Not sure how you’d quantify “historical figure,” but to my mind, any person who is (1) influential and (2) no longer living fits, so my choice is the late sci-fi/fantasy author Octavia E. Butler.

I have no idea what she liked to eat. I’m not a scholar of her works, just a fan. Parable of the Sower is among my favorite books; its fictional religion, Earthseed, resonated with me while the dystopian future it comes out of feels disturbingly real and plausible. And while I doubt she’d actually be keen on eating something lifted from her writing, it was the place I was able to find inspiration: “The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.”

My interpretation of this as a meal: homemade five seed sourdough bread with roasted root vegetable soup (geddit? seed to root?? oh fine), with a garden saute to make it a meal. Simple, maybe, but healthy and garden-to-table – well, if I had a garden – something Lauren Olamina might’ve had in her Earthseed community.