In episode 15 of the Pengest Munch, Elijah Quashie aka the Chicken Connoisseur is
being driven around New York City in a luxury SUV alongside ASAP Bari of ASAP
MOB who shows off handfuls of cash down at every spot they visit.
Quashie shows off Bari’s new custom sneakers—black and orange Nikes with
lettering that says “every living creature dies alone”—the motto of his streetwear
high-fashion line Vlone. There are one and a half million views on Youtube alone.
Quashie is an odd choice for a social media star, a boyish figure from North
London he launched to fame last year after his video reviews of London chicken
shops went viral. Each of his videos has been viewed over a million times and
one, episode 6, is nearing four million.
Elijah Quashie is a food critic. Why? Because he critiques food. It should be that
simple, but it isn’t. Professional criticism has long been the domain of those who
have received institutionalised training or awards.
But his fame has more to do with his unexpected charisma, his humor and his way
with language. Quashie is a real sneakerhead and episodes of The Pengest Munch
features a quick “crepe-check,” when he stunts with a different pair of sneakers
describing it in some detail using words like “meshington” and phrases like “bare
comfy”. What we don’t get to see on video, however, is the kind of behind the
scenes hustle that’s involved in getting to this level.Fried chicken may have no obvious relation to sneakers, so the connecting tissue
must be the wearer(s) and the lifestyle and culture he comes from. You get the
impression he could easily start a parallel and successful web series called The
Pengest Crepes. Turns out he’s plans to start a new series called “The Crepe
Connoisseur”.
LONDON
His New York episode of The Pengest Munch is the first outside of London. While
arranging the interview, an associate had informed me in an email that Quashie
couldn’t speak on a particular day as he had to attend a special screening of
Moonlight held by the MOBO academy. The perks of fame only get perkier surely.
Quashie tells me, “some places you go to, you get turned down for a job because
you don’t have this and that from here and there, but you can do the job. That’s
just the way the system works really. I think it’s the same in people’s minds,
though it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The criteria might be discriminatory, but the pursuants and purveyors would
appear to have come from a particular stratum of British society defined (and
confined) by race and class—two superficial yet enduring factors that still
delineate the country’s populace centuries on.
Quashie surely had more serious situations in mind, and more importantly, he’s
dismantled such normalised backward-thinking from the beginning with his simple
decision to go into a chicken shop and review it.What Quashie may also be doing is creating a Michelin Guide for London’s fried
chicken shops, whose only accreditation has been from word of mouth, corny
signboards and health & safety standards.
The sheer force of his popularity and recommendations could, and probably does,
influence a fan’s decision whether or not to eat in a shop that has featured in the
The Pengest Munch.
Just as the Michelin Guide was originally for motorist before later awarding stars
to restaurants, The Quashie Guide to fried chicken shops is now budding into a
sneaker appraisal.
***
Quashie wears a suit, tie and white shirt when presenting The Pengest Munch—
hopelessly professional it would seem, but he also often wears ski-gloves and
briefly, for this New York episode, a ski-mask.
Ski-gear denotes a privilege and/or wealth separate from that which is associated
with the generally well off. But it is also a choice outfit for robberies and all sorts
of clandestine activities. Ninjas don’t quite count here.
Is Quashie promoting a certain “street” lifestyle by sometimes wearing
accoutrements that are associated with violence (i never asked about his ski-
game), or is it a clever deployment of imagery and its connotations that will
continue to certify him in the constituency that he is from and the broader one
he represents?A stated aim on his youtube channel is that “the chicken connoisseur is a food
critic for the mandem who care to know what the finest restaurants in London are
and where to find them.”
If the ski-gear puts him in close proximity to violence, his eloquence and
specialism/specialty in critiquing food must put him miles away from it – but then
he’s one person.
More chicken shops proliferate in low income areas – mostly of Blacks and Asians
but also some Whites – than they do in high brow ones. No hard statistic is
needed when a simple round trip can confirm this.
In full confidence that there is a stigma attached to these communities and its
consumption of fried chicken, I ask Quashie if this was ever a concern to which he
simply says, “it’s quite normal to eat chicken”.
At the risk of fetishing it, I’d say that Quashie’s vocabulary when on screen
incorporates as much “standard English” as slanguage making for a rich listening
experience.
I tell him I learnt the word “gloppy” from him and ask if, as his fame grows, he
plans to alter his manner of speaking so as to appeal to even more listeners from
diverse backgrounds, but ever forward type he says, “I’m probably not going to
change anything. I’d like to keep it as original, normal and simple as possible. The
less I change the better it is i guess”.