Go Fish, Food Supplements in Antebellum America

Jumbo lump meat crab cake, recipes below

How crabs arrived in ones kitchen, who cleaned, prepared, and served it at one's table has historically served as an important indicators of one's status, power, and income. As a food source crab was versatile as well as tasty as made into crab cakes and crab bisques among other dishes. During the antebellum period the great majority of enslaved Africans in the Chesapeake region might have starved if they did not supplement the niggardly allotment of rations that masters distributed to them. As a result most enslaved folk foraged for plant foods, hunted for wild game fished and crabbed. This was done in the evening after working in the fields or days off on Sundays and holidays.

Maryland jumbo Lump meat crab cake recipe: http://www.grouprecipes.com/41224/maryland-jumbo-lump-crab-cakes.html

Maryland Foodways and Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Maryland+Foodways

Crab bisque recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/crab_bisque/

Historian Harry Stephenson on Herring Fishing in North Carolina: http://wunc.org/tsot/archive/sot0830b.mp3/view?searchterm=herring%20fishermen

Fish Series with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=For+Those+Who+Love+To+Fish+and+Eat+Fish+Part+

Go Fish, African Survivals in Jamaica

Fishpot of split bamboo, Brailsford, Jamaica, circa 1808 to 1816, recipes below

Scottish explorer Mungo Park (1771-1806) traveled through Mandingo country in Gambia, West Africa. During “the dry season, the people who live in the vicinity of the large rivers employ themselves chiefly in fishing,” he writes. The fish they caught “are prepared for sale in different ways. The most common is by pounding them entire as they come from the stream in a wooden mortar, and exposing them to dry in the sun . . . . this preparation is esteemed as a luxury, and sold to considerable advantage.” The culinary transition to slavery in Jamaica for the Mande and other West and Central Africans was not as difficult for a people cooking with similar ingredients in Africa before captivity. In Jamaica, planters supplied slaves with weekly rations of salt cod but slaves also made time to fish and negotiated access to small parcels of land set aside to cultivate produce like ackee. 

Jamaican Escovitch Fish Recipe: http://www.burdenclothing.com/pages/blog/2009/08/02/cook-this-escovitch-fish/

Ackee and Codfish Recipe: [Watch Now 4 min 22 sec] http://www.jamaicatravelandculture.com/food_and_drink/ackee_and_saltfish.htm

Ackee and codfish with fried dumplings: http://www.jehancancook.com/?p=1679

Fish Series with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=For+Those+Who+Love+To+Fish+and+Eat+Fish+Part+

Go Fish, Native American Culture and Chesapeake Cookery

Broiled fish, recipe below

We start a new series today called Go Fish. Arthur Barlowe participated in the 1584 English exploration of the Chesapeake region of Virginia. He and other members of the expedition attended a feast at Chief Wingina’s village on Roanoke Island. Like many West and Central African societies, Native Americans in the Chesapeake region ate largely a vegetarian diet and used fish and especially venison as seasoning in one pot meals. However, on special occasions, like the arrival of honored guest, meat and or fish would be gorged on. Barlowes guest of honor meal included prepared root vegetables, fruit, grape wine, and a “fish, broiled on the coales [sic], much like white Salmon . . . .” Here is a sensational summer broiled fish recipe that seems most appropriate for this fish series.

Broiled Fish Recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Broiled-Fish

Fish Stories with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=For+Those+Who+Love+To+Fish+and+Eat+Fish+Part+

Rhubarb Pie and Poetry

Strawberry Rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream, recipes below (photo from http://www.thatsnotwhattherecipesays.com/)  

Rhubarb, which some call Pie Plant because people most often used it for pie filling, is indigenous to China where herbalist used it for its purgative qualities. Venetian traders introduced it to Southern Europe where rhubarb first appeared in an Italian garden in 1608. From there it spread to the rest of Europe. Rhubarb’s first reference as food, as tart and pie filling, dates back to 1778. It crosses the Atlantic with British colonist and becomes popular in New England gardens around the 1790s. Thereafter rhubarb cultivation moved south with northern migrants to the upper south where one found favorable growing conditions during the winter and spring moths. When I walked into my grandmother’s front door back in the 1960s and 1970s, the delicious smell of baking pies just slapped you in the face. Grandma Opie did not consider it overindulgent for her grandson to have two slices of rhubarb pie with ice cream. Here is a poem and some recipes in memory of my grandmother who passed a little more than a decade ago.

Rhubarb Pie

If rhubarb pie
You've never eaten
Give it a try
It can't be beaten
I know what you're thinking
Oh how can this be
Rhubarb's reminiscent
Of red celery
How can something
This stringy
Become a great pie
There's a sweet little secret
Of that I won't lie
It takes lots of sugar
A half plus a cup
And a third cup of flour
To thicken things up
An eighth teaspoon of salt
And the Rhubarb you add
Four cups peeled and chopped
Won't turn out too bad
Mix it all up
And pour in a pie pan
Lined with a crust
You mixed up by hand
Dot it with butter
Or margarine is ok
Two tablespoons should do
At least that's what they say
Put on a top crust
Flute the edges up high
And cut in some vents
So the top doesn't fly
Sprinkle with sugar
And put in to bake
At 425 Three-fourths hour
Should take
When it is done
Place on rack for to cool
Don't eat it too soon
Or you'll get burned you fool
When it's just warm
Then open the fridge
With vanilla ice cream
You'll want more than a smidge
With milk in a glass
Or coffee in cup
You might soon discover
That you've eaten it up
Then go tell your friends
That you've found a new gem
And maybe next time
You'll save some for them!

Anonymous poem by

http://www2.ljworld.com/users/Jay_lo/

Strawberry rhubarb pie recipe: http://www.thatsnotwhattherecipesays.com/2010/03/strawbery-rhubarb-pie.html

Rhubarb pie recipe: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2009/08/strawberry-rhubarb-pie-on-my-mind-and.html

Vegan Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler Recipe:http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/piesandcobblers/r/strawrhubcobbler.htm

Related foodie links on rhubarb:

http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/

http://poetryoffood.com/rhubarb-fool

Getting Your Garden Ready

It’s that time of the year again when you get the itch to work in vegetable garden digging around in the cool and pliable dirt. There are bargains on heirloom tomato plans at farmers markets too. Plant low maintenance squash and cucumbers and do it with children if you can. They will learn the power of patients, hard work, and how to cultivate and accomplish goals. Children enjoy picking veggies and herbs and when they do so it will increase their desire to eat them. A must in a garden are peppers, garlic, bay leaf, sage,  scallions, thyme and rosemary as seasoning. You will also reduce your grocery bill.

Gardening Series with Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Gardening

Thomas Jefferson’s Garden: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/05/10/152337154/thomas-jefferson-s-garden-a-thing-of-beauty-and-science

Growing Tomatoes: [Listen] http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/gf/gf110319secretary_of_agricul

The Founding Fathers and Gardens: [Listen 24 min 27 sec] http://www.npr.org/2011/07/01/137555246/growing-a-revolution-americas-founding-gardeners

Pinkster As European and African Religious Syncretism

Related Links Below

Shane White, “Pinkster: Afro-Dutch Syncretization in New York City”: http://www.albanyweblog.com/2011/05-May/05-08-11_Ref_01.html

Food and Religion Series with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=%22Food+and+Religion%22+

Food and Syncretism with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=syncretism

Pinkster Festival Series With Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/06/pinkster-celebration-and-afro-dutch.html?showComment=1306319302182

Claire Sponsler, Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America [See Chapter 2]  (Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2004): http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/112.3/br_99.html

Pinkster As One of Many Coronation Festivals

Related Links Below

African Diaspora Coronation Festivals and Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Pinkster

Maracatu Coronation in Pernambuco, Brazil: http://www.vicfirth.com/exchange/2010/02/07/exploring-the-rhythms-of-brazil-part-1-maracatu/

History of Carnival Cities in the Americas with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/02/new-orleans-and-gumbo-history-on-fat.html

