowledge that has been bestowed onto me by my dad and my uncles and family members, and I could use that to go source these same products. So, a lot of times, like right now it's mango season, I could stop anywhere and purchase mangoes. Everybody's selling mangoes, but I like the thought that I can remember when I was a kid growing up, before I was even a teenager, my dad would take us into Annaline to these very particular spots to go pick mangoes. And I will jump in my truck, because to this day I still drive a Ford F-150, like he did, and I will drive off-road and find these places to go and enjoy the memories that I shared when I was a kid. Um, and so for me, it's yes, I could go and buy that mango and I could take it in the kitchen and cut it and process it and turn it into something delicious, but it's not just the thing that I want, I want the essence of what it is or how it became. So I want to go into the bush and trek and find that mango so that I can pick the right mango. I don't want to go shake the tree and knock them on everything. I just want to pick that one mango that watching me, iron me, I iron it.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

And I connect with it and I want it because it has something to offer. And I feel for me it has the essence of what it really is.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

So I think what you're bringing up for me is that this, and I think this is the first time this is gonna come up on any of our episodes, right? When we think about food and farming, there's also another F, right? Foraging. And so, like the ability to forage, the liberation of foraging, the the health, the health earning and track, but also like to your point, the journey to get to the food and and the the knowledge to know where to go to get what you need. Yeah that's that's like um that's a gift, right? But it comes with like remembrance, like you like it had to be it had to be given to you. I mean you could discover it. There, I think there's people who discover it in forage culture, right? But I also think that there's many people who that is the gift that has been passed on to them by somebody else. Where let me show you where it's again, X, Y, and Z. Exactly. Yeah, and that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

It it truly is, trust me. I the other day I caught myself in the market and there was an abundance of passion fruit, and all of them and them were like, Come, come, come. I know you need passion fruit. I was wanting passion fruit, and then you'll come to we win in Ganon, and then you'll say, Where's the passion fruit there? Come buy it now, buy it now. And I was like, there's just an overwhelming abundance of passion fruit. I don't have to work for it, I don't like this. I'm buying on. I sorry, I'm not buying it. You know, and I left, and I and that weekend I drove through the rainforest because I was like, it's been raining, the gut's probably running. I wouldn't drive through the rainforest, put my windows down, listen to the water, probably stop in a couple places where we used to stop back when we were kids. And as we're driving, all of a sudden I see this patch of fruit in a road that somebody ran over. And I was like, A passion fruit in a road that's been ran over. Somebody didn't eat that and shut up there because nobody don't just eat a passion fruit, a passion from a vine. Yeah. So I pull over and I start looking. I was like, I can't, I can't see anything. And then I start to see yellow in there, and I was like, yeah, passion fruit. I go in, I just leave them in the market, you know. But now I go in into the bush in a rainforest to go forage for passion fruit after ground, and all of a sudden here, and I was like, You got jack spania everywhere. Why am I in this bush foraging for like three passion fruit? I can't do anything with three passion fruit, but I just left like 50 pounds of passion fruit in the market. But I just I wanted the essence of that of the thing. I didn't want the abundance, I didn't want the ease of procuring. I wanted to go in there and fight the jack spania for the true passion fruit, you know?

SPEAKER_02 29:06

You had something fabulous with.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

And then I went home and scooped in that container and put in the freezer so I could wait until I buy the more so I can fold something gonna go back to the market because true passion fruit thing are full of containers, so now you're gonna go back and buy 47. I can you know, but it was just the essence, I wanted the essence of that feeling of what it is to go out and find it.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

But I think there's something important, and and and maybe many chefs feel like this way to like be in relationship with the food that you prepare in a meaningful way because like I was just having a conversation with a restaurant owner, and we were talking about the quality of food that comes out, and um, we were talking about the fact that in some places food has become so industrial, right? That you have people in a kitchen who may have skills, kitchen skills, but they no longer have a love or a desire. Um, right, so the recipe is really ingredients in, recipe out, and there's something missing in the food. So it can look technically correct, it can be technically correct, but when you're making the same thing every day in a mass scale, it could become every day.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

You lose a little bit more, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:29

So I feel like your desire to, I know I have to come back to the market, I know I'm gonna give you ladies, but right now I need to be in a little bit more relationships because you already have relationships with the ladies in the market, so that's something I want to highlight. They know you, they know what you need, and they're ready for you. Look, look, come, come, I have it. Yes, you I always want it, but in this moment, you needed that, right? Because it is the journey that helps you, the artist, right? The person who is not just ingredients in, but like actually like preparing something that hopefully people find memorable, and they do they do. My mom found it memorable, so that's super beautiful, and like foraging is a thing that I feel happens in the well, I think it happens everywhere, and I think indigenous people it like foraging is a way of life, like when you know, um Taino, you know, native sovereign peoples who they're in relationship with land for a long time, foraging is a large part of what we do, and then there's like this convenience culture that has come about with modern society that has stripped people from that. So I'm glad you told that story. Um, because if you have not foraged or you don't know what foraging is, look it up.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Yeah, and that wasn't a concept to me until I met Digby and until I met Frank, right? That's when I really was like, oh, that's what I is, and foraging is a thing. So I feel like I picked that up later in life.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

See, for me, it was even before I knew what it was, but it's because I grew up in St. Croix with a father who was part of a seven-generation Kruzhang family, so there was so much knowledge instilled in him, and there was so much culture and history that it that was just his way of life, you know. And they used to ride Haas, and so they would ride Haas through the mouth in them and then pick these things, and so then he would take us to go do it. And I was it so it was just instilled in me, so I could remember clear as they like living in New York and being in that metropolitan city and being surrounded by concrete and glass and being like, What can I eat? And it was like, Oh, it's apple season. Oh, those are crab apples. What is a crab apple? I'm going to eat it. Oh, we cater in this. Uh, we used to on St. Mark's, we used to cater out of a bar, and the bar had a courtyard in the back, and in the back of the courtyard had one really massive tree, and it was a mulberry tree. What is a mulberry? I have no idea, but there's these really long-looking blackberries. Are they edible? Oh my god, they're edible. I'm gonna eat mulberries all day long. And I'm walking through Central Park, what is a ginkgo? Is that fruit edible? Like, I and so I just remember being in New York and being like, what is edible? What can I eat? Am I supposed to eat it? I'm allowed to eat it. Are there rules against eating it? Because everything is so structured and so rigid there, and everything has to be purchased from a grocery store, and you don't source organic things from nature. And so it was, I remember being in that city and feeling the need to rebel. Like, what is that berry? Is that edible? Because that looks like a berry. Is that an apple? Is that a pear?

SPEAKER_02 33:38

I love that you talk about feeling the need to rebel because I think that what we have here, and you see it now, right? Like you could drive along any street and you could see papaya, you could see tamarind, you could see mango, you could see banana. Like, we we we still have food integrated into our common pathways, but I feel like the the message, right, is that to be sophisticated, to be educated, to be of a certain status, you don't do that anymore, right? There's no need to forage, right? Like that convenience and and and grocery stores and fine marketing and fine packaging, right, for a subset of us. This is what tells you you have arrived when, right, the echelon above seeking to go back to where our ancestors come from, raising their children, right? Where we and our ancestors come from. They're not they're not getting their children technology devices, right? They're getting their children experiences, right? So they're learning how to fish, to throw line, to make seen net, to forage mulberries, to understand when and where you eat something. So I think there's something because in like the liberation that is afforded with freedom of access to food that we as Virgin Islanders have begun to take for granted because it doesn't seem civilized, yeah, right? Like, and um, I'm glad you rebuilt and asked those questions.

SPEAKER_00 35:07

Yeah, it was and I never really understood where it came from because everyone around me was like, What are you doing? Don't eat that, and I was like, Io, I can walk up the street one of these nights to go pick some pear because there's a pear tree with like Andrew pears just hanging off of it. Why why is there a pear tree with an abundance of pears just sitting here? Like, I I need to go and pick pears. I'm in Italy. Why am I in Italy trying to pick pears? Why don't I go to the grocery store and pears?

SPEAKER_02 35:34

It's so funny. As you're talking, I want to clarify for people because you know the Belgian islands would have called avocado pears. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're talking about pears as a real, well, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Like an American.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

If you're a Virginia Caribbean person and you're listening, we're talking about an American, in this case, uh Andrew pear. An Andrew pear versus what we're gonna call an avocado. I also wanted to tell the listeners that has is coarse just in case like people, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right in horses, but I love that um like we can also co-twitch, right, and talk about us in our in our language and talk about our food in our language and in our dialect because all of this is part of the remembrance and part of the food story. Yeah, um, when I went to Atlanta, I went to this um Gala Gichi restaurant and I was so excited when I saw the menu because the menu was written in a dialect that was almost just like ours, and I knew what everything was, and I was so impressed. I was like, and I feel like we need more spaces in which we can authentically present who we are and it it feel um not just to us but to people like is right, yes. Um, and you're well traveled, yeah. Um, if y'all didn't know, I just read him out. He's well traveled. He's like, so you know, you talked about being in Italy. What are some of the other places that you travel to, and like how would you describe how they experience food? Is it any different to how you experience it when you're here?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Ming I'll lie to you. Because I just landed on this island two days ago.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

Well traveled.

