top of page
Bespokecurry-Top-Menu-Starry-Riso-BackgroundJPG
Geometric red triangle symbol beside a single vertical slash against black space. This symbol represents Trans Learn Tings as transition, rupture, self-definition, nonlinear becoming, and frameworks for learning beyond imposed systems.
Bright green spiral snail with textured shell and soft glowing body resting against a pale background. This symbol represents Mbegu ya Ardhi, “Seed of the Earth” in Swahili, as the Bespokecurry blog space for slow growth, grounded learning, observation, embodied writing, and ideas unfolding over time through lived experience.
Yellow and red octopus with curling arms and textured detail. This symbol represents About Kiing Curry through intelligence, multiplicity, self-awareness, creative reach, and many forms moving from one body.
Bright green and deep red crab with raised claws and wide stance floating against black space. This symbol represents The Lab as sideways thinking, testing systems, experimentation, structural disruption, and unconventional pathways of knowledge.
Deep maroon fish with green and coral red markings, facing forward like a small signal moving through water. This symbol represents The Knewsletter as recurring messages, updates, and living transmissions from the Bespokecurry cosmos.
Flowing water lines beside a dark radiant starburst with grounding bar beneath it in earthy brown and green tones. This symbol represents Fungi Tings as layered ingestion, underground transformation, decomposition, fungal intelligence, and deep internal processing beneath the surface.
Small multicolored fish moving together in layered schools across open space. This symbol represents The Tings as interconnected categories, moving parts, collective knowledge systems, and many small ideas traveling together through the Bespokecurry waters.
Three deep red African masks grouped closely together with carved facial markings and elongated forms. This symbol represents the Bespokecurry Cosmos as multiplicity, ancestral signal, layered identities, collective memory, and interconnected creative worlds.
Three flowing wave lines in layered blue and green gradients floating against black space. This symbol represents the Six Waters and The Wata(ring) Whole as movement, emotional drift, embodiment, atmospheric flow, and interconnected states of being across the Bespokecurry cosmos.
Small green and deep red sea snail-like organism with a large eye and soft rounded body. This symbol represents The Exploration as wandering, adaptive learning, curiosity, experimentation, and movement through unknown waters.
Blue and green shell-slug form with ridged texture and a soft glowing outline. This symbol represents the Embodiment Diagram as structure, sensation, regulation, and inner movement held inside the body.
Circular afro-like form paired with flowing water lines in magenta, green, and violet tones. This symbol represents the Afroscape Field Guide as embodied Black knowledge, Afro theory, hair and body systems, texture, atmosphere, and living archives of the self.
Bright orange cephalopod with curling tentacles and glowing blue edges floating against black space. This symbol represents Litm(us) and Black Beauty School as transformation through chemistry, fluid identity, Black beauty knowledge, body experimentation, texture, color theory, and the constant reshaping of self through creative practice and embodiment.
Three flowing wave lines beside a radiant starburst symbol in purple and blue gradients. This symbol represents Six Waters Cannabis Field Notes as ingestion, altered sensing, embodiment, atmospheric expansion, and cannabis moving through the waters of the body.
Flowing water lines beside a radiant starburst partially surrounded by a soft blue cloud form. This symbol represents the Terpene Index as aromatic atmosphere, sensory mapping, vapor, plant chemistry, and environmental mood systems moving through the body.
Multicolored school of small fish moving together in layered rows. This symbol represents the Members Area through collective movement, shared direction, community rhythm, and many bodies traveling through the same current.

Bespokecurry Cosmos

Circular bracelet made of glowing multicolored cowrie shells and translucent beads arranged in a continuous loop. The bracelet represents adornment, material culture, ancestral connection, object-based storytelling, and wearable archives within Bead & Cowrie.
Green and red jellyfish with long trailing tendrils and a glowing outline. This symbol represents the Wata(ring) W(hole) through flow, depth, unseen systems, drift, sting, and water memory.
Deep red seahorse with curled tail and textured body floating in open space. This symbol represents the Bespokebook Portfolio as curated creative work, intentional display, archival storytelling, and carefully held artistic worlds.
Claymation-style Black scuba diver with bright orange curls floating underwater in colorful diving gear with bubbles rising beside them. This symbol represents the Bespokecurry Cosmos paid subscription space as deep exploration, immersive learning, protected creative worlds, and guided movement through the layered waters of embodiment, theory, art, and transformation.
Deep maroon and chocolate stingray with a long tail and glowing gold texture. This symbol represents BlaxkCurry Productions through grounded movement, quiet power, deep knowledge, and gliding creative force
Deep maroon and chocolate stingray with a long tail and glowing gold texture. This symbol represents BlaxkCurry Productions through grounded movement, quiet power, deep knowledge, and gliding creative force