Shane White, “Pinkster: Afro-Dutch Syncretization in New York City”: http://www.albanyweblog.com/2011/05-May/05-08-11_Ref_01.html

Pinkster Festival in the Hudson Valley: http://www.hudsonvalley.org/pinkster/index.html

Festivals and Food: Origins of the Pinkster Celebration

Related Links Below

Pinkster Festival With Related Recipe: http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/06/pinkster-celebration-and-afro-dutch.html?showComment=1306319302182

Shane White, “Pinkster: Afro-Dutch Syncretization in New York City”: http://www.albanyweblog.com/2011/05-May/05-08-11_Ref_01.html

Claire Sponsler, Ritual Imports: Performing Medieval Drama in America [See Chapter 2]  (Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2004): http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/112.3/br_99.html

Malcolm X The Gardener

(photo from http://afoodiesquest.blogspot.com/)

This and other recipes below (Photo from http://www.ccrecipe.com/)

Lansing Michigan 1930s: “The bulk of the Negroes were either on Welfare, or W. P. A. or they starved. [W]e were much better off then most of the town Negroes. The reason was we raised much of our own food out there in the country where we were. Not only did we have our big garden, but we raised chickens. . . I loved [having my own garden plot] and took care of it well. I loved especially to grow peas. I was proud when we had them on our table. I would pull out the grass in my garden by hand when the first little blades came up. . . . And sometimes when I had everything straight and clean for my things to grow, I would lay down on my back between two rows and I would gaze up in the blue sky at the clouds moving and think all kinds of things.” (Malcolm X) During the Depression, many struggling families like that of Malcolm X had to eat almost like vegetarians, surviving on vegetables grown in expanded family gardens. Many turned to the New Deal relief programs started after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932. Federal food relief came in many forms-emergency food stations, surplus food distribution programs, soup kitchens, breadlines, and relief gardens. I love the above passage from the Autobiography of Malcolm X because it delves into Malcolm most don't know. The guy loved gardening and the more I’ve read about him, the more I would argue that Malcolm was a foodie. However what is interesting is that he became the spokesmen of the Nation of Islam an organization that championed black economic independence, ethnic pride, Islam, and condemned the peas from Malcolm's childhood garden. For example the organizations leader Elijah Muhammad, who wrote two books, How to Eat to Live, volumes I and II, published in 1967 and 1972 argued that “Peas, collard greens, turnip greens, sweet potatoes and white potatoes are very cheaply raised foods [boldfaced in the original text] [that] . . . southern slave masters used . . . to feed the slaves, and still advise the consumption of them.”  Today most health care professionals and nutritionist would encourage folks to consume more of what Mr. Muhammad condemned slave food particularly when eaten out of your own garden and void of the ham hocks as seasoning.  Here are some good tasting heart healthy related recipes below and more Malcolm foodie stories.

Sugar snap pea pasta: http://www.ccrecipe.com/2132/quick-meals/sugar-snap-pea-pasta.html

Fusion Pea recipe: http://afoodiesquest.blogspot.com/2011/04/peas-please.html

A Split-pea soup recipe for Malcolm’s childhood reflection: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/vegetarian-split-pea-soup-recipe.html

More post on Malcolm X with recipes: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=malcolm

Food Rituals and Playoffs Games Part 1

In college, baseball, softball, and lacrosse as well as pro basketball and hockey it is playoff time.  I played in two national championships as a division I college lacrosse at Syracuse University.  Teammates and I ritually practiced carb loading at catered pregame meals four hours before the face off. Before a 1 or 2 pm game the breakfast menu included an abundance of pancakes, danishes, fresh fruit, particularly bananas and oranges, and all kinds of juice. The table also included eggs, bacon, and sausage which I stayed clear of because they were hard to digest and made me feel sluggish while competing.  Our head coach, Hall of Famer, Roy Simmons Jr., played lacrosse at SU in the 1950s with another Hall of Famer, Jim Brown. The eggs, bacon and sausage on the menu represented food rituals from their playing days when experts championed protein at the athlete's optimal fuel.