SPEAKER_00 37:28

I started in Calamada, Greece, and then I went to Mykonos, Greece, and then I went to Pamplona, Spain, and then Lisbon, Portugal. And I was having a conversation last night with my best friend, and I was telling him I was like losing my mind. I was like, I went to all three of these cities in these massive countries with tens of millions of people. And prior to going there, I've heard from people that you know, this people from here could be stuck up, people from here could be stuck up, people from here could be this, people from here, and I've heard all these things before, and then I got there and I experienced it, and I was like, holy hell, this is what we're missing. These people, from one nation to the next, have all created an identity that's surrounded on the basis of food. Everything they do and who they are stems from agriculture. In and from Greece to Spain to Portugal, these people speak through food and they only speak through food because of agriculture. And they speak about their industries that they have developed and nurtured and protect to this day. Like they are the greatest thing since sliced bread, despite the fact that they share a border with another nation who produces all the same things and refuse to import things from across the border, right there. They don't have to put on a ship and sail it for a week. They can just drive it, they refuse to import things from next door because they have it the best. I went to Greece where there's 10 million people in their population and there's 130 million olive trees. There's 13 olive trees per person in Greece. And yet, when I consume extra virgin olive oil in the US, I know it to be Italian. Because from the moment I was growing up to watching what I watched on TV, olive oil was associated with Italians and Italian cooking and only Italy. And when I think about the olive oil I consume in the US and when I live there, and to this day, it's always Italian. And I went to Greece, where they have 130 million olive trees. They have created a system around their olive oil where they have developed olive oil tasters. The same way France has some liers, they have olive oil tasters that have to be recertified per year. There's only a hundred of them in the country. That's how exclusive they are. And they taste and grade olive oil.

SPEAKER_02 40:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

And here on St. Croix, I'm like, what do you mean they taste and grade olive oil? I just I buy olive oil because it's cheap. I buy the one that's the extra virgin, but it's $19.99. I don't want to pay it at $29.99, I don't want to pay to $40.99. I want the $19.99 one. And then I was in a nation with 130 million trees that have developed a whole system around scaling the taste and the quality of their product. So much so that they have created tasters who are certified by their government yearly to taste and grade this product that they produce. And yet, when I think about all the olive oil consumed in the US, it's Italian. I don't know Greek olive oil. But they have 130 million trees. And like to me, that was the craziest thing. Because I was in Greece and then I took a plane to Spain, and then on the shelves in Spain, it's only Spanish olive oil. There's no Greek olive oil. Why would they import Greek olive oil when they make their own olive oil? And then you get to Lisbon and you're in Portugal, and it's like, why would we import? No, we have. I was like, what do you mean? Wow, why?

SPEAKER_02 41:32

So I think we like one, that passion and excitement in which you share it, like the message around there are nations of people who remember their agricultural origins and take pride in it and have crafted, I'm I'm I'm like reiterating what you said because it hit me, crafted their identity, their present-day cultural identity around food and that agricultural history. Um, where we live in where we live in a region um that has the same power, though separated by water, right? And we haven't yet um been afforded the opportunity to scale identity. Um but we could, but we could.

SPEAKER_00 42:26

And this is so this is another part of the conversation I had last night where my friend was like, but you don't understand, you came from countries that are old, those places are thousands of years old. We're young, we're young, our government's like a hundred plus years old. I was like, yeah, I get that. But this island, despite the fact that it's been seven different nations, has always been agricultural land. From the time the indigenous people were here, to the Spaniards, to the English, to the Dutch, to the French, everyone has tried to cultivate this land because it's rich land. And all of that history, despite the last 300 years under Denmark being a very dark history, the land here has always been cultivated. It's always had a purpose. So and then the US stepped in and it's like, forget all of that. We got you. Eat some government cheese and suck in some saltine krakas, and we we good. You're gonna be good. Forget your land. And we have like in a space, what is it? It's been what, 108 years, nine years, something like that. In a very short century, we have forgot all about our food and our culture and our identity, and it's all been about how do we import things. And as we import things, we've come further and further and further and further away from the essence of what was like Kruzhan culture, what is Krujan identity?

