STEW Baltimore Eats for Better Communities

Shortly after last Thanksgiving, a new version of the dinner party began in Baltimore. Created by a collaboration between three collectives: Red Emma’s Coffee House and Bookstore, the Baltimore Development Co-operative (BDC), and the 2640 space, STEW is a social experiment in food and community, a way of funding from below, and a new way of thinking about dinner. It is meant to sponsor conversation between people, to provide them with good, local, delicious food, and to support burgeoning community organizations.

When I arrived at STEW III last Friday, I sat at one of the three long tables and started my first course, a salad with marinated potatoes and beets, and nervously looked around as people swarmed into the space and began doing the same. A group of people sat next to me whom I had never met and we began talking about ourselves, plans for a new Walmart, and an array of other things while the first presenter was setting up. I don’t generally start conversations with perfect strangers, but we were all eating dinner together so it seemed natural, it was set up that way.

The menu is a seven course meal alternating food and presentations. This time the presenters were the Better Waverly Community Arts Center, an after school arts program for kids that keeps them off the streets and provides a way to learn and practice all types of creative endeavors from art, music, and dance to community gardening. The House of Ruth Advocate Through Art Program, an arts program for victims of domestic violence providing a place for women and children to come together, share stories, make art, and heal each other. And the United Workers, a human rights organization of low-wage workers seeking livable pay and dignity at work.

The food for the dinner is locally harvested from a variety of community farms throughout Baltimore including the BDC’s Participation Park, and Great Kids Farm—started by Tony Geraci as the new source of produce for the Baltimore City Public School’s cafeterias and of food education for students. The courses are based around what kind of produce is available, which in the winter months is mostly root vegetables. Chef Matt Day and friends cooked up four delicious courses heavy in carrots, turnips, beets, and potatoes, with the stew course being a choice between vegan carrot, cinnamon, and chervil, or oxtail, potato, and carrot. The STEW organizers take a small percentage of the funds raised to help pay for food, and the rest goes directly to organizations as small grants. All the people that work to make stew happen are volunteers to let the most amount of money possible be granted to the community. This method of creating funds and dialogue through food has been used in other cities—Brooklyn’s FEAST, and Chicago’s inCUBATE Sunday Soup—for the last few years, and their success has been a big inspiration for STEW. The dinner aims to continue a trend of the community at large being funded directly, not through a trickle down governmental grant system, but by the people involved.

As the dessert course came out, I was handed a ballot on which I could place my vote for one or all of the groups to get the money. At the end of the night the percentages are calculated, and the money is distributed accordingly. I voted for all three, I thought they were all doing a great job and all deserved the small amount of money we could give them. This may be the most important part of STEW, even though there isn’t that much money, much less than any sort of governmental or institutional grant, the organizations are publicizing themselves to, and being funded by the people they aim to help, their neighbors. This is what the organizers call funding from below, and though it is a small step in funding, it is a large step in growing together as a community, and working for the benefit of each other. 

The next STEW dinner will be Saturday, April 24th at the 2640 space.

 You can find more about STEW, the people they’ve funded, and upcoming dinners at stewbaltimore.org

Eric Bos is a painter, writer, curator, and food enthusiast from Baltimore, MD.