A Nigerian Kitchen in Westchester

Photo of Winnie and Ike Ogbogu in Nigeria 1970s

Towards the end of elementary school the Ogbogues moved to Croton just around the corner from my house. Soon a close family relationship began between children and adults alike that still going on today. I spent a lot of time playing the sport in season with Fran and Ben the two oldest boys. We went in and out of each other’s houses all the time eating or drinking. Like me Fran and Ben ate a lot. So did the other six big boned children Mrs. Ogbogu had over the years. One of them, Eric, went on to play seven years in the NFL. I remember the smell of Nigerian food in Mrs. Ogbogu’s kitchen so well! Born and raised in Nigeria, she made traditional dishes like Akara (blackeyed pea type dumpling/patty), egusi (the seeds of fermented melon cooked with beef, oxtail, smoked fish) soup and ground nut soup. These soups one ate with yam fu fu. She also made fried plantains and many other dishes. But my favorite dish was jollof rice! Here’s the recipe below.

Jollof Rice Recipe:

Ingredients
Oil for frying (palm or regular vegetable oil)
1 chicken
1 or 2 finely chopped onions
salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper according to taste
Flavouring:
chopped chilli pepper
2 or 3 crushed cloves of garlic
bay leaf
curry powder
2 cups of chicken or beef stock or Maggi cubes
3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
bell pepper or sweet green pepper, chopped
green peas or string beans
(carrots/cabbage chopped)
four cups rice
4 tbsp can tomato paste
2 tbsp dried shrimp or crayfish
Garnishes:
fresh parsley and cilantro, chopped
lettuce, shredded heat oil and brown chicken.

Preparation
Remove the meat and add the onions, the salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic, bay leaf and curry in the oil.
Fry for a moment and add vegetables.
Fry the mixture until the onions become tender.
Add the stock and the chicken and boil for about 20 minutes.
Then add the dried shrimps/crayfish and the chilli and bring to boil and simmer for 5 minutes.
Put the rice in a separate saucepan. Add water and tomato paste.
Cover and cook for about 20 minutes until the rice is done (add warm water or broth if necessary).
Adjust seasoning.
Serve with garnishes according to taste.

Sweet Potato Pie and Grits

I am not sure how it started but one morning I had a slice of left over sweet potato pie from a family holiday meal that tasted a little too sweet. To tone down the sweetness of the pie, I poured some reheated and sticky lumpy grits on the pie. My northern classmates probably ate oatmeal, but in a home like ours, inundated with southern influences, we regularly had grits for breakfast. The taste and texture of hot sweet potato pie and reheated lumpy grits went together perfectly! Don’t knock it until you try it.I’ve been modifying traditional recipes for years, trying to make them healthier. Here’s my own sweet potato pie recipe as best I can describe it.

Fred's Sweet Potato Pie Recipe

Ingredients:
4 to 6 large baked organic sweet potatoes (My mother in law taught me that baking the sweet potato makes the pie come out better than boiling them which is what a lot of folks do. Like steaming, baking is also healthier than boiling because it preserves the water soluble vitamins in the sweet potatoes).
2 large eggs or egg substitutes
1 cup of the thickets best tasting vanilla soy milk you can fine (try Silk’s very vanilla, or Vitasoy Vanilla)
1-2 cups unprocessed sugar
2 Tablespoons of lemon juice
Dash of cinnamon and nutmeg
Dash of vanilla extract

Directions:
Mix the ingredients into a sweet potato purée add milk as needed to make a smooth but thick filling. Bake in a pie crust shell (remember add a little fiber to your crust recipe/http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_pie_crust/) at 375 degrees on lowest rack for 50 minutes, until filling has set. Cool on rack for one hour. Then transfer to refrigerator and chill completely.

Fried Chicken and Collard Greens

When doing research for my book Hog and Hominy http://www.amazon.com/Hog-Hominy-Traditions-Perspectives-Culinary/dp/0231146388, I found that fried chicken and collard greens have long associations with black folks and religion dating back to West and Central Africa. Sources dated before the 1800s show that Mande women from West Africa batter frying chicken. Commonly they served chicken together with collard greens and dumplings. The African-American practice of eating chicken on special occasions is also a West Africanism that survived the African slave trade. Among the Igbo, Hausa, and Mande, poultry was eaten on special occasions as part of religious ceremonies. During the antebellum period enslaved African only had time to make fried chicken and sides dishes such as collard greens, corn bread, baked or candied sweet potatoes or yams, and fried okra among others on Sundays. Master gave their slaves off on Sundays and on few holidays and religious days.

Collard Green Recipe:
Wash the collards good in plenty of slightly salted water
Start out with 3 bunches which will serve 6 people, they are big bug the cook down like spinach. I steam mine in a pressure cooker for 10 minutes until the fibrous leaves are easy to eat. Steaming preserves the water soluble vitamins that are killed when you just boil the greens down like most of my ancestors have done for years.
Remove the collards from the pressure cooker and save the water to make the pot-licker
Season the water with 3 cubes of vegetable bullion, dried bay leaf, dried red pepper flakes, little vinegar, and some honey. Had a little liquid smoke which most grocery stores sell if you like that smoked meat flavor (the traditional recipe calls for a smoked ham hock or a hunk of smoked fat back).
The pot-licker is full of vitamins and great seasoning for the greens
Sauté the steamed greens with chopped onions and garlic in olive oil with your preferred seasonings like pepper, salt, etc.
Add sautéed greens to the pot-licker and let them marinade for 30 or more before serving

The Smell of Fried Chicken

Cooking Fried Chicken for Sunday Dinner, Escambia Farms, Florida, 1942, Library of Congress Photo Collection, LC-USF34- 082651-C [P&P]

There is something quintessentially home about the smell of fried chicken cooking on a Sunday afternoon in the African American home and in southern homes in general. I suspect however that that labor intensive tradition has died in most families with the older relatives that kept it going. Or perhaps a bucket of KFC and Popeye’s chicken is the smell most children are growing up with today . I realize now that the scrumptious order flowed through and out a home calling people to come eat meant a lot of hard work, love of family, and sweat of women toiling in their kitchens before the advent of central ac or window units.

Video a Butter milk based fried chicken recipe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxEhH6MPH28

Recipe for traditional soul food type fried chicken with audio: http://www.thegutsygourmet.net/fryed-chix.html

Sundays in Croton

My North Carolinian grandmother Luesta Duers and my mom Margaret Opie in front of our family home in Croton, 1970s

My other fried chicken memory comes from our family home in Croton. Like a lot of other folks with southern roots—hers in Windsor, North Carolina, my mom, who enjoyed cooking like I do, did her most serious throwing down in the kitchen on Sunday mornings. It almost always revolved around frying chicken which is a very labor intensive process. Mom would cut the chicken that came from the Grand Union in town in those yellow or white cello-foam platters and sealed with plastic wrap. She then cleaned, seasoned, and floured it. Then came the frying in a big old deep dish multiple-purpose cast iron skillet. Many cooks used one, and I still use one, to bake cornbread or biscuits made from scratch and served with lots of butter. Over the years I have enjoyed Sunday dinner after church at black folks homes from Syracuse to Atlanta. I learned that the Sunday fried chicken tradition had been pretty universal among black folks and the homemade side dishes, breads, and desserts served with it had also been relatively the same too

Thanks Dick Gregory!