✺Yassa: Onion, Acid, and the Gut Remembers | Senegalese Chicken & Gut Health

Yassa is not just a dish. It is a correction.

✺Yassa: Onion, Acid, and the Gut Remembers | Senegalese Chicken & Gut Health


✺Yassa — Onion, Acid, and the Gut Remembers


I Eat Tings is a BespokeCurry series exploring African and diasporic foods through memory, embodiment, and the politics of taste.

Open mouth i eat tings graphic, tongue visible, a portal of taste and speech, signaling the body as both entry point and witness.


On Onion, Acid, and the Ways We’ve Been Fed Wrong


I have been eating onions my whole life.


And still somehow… I did not know what they were capable of.


That’s not an accident.

That’s conditioning.


In Senegal—and I’m specifically thinking about Saint-Louis—onions are not filler.

They are not “just aromatics.” They are not something you sauté for three minutes and move on from.


They are the point.


And when you actually let them do what they’re supposed to do—when you let them collapse, soften, sit in acid, break down until they are no longer fighting you—

you realize:

  • we have been undercooking our food.

  • we have been underfeeding our bodies.

Risograph-style yassa card showing chicken and wild onion and the final bowl--outlined with the words “I eat tings,” “yassa,” and “yassa poulet chicken + Onions,” mapping the journey from disaporic ingredient to inheritance.

Onion Work & Gut Restoration


Yassa is not subtle.


It is onion. 

It is acid. 

It is time.


And it is doing something very specific to the body.

Let’s be real:

  • Lemon → wakes the gut up

  • Onion → feeds it

  • Fat → carries everything through


And inside the onion is quercetin— anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, all the words people like to throw around.


But what matters more than the word is the practice.



Because nobody in these kitchens is saying “quercetin.”


They’re just cooking the onion correctly.

/////////////ONION BREAKDOWN PROTOCOL///////////////

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/23e724_4a3b7b95e59e436ea3e15daae2f9c0d7/1080p/mp4/file.mp4
Glitch animation of pot of yassa, looping transformation and consumption.

The Yassa Glitch


And that’s the part that’s getting me.


Because the Senegalese are engaging gut care in a way that is not aesthetic, not trendy, not labeled.


It’s just… built in.

It’s assumed.


There are versions of Yassa with mustard.

And I get it.

I used it.

I liked it.


Mustard:

  • rounds the acid

  • adds body

  • makes it easier to eat


But let’s be clear:

 mustard is not the origin mustard is not required


It’s an addition.

A shift.

A choice.


The core is still:

onion + acid + breakdown

A New Era of the Tongue


And breakdown is the word.

Because what you are doing in that pot is:

removing resistance

From the food. From the body. From the process.


I tasted it before the final simmer and it was already there.

Which told me everything I needed to know:

 if the base is right, the rest is just time


Yassa is not just a dish.

It is a correction.

A reminder that:

  • softness is earned

  • digestion is supported, not forced

  • and flavor comes from letting things go further than we’ve been taught to let them go


Open mouth i eat tings graphic, tongue visible, a portal of taste and speech, signaling the body as both entry point and witness.
Open mouth i eat tings graphic, tongue visible, a portal of taste and speech, signaling the body as both entry point and witness.

Tongue Check


Taste the air.

Taste the plate.

Taste what remains.


What is sweet.

What is bitter.

What is missing.


The tongue always knows.


I Eat Tings

✺Yassa: Onion, Acid, and the Gut Remembers | Senegalese Chicken & Gut Health


A study of the tongue, memory, and diaspora through food.


Each dish is a portal.




Comments

bottom of page