When Ryan Royster and Byron Hughes were tasked with putting together the food menu for 2021’s inaugural Hella Juneteenth festival in Sacramento, the first thing they thought about were the backyard barbecues that had been a staple in their lives since they were kids.
At a cookout, everyone would pitch in. “Your uncle might have been on the grill, and your aunt made the potato salad, and grandma made the mac and cheese,” Royster recalls.
The co-founders of Last Supper Society, a self-styled experiential creative house and underground dining club, knew they wanted to create “an intentional cultural moment,” as Royster puts it, for the first big Juneteenth gathering since the start of the pandemic — and the first since the holiday received federal recognition. How could they take that cookout concept, which was so quintessential and deeply personal in Black communities, and translate it to a large-scale event?
The answer, they decided, was the “Cookout Plate.” Instead of the kind of a la carte food-truck hop that’s typical of big festivals, guests could purchase one cohesive, carefully curated plate, just like the one your auntie might hand you at the cookout — except that each entree, side and dessert would be cooked by a talented Black Bay Area chef.
Now held at the Oakland Museum of California, this year’s Hella Creative–produced Juneteenth event on June 19 will continue the Cookout Plate tradition. Hughes, an accomplished chef in his own right, has curated a plate featuring dishes from six different chefs: a black-eyed pea salad by Fernay McPherson of SF’s Minnie Bell’s, barbecue chicken from James Woodard of Smokin’ Woods BBQ in Oakland, and mac and cheese by Michele McQueen at the museum’s own Town Fare cafe. The Sacramento-based vegan chef Nina Curtis will contribute spicy grilled plant-based sausages and peppers to the plate, and for dessert, Pound Bizness bakers Nicole and Reggie Borders will serve lemon and 7 Up pound cakes.
