Bean pie and breakups

Some personal news.

A couple of weeks ago, I was nominated for a James Beard Media Award in the “foodways” category. Even before the nom, the Tribune piece I wrote on Chicago’s bean pie history was a triumph for me on many levels. Rather than speak about its importance as a food of great cultural and political history, I wanted to share something personal.

I’ve been eating the dish — a sweet custard pie of navy beans popularized by Black Muslims throughout the US — since I was a child in Michigan. I loved it so much that I asked the Imam’s wife for a recipe. She covertly shared with me a xeroxed copy from what appeared to be a 80’s Muslim woman’s newsletter. I took it be a piece of hidden knowledge I ought not share. I usually contribute savory dishes for Thanksgiving, but for a few years in my early twenties, I had something for dessert. I bought dried navy beans and got to work making that beautiful spiced navy bean custard that’s got more bite and depth than its cousin, pumpkin pie.

I intended to make it a yearly tradition, but, besides my sisters, every other attendee at Thanksgiving practically ignored it; to this day, I still see that many immigrant Muslims truly don’t grasp what a deeply meaningful piece of American Muslim history it is. Many friends and food media professionals have told me as recently as this year they don’t even know what it is. A shame, since the dish has had, at times, a significant place in the public life of Black and Muslim hubs, from Newark and Detroit to Atlanta and Norcal.

Michigan was the origin of many of important figures of Black Muslim history, so I grew up assuming Detroit was bean pie’s birthplace. At BuzzFeed, I had an ill fated bean pie video pitch. I was unprepared to produce any kind of documentary video, especially not on something so sensitive as Black American history. And then, I got scooped, ghosted, and laid off. It was one of the more painful stories to lose because it meant so much to me.

It turns out the timing was wrong - years later, I had new skills as a reporter and finally the room to explore as a writer. When I came to Chicago, I realized that some claimed bean pie for that city and that a local ice cream parlor, Shawn Michelle’s Homemade Ice Cream, even had a bean pie flavor.

That led to me cold-calling and showing up at a number of mosques, bakeries, and community events. Eventually, I had a story documenting the world of bean pie in Chicago in 2025. And nearly at the end of writing the piece and months and months of searching, I finally met a classic bean pie street seller of legend, Brother James 40X. After purchasing from him near Supreme Bean Pie’s bakery several times, he even delivered pies to me for a rare Chicago Thanksgiving with my family.

My father and James 40X on the day he delivered me bean pies.,

A number of bean pies I've encountered in my travels around the East Coast and Midwest. Paradise Bean pie is the closest to the pies I remember growing up.

Bean pie is also a truly Blackamerican street food. For me, it was culinarily different to consume it in the mosque off of a plate than buying it from a brother on the go in a suit and bowtie — in Chicago, I often consume it standing up, no utensils. The protein and fat of the beans allows the structure of the pie to maintain its structural integrity. A hand pie in the shape of a slice.

My new confidence as a reporter also led me to getting nearly unprecedented access to the current Nation of Islam, which is headquartered at Mosque Maryam on the South Side. It’s also the site of Supreme Bean Pie and the Muhammad University of Islam. Famously believers in writing their own story, the Nation has been poorly covered as an evolving religious and culinary movement in the years of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s leadership. For years, I’ve seen little work answering: what does the Nation of Islam and its members believe now?

I have a little bit of a clearer picture now because of the exposure I had doing this piece. I sat in at a Friday khutbah, where the hadith and Qur’an were clearly impressively studied. I also came to a Sunday service that was unlike any other American Muslim service I’ve attended, with more Biblical allusions than I was used to. In the end, the story wasn’t about that, but even getting members of the Nation to agree to interviews is sort of unusual, much less attending their religious services.

As a result, when I published the story, I got messages from much more seasoned journalists around the country and in Chicago asking, “how did you get them to speak to you?” The answer is that I simply told them my own personal history with bean pie and that I wanted to learn more. I often say I’m not a food writer really, but I find that, with the right angle, cold-calling with a love for food and a respect for history is an effective way to build trust with sources and converse on deeper issues of culture, religion, identity, etc.

In a world with better funding of journalism, I’d have had the editorial support and guidance to do follow up stories that were not about just food, but instead about how the community exists in 2026. But alas, perhaps I need another ten years of training to get prepared for that.

As an aside, the Nation was just one part of the story. The bean pie is claimed by many individuals and many groups, including the Warith Deen Muhammad community that founded my hometown mosque.

The award ceremony is this weekend. The category is stacked and I don’t expect to win, but I’ll take it as an another triumph that more people will know about bean pie and how it invokes so much: it’s Midwestern, Southern, East Coast, Black, American, Muslim, historical, popular, healthy, convenient, delicious, and infused with the idea of self-liberation from structural racism. In my mind, it’s deeply in the canon, but it needs more advocates.

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Secondly, Acacia Magazine, the literary and culture magazine I’m an editor for, just launched it’s fifth print issue. I’m writing this on my plane to New York for the launch party. Please consider becoming a subscriber; pieces will be on web later.

Issue 5 of Acacia is out now.

The Acacia launch parties have been fairly popular, but my number one goal is to get people to read more of the magazine and work with new writers. I also love talking to strangers (good skill for a journalist) and want the magazine to feel accessible, so I asked to run the door and sell issues. It was great fun and I got to wear a ridiculous jacket.

Credit: Ali Imam

Hi Asad.

Third, earlier in May, I did an event at Chicago Humanities with one of my big influences: Padma Lakshmi (for her latest cookbook book, Padma’s All American). While I was introduced to her via Top Chef, her essays were some of my earliest exposures to narratives that combined food, literature, and memoir in a way that is impossible to do in other mediums. I asked her on stage: between model, chef, reality tv show host, actor, documentarian, and writer, which do you identify most with? I was pleased to confirm: she, like me, identifies a writer first. We can’t help that we’re beautiful and good on camera too.

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Finally, I’m odd in that I’m always uncomfortable when my personal and public life don’t match. It makes me feel like I’m not earnestly living my life. Obviously, I have plenty of private things I reserve for my loved ones. But some experiences are so definitive, I can’t keep them close to the chest. So I have to finally say that: unfortunately, my marriage is over, despite good efforts on everyone’s side. It’s been hard for my loved ones in so many ways, but I hope that it means I can commit more to things: writing, my daughter, my family, reading, and Project+/MVC.

I say this here because the catharsis of saying what I’m going through theoretically unlocks some writing valves in my brain. As any reader of mine knows, it’s slow going over here, but I hope the work is good and worth the wait. Pain is generative and so is joy. I was and am lucky to have had such a wonderful partnership in my life and I hope even better is coming . The only consolation that has worked for me now is that it is time to learn a truer meaning of sabr.

Much love to you all - your duahs, your financial support, your faith in me, and your patience. I hope I win, but awards are random and only mean what they mean. I know that winning the first one made it possible for me to be seen as a writer instead of a podcaster and blogger. Here, I just want people to give bean pie it’s flowers.

My hope is that I can use this to continue to find readers for these essential and complex American and Muslim stories that fill my life with so much meaning.