"Jamaican Foodways Win Top Culinary Award": See what Food Historian Tonya Hopkins (@TheFoodGriot) has to say in this Fab Forbes article by Richard Fowler

"I am cooking a whole lot,” Brittney Williams said during an interview on the day before Christmas Eve. “We got beef stew cranking for tonight's dinner. Then I got to prepare for the Christmas Eve celebration dinner tomorrow. Of course."

Williams, better known as Chef Stikxz, the second part of which is a name conferred unto her during her childhood because of her small stick-like frame, is doubling down on a holiday tradition inherited from her Jamaican-born parents. She does so while preparing two meals, directing kitchen colleagues and answering questions from a witty journalist.

Culinary history consultant Tonya Hopkins traces this foodways strategy back to West Africa and the self-emancipation of Black people as early as the 17th century.

"When I say free people, I am talking about self-emancipated people who both populated the Caribbean, from Haiti to Jamaica and those that chose to come to early America, settle in Philadelphia and became part of the catering guild," Hopkins said.

Hopkins believes this legacy lives on in the work of emerging talents such as Chef Stikxz, who is working to create a Michelin-starred Jamaican experience in New York City through the "Nyam" Supper Series.

"The future of Jamaica food is we are going to be a culinary superpower," Stikxz said. "Jamaican flavors embody West African, Spanish, Indian, Chinese and European flavors, and that is an embodiment of everything that we are celebrating now."

Stikxz found her passion for cooking during her first year at the University of Hartford. In the midst of final exams, she decided to end her friend's diet of ramen cup-of-noodles and Easy Mac by preparing them a feast the night before test day.