Appetite for Change: Soulful Recipes from a North Minneapolis Kitchen

The delicious recipes and community spirit that have made Appetite for Change a force for good in North Minneapolis

Feed someone a delicious meal, and you’ve satisfied a moment’s hunger. Show someone how to cultivate, cook, and share good food, and you satisfy the hungry soul of a whole community. Feeding the soul is what Appetite for Change does, working to improve the foodscape in its Northside community through youth-led urban gardens and farmers markets, cooking workshops and a meal box delivery service, and the Breaking Bread Cafe. Sharing both enticing recipes and heartfelt stories of sustenance, Appetite for Change is filled with soul food classics that feature light twists and local touches and show how multiple cultures can commingle within one cookbook--and even one plate.

There are recipes here for everyone: side dishes like Caribbean Coleslaw, Okra Succotash, and Curried Potato Bites; salads, including Purple Rain Salad and Beet It Salad, both created by AFC youth members to sell at Twins baseball games; small plates, from Jackfruit Nachos to Fried Green Tomatoes; and family-favorite soups and stews, like Lentil Sweet Potato Stew and Jambalaya. There are even breakfast options--including Jerk Shrimp and Cheese Grits, Banana Pecan Bread, and a Big, Beautiful Frittata--and desserts ranging from Flourless Chocolate Cake to Cranberry Cream Cheese Bars. And when it’s time to feed a crowd, look no further than the ＂Community Feasts＂ chapter, chock-full of recipes as familiar as Fried Chicken and as singular as Delicata Black Bean Tacos.

Healthy, affordable, easy, and delicious, all of the recipes shared here connect with stories of how the people and purpose behind Appetite for Change have brought nourishing hope and new life to an entire community.

Founded by LaTasha Powell, Michelle Horovitz, and Princess Titus in 2011 in the historically Black Northside neighborhood of Minneapolis, Appetite for Change is a nonprofit social enterprise dedicated to using food as a tool for building health, wealth, and social change in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

Beth Dooley is author or coauthor of numerous cookbooks, including, as cowriter, Sean Sherman’s The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, which won a James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook in 2017. She is an Endowed Chair with the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture.