The Davenport sisters are the founders of the first Black Food bookstore

When Gabrielle Davenport was in elementary school, she developed a love for deviled eggs that began in her paternal grandmother’s kitchen. “Almost every time we saw each other, we made deviled eggs,” he says. “It was a great bonding experience for us.”

What made cooking with Grandma so special was the opportunity to learn from her and work together. This involved rigorously following the steps of the process and adding unique ingredients like capers, chinook peppers, and even cayenne pepper to personalize the easy, family-friendly recipe.

Moments like these at her grandmother’s house shaped Gabrielle and her older sister Danielle’s childhood. Rooted in shared family experiences and food, the sisters also developed an early appreciation for storytelling.

“My grandmother’s book shelves were filled with children’s literature. She also really liked books on tape,” says Danielle. “Every time we visited the site, it felt like we were in a library.”

The Davenport sisters, who’ve a seven-year age difference, noticed that as they grew older and life pulled them in numerous directions with recent interests, one or two things remained constant: their love of food and books. This love became a passion project, a goal to rejoice the literature of black culinary ways (that’s, the culinary traditions and practices of a particular people, place or period).

So in January 2021, the Davenport sisters launched BEM books and more, a bookstore that does just that. They began online with the intention of later expanding into traditional brick and mortar, and through construction, they used a pop-up store to achieve the masses in the borough. While developing the bookstore concept, the connection they were able to ascertain with the community was nourishing and in addition strengthened the bond of the Davenport sisters.

“We got to know each other a little better,” says Gabrielle. “It’s a result of our relationship and the things that are important to us.”

“Family heritage has a lot to do with what we do,” adds Danielle about BEM, whose name is a mix of their grandmothers’ names. “There is a spirit of generosity in our family, and being able to tap into that beautiful energy of sharing, cooking, telling stories and loving each other with others in community is truly life-changing.”

Works available of their online store include cookbooks akin to Ghetto Gastro, food fiction including Charmaine Wilkerson, and nonfiction works akin to Jessica B. Harris’ classic. Children’s books are also on sale. An image book for youngsters can be published soon, , by Connecticut kid’s writer Gabriele Davis, can be available soon at BEM Books and beyond. The work refers to her family’s culinary traditions related to peaches.

Sisters Davenport and Davis consider that telling children about our food traditions creates a possibility to construct intergenerational bonds. It’s the same moment that Gabrielle and Daniel enjoyed of their grandmother’s kitchen as little girls.

“When we celebrate our food, we create a welcoming atmosphere. We feel loved and nourished,” Davis says. “Cooking, eating, laughing and sharing stories calm us and allow for meaningful conversation, strengthening our sense of kinship, shared history, cultural identity and community.”

In March, the Davenports achieved a vital milestone in raising sufficient funds (to Kickstarter) to sign a lease for its store in Brooklyn, which is scheduled to open by the end of 2024.

“We have received so much love from the community, especially Black women, in the food space,” Gabrielle says of the financial support. Davis says people realize what a vital place a facility like BEM has in the community.

“Modern food culture, with its emphasis on convenience, threatens to undermine our sacred food traditions. Spaces like BEM books and others help us reclaim them and the intellectual, emotional and physical nourishment they provide,” Davis emphasizes.

Bookstores are also places of social service, especially for black women. They served as protected places to fulfill, learn something recent, and connect with worlds known and unknown.

“It’s great that we are among the group of people across the country who are starting new ventures at the intersection of food and books. It really is like the work of the spirit… the different ways that people build companies around an ecosystem of supporting each other,” says Danielle. “There is something really special about how we can shape this as entrepreneurs caught up in a beautiful sense of community.”

“Feeding this country has been the work of Black women from the very beginning, and unfortunately we are the ones who have received the least recognition for it. But what’s really special is the renewal of the idea that the way Americans eat from coast to coast has been truly defined by Black women,” adds Gabrielle. “We all do. Being in community with the people you support and the people who support you is an indescribable love. Black women made it all possible… and [my sister and I] they are truly grateful.”