My father worked as a corrections officer on a tower where he spent his shift listening to talk radio shows and reading. He had no formal college education however his breadth of knowledge was truly impressive particularly on history and nutrition. One day my dad heard Dick Gregory on the radio who had become a natural food advocate in the late 1960s stressing the importance of eating whole grains, fruits, vegetables, vitamins and condemning the typical American diet, especially the African American diet. My father latched on to Gregory’s message, read his books, and revolutionized are family’s eating habits. As a result I grew up eating Cheerios, Life, Raisin Brain, and other boring “healthy cereals” for breakfast despite the protest of my two older brothers and me. In addition, in m the morning my dad started taking all kinds of vitamins and supplement and making what we called shakes back then, smoothies today, with nasty smelling brewer’s yeast and fruit juices. Rarely did we have bacon and eggs or other “normal” breakfast food. Thanks Dick Gregory! I am sure others had similar experience with “enlightened” parents who tortured their children with teaspoons of cod liver oil, black strap molasses, or muffins so high in fiber they tasted like card board. For more on Dick Gregory and the natural eating movement of the 1960s and 70s see chapter 9 in my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy

Mike Vick and Civic Virtue

Yesterday, I commented on Mike Vick’s potential for making a significant impact on and off the gridiron if a change has truly occurred in his life after incarceration. What if he really put his slick- Vick mentality and nefarious Virginia entourage behind him for good? What if he gets serious about returning to relationship with Jesus Christ, as he claims, and working hard at being a humanitarian, good citizen, and professional football player? What about the rest of us? How many of us just don’t work hard at developing our God-given talent? How many of us show up to work late and leave early? How many of us have a transcendent cause in life that we give our time and money to help make this place a better world? Everyone seems quick to judge Mike Vick and chime in on whether or not the Philadelphia Eagles should have given him another chance. But how many of us are still not standing up and saying "STOP!" to ourselves and those around us when we know something is wrong? Let us make a greater effort toward civic virtue.

Something New On The Mike Vick Saga

I heard two interesting comments on the Mike Vick saga that urged me as a former world class athlete to write about them today. The first from Eagles coach Andy Reid that Vick “deserves a second chance.” And second from former NFL coach Tony Dungy who said last night on 60 minutes that Vick hasn’t worked at developing his God given talent. First why does Vick deserve a second chance? I would argue that none of us deserves a second chance and we mess up. We get one because someone extends grace to us—given us something we don’t deserve. I argue that the Eagles aren’t extended grace they are justifying unpopular business deal with a lot of fans that could reap for them a 100 fold return if the statement that coach Dungy, who is serving as Vick’s mentor, is true http://www.theroot.com/views/vick-s-eagle-say-what. Dungy and Vick agreed that he excelled in the league while missing workouts, coming late to films and practice and leaving first while earning millions of dollars. lf Vick’s incarceration provided him with an Apostle Paul like Damascus road experience, we may see one of the humane society’s most impacting spokes person against dog fighting and one the NFL’s all time best players. We will have to wait and see if he is really a changed person.

60 minutes interview: http://www.cbs.com/primetime/60_minutes/video/video.php?cid=60%20Minutes/60%20Minutes%20Full%20Episodes&pid=mOfRZGfCmeds7MG_pXo7pgJoCArXpACq&category=episodes&play=true

Related links:http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/08/17/alg_vick-tv.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/2009/08/16/2009-08-16_michael_vick.html&usg=__0XdZT81WVPtSeKxY3XdcaWuLn5M=&h=286&w=450&sz=44&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=diry5WWrnO98mM:&tbnh=81&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmike%2Bvick%2B60%2Bminutes%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

A Call for Leadership In The Health Care Debate

President Obama and other incumbent democrats in the house and senate are in the fight of their political lives right now over health care reform. Now we will see who are the leaders and the ones really serious about reforming the health care system or just surviving another election cycle. Those who are serious will not call off their forums but instead find a way of establishing civility in a public forum to discuss the problems instead of letting protestors shut down civil debates on real issues that need to be discussed. Here is a suggestion I heard from a professional meeting facilitator today on the radio http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2009/08/12.She suggested restructuring the meetings so that protestors cannot continue to bum rush the venues. Democrats it’s no more complicated than simple meeting management. Hire some pros and reformat the geography of the meetings so that all sides can be heard and people’s questions can be answered. That’s what any good leader does, creates a safe learning environment and sets ground rules that personal attacks and outburst will not be tolerated.