Meet José Andrés, the 53 year old Spanish chef and philanthropist who founded World Central Kitchen, a non-profit that has dished out 300 million meals over the past 12 years to local communities in the wake of natural disasters, war and the pandemic.
José was born in Mieres, Spain and his parents were nurses at a local hospital. He grew up in the emergency room, witnessing “small gestures of empathy” between staff and patients. His love of cooking came from helping his father prepare paella in the woods along with local tapas which seeded his belief in the power of food to create community.
He left school early for culinary training and moved to America at 21 years old, settling in Washington. As a young immigrant trying to find his place in a new city, José started volunteering at the DC Central Kitchen which, instead of simply preparing meals like other soup kitchens, engaged unemployed people to help cook, giving them an opportunity to trade homelessness and addiction for careers in the food industry.
Over the coming decades, as he rose through the ranks of the culinary world, gaining international recognition for his innovative style and award-winning restaurants, José continued cultivating his vision of chefs and food as agents of social change.
In 2010, he was on a family vacation when the catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti. He describes hearing the news reports as 'receiving the call. Arriving in Haiti he used salvaged ingredients to start cooking black beans for the survivors, but when a volunteer mentioned it was different to the local "velvety and silky" black bean stew, José understood that true aid meant adapting to local food customs, not the other way around.
It was the defining moment for World Central Kitchen, which today provides grassroots, rapid-response to feed people in the wake of crisis. Using local recipes and ingredients, the organisation aims to empower embattled communities to create their own long-term solutions by building kitchens and creating food systems to sustain their independent recovery, long after the aid workers leave.
For José, a free meal should never come at the cost of someone’s dignity. His signature response is “feed first, plan later.”
When you talk about food and water, people don't want a solution one week from now, one month from now. The solution has to be now.