SPEAKER_02 43:52

And it's funny, right? Because what is Kruzhan identity? What is same Twomyan identity? What is saying Joni identity? Correct. Identity, right? Totally, right? Yes. And how do those things connect and integrate but also have unique place? And so the reason why we know nothing about, in my estimation, Grecian olive oil, and I want to shout out the Greek-Ricans on my team because I actually have two of our team members, Marissa and Christina. Okay. Um, their heritage is both Greece and Puerto Rican, right? So the Greek-Ricans, and Christina just went back to Greece with her mom, and while she was there, I had the opportunity to talk to her, and um, she sent pictures and videos, and just like she was so in love with this place, and she really echoed what you're echoing about this strong agricultural sense and the identity she experienced while she was there, and it was so enriching to her and refreshing. But marketing, the problem is marketing, right? The problem is tariffs that are organized by a global food system, right, that stops people and countries from being in relationships and has governments determining what products can come in and what products can go out, and supply and demand, right? And it has nothing to do with quality of food or actually even a relationship of peoples, and it's the relationship of large-scale business that determines what a place knows, and then when you take some place as small as the Virgin Islands and some place as um scattered, right? Because as the Caribbean, the amount of control in what we receive and how we receive things, right? And um, unfortunately, the erasure, yeah, the erasure of things that allow for us to thrive and hold on to identity is the pressure is too much, yeah. And I know we're talking about food, but we're also talking about what that means because we see with the loss of identity um the other things that creep into our community, and so like to wrap our wonderful conversation in your as a person who's still a goat farmer, as a person who has a deep relationship with the journey of food, if you could offer us one thing you think we could do, or what thing you one thing you hope is possible for us knowing like all the things you've got got to see, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00 46:34

For us to start to really take initiative in the the pathway towards like food sustainability, but in doing so, just becoming more familiar with the idea of preserving. Because we we here we love to eat a sawfish, and you forget that that's just cured fish, and that process came about because an abundance of fish during a season that then needed to last all year long to feed and sustain a people, and so you just mentioned like you drive down the road and you see so many different fruits and they're all in season at different times, and if you want to access them, you can only access them once a year for like maybe three months out of the year when they're in season. But our ability to forge for that food and then preserve that food to feed us and our culture and our identity year round is something that's missing, and I think that's what they got. Like, I we went on an olive oil tour, and olive harvest is from November to February, and people have olive farms that don't live there. People they live in Australia, they live in Japan, they live all around the world. They're doctors, they're lawyers, and they have olive farms that they'll never give up. And during that harvest period, they will take a month off from work and come back to harvest their olives, process them in meals, and then store that olive oil and sell it throughout the year as they find buyers. But they don't just let the fruit drop just because they're a doctor or a lawyer in Australia. They still find time to come back and harvest that product and then store that product to be consumed all year long. So it becomes part of their identity because they don't just have olive oil for three months out of the year. They have it 365 because they've created a society that not only consumes it in so many different ways, but they've realized the importance of it, not just culturally, but like economically. And so they they preserve it, they do everything they can to preserve it. And we pass tamarind trees that are just busting with tamar and mango trees that are falling everywhere. And we do nothing to harvest and then turn that into food that can be preserved, whether it's jams or stews or leather or dried or whatever it may be, so that I could then access that 365, so it then becomes a part of the story, a part of the culture. Like, there's no reason coconut man selling coconut wada every day of the year, but you still going in the grocery store to buy Goya shredded coconut, you know? Like there's there's a missing some yeah, there's there's uh something's just falling short, and I think that's something that we need to take from everyone else and all of these other nations that are doing just that. They are finding a way to preserve what is there naturally so that it then becomes part of the conversation. Because without it, then who are you?

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Without it, then who are you? I want to thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, and I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you stopped in and you listened to today's episode, I want you to like, I want you to subscribe. I want to ask the question where can they find and follow you? Before I close this out, where can people find and follow Chef Ross Mota?

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Um, Moda Cuisine on just about every social media platform, and follow our website as well, motorcuisine.com.

SPEAKER_02 50:02

Moda Cuisine, just about on every platform, motorcuisine.com. So, like I was saying, like, subscribe, share, please comment if you want to be in conversation with us. Let us know if you found something in today's podcast helpful, um, inspiring, you disagree with something, we would love to engage with you. And um, I want to charge you to put your mind to thinking about one, what what can you preserve, right? What can you preserve in your land? Um, how can you limit your food waste if you have fruit trees? And when last you went to the secret spot to forage a good mango or passion fruit. Um, thank you for tuning in. Looking forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thank you for having me.