Feeding the Revolution: Food and the Continental Army Part 2

In 1776 a group of Mennonites declared themselves passivist refusing to take up arms on either side of the American Revolution. Instead they among activities sold food to the army. Members of the Continental Army did (irregularly) receive government provided rations. When they arrived on the battle field they included besides 1 pound (lb.) bread and or flour, lb “of beef, or 3/4 lb. of pork, or 1 lb. of salt fish; 1 pint (pt.) of milk, or payment of 1/72 dollars, and 1 quart of cider or spruce beer; 3 pts. of peas or beans per man per week” says one source. Patriot officials, along with the British, confiscated salt for preserving most of these food stores, thus price of salt and food in general skyrocketed as shortages set in. Most specialize suggest that rank and file troops spent more time starving on the battle field and depending on the donations of women, freedmen, enslaved Africans, and friendly Native Americans for food than on the Continental Congress. It figures that during the revolutionary war the population of wide game like deer became greatly dimensioned which is the opposite of what we are experiencing here in the Hudson Valley. Here’s a roasted venison recipe that calls for ingredients that are far more lavish than the average soldier could obtain: http://www.venisonrecipes.net/roast-venison.html "> http://www.venisonrecipes.net/roast-venison.html

Feeding the Revolution: The 1961 Albany, Georgia Movement Part 2

Pecan pie recipe below!

Yesterday we talked about the unsung church mothers in Albany, Georgia (the home of Ray Charles) who feed Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK), and other members of the civil movement that converged on that southern city in 1961. Albany Police Chief Laurie Pritchett restrained his forces from using violence on the protestors and he ordered the wholesale arrest of them and incarceration in separate holding places in neighboring hamlets thus keeping his jails from getting overcrowded. Pritchett held Abernathy, MLK, and other leaders of the movement in Albany proper in horrid conditions including withholding food. Local black women heard about the conditions and began feeding those in jail with some good down home cooking. “Not only did the women bring hot dishes that evening, but they also baked pies, cakes, and cookies; and somebody even churned a couple of quarts of homemade ice cream for us,” says Ralph Abernathy. He adds, “Just when we had finished off one delivery, a woman would come in with a new basket and we would start eating all over again.” Here is a recipe for pecan pie, which some say was one of MLK’s favorite desserts.

Aunt Nancy’s Pecan Pie Recipe (with a translation for vegans):
3 eggs slightly beaten (or egg substitute)
1 cup sugar
1 cup Karo (light) syrup
2 tbsp melted butter (substitute a vegan margarine, there are some great ones out there)
1 tsp vanilla
1 & ¼ cup pecan halves

Method:
Stir list ingredients together, and then mix in pecans. Pour into 9 inch pie crust and bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes. Let cool to room temperature then refrigerate before serving.

Feeding the Revolution: The 1961 Albany, Georgia Movement

Potato salad, recipe below.

Around the summer of 1961, NAACP leaders in Albany, Georgia invited SNCC and SCLC leaders to come and discuss a strategy for ending Jim Crow policies in schools eateries and other public spaces. Out side and local civil rights organizations collaborated with students from Albany State College (a HBCU), poor residents of the city, and country farmers to launch the Albany movement in November of 1961. City officials arrested and jailed hundreds for protesters participating in marches, pickets lines, sit-ins, and for attempting to registrar black voters. Angry white officials starved the jailed protesters to try and crush their resolve. The SCLC’s Ralph Abernathy describe one Albany women who showed her support by feeding the jailed members of the movement. “In the middle of the afternoon, the jailer came to us with a plate of fried chicken, potato salad, biscuits, and a huge apple pie. We [MLK and I] both rolled out of bed, starving. . . we looked down the hall and saw a little old black lady smiling and waving . . .Thank you, ma’ am,’ we called out and waved back. ‘You’re welcome,’ she said, ‘and that’s jus the beginning.’ . . . From that moment on we were never without food in our cell. Here is a potato salad recipe that would go well as a side dish for lunch or dinner.

Basic Southern Potato Salad
Recipe Ingredients:
1 – pound red potato
1 – hard boiled egg (or extra firm ) finely chopped
1 – large celery rib, finely chopped
1/2 – cup mayonnaise (or vegan mayo)
1/2 small onion, finely chopped
1/2 – cup sweet pickle relish

Method:
Thoroughly scrub potatoes, steam them in a large pot until they are tender, remove from the pot to cool, and then mash the un-skinned potatoes in a large bowl. Combine the mashed potatoes with the other ingredients and mix well. Season to taste with sea salt, fresh ground pepper, paprika, and a little fresh chopped thyme and parsley. Refrigerate for about an hour before serving salad cold.

Feeding the Revolution: SNCC and Vertamae Smart Grosvenor

Awesome buttermilk biscuit recipe below!

Born 1938 in Hampton County, South Carolina, Vertamae Smart Grosvenor is among many titles, culinary anthropologist, NPR correspondent, and author. From low country South Carolina, she is perhaps best known for her food memoir Vibration Cooking, also known as The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl (1970) http://www.abaa.org/books/33044511.html. I talk about her in my book Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy. In the 1960s she lived in Harlem where she, among other activities, cooked “neck bones, chicken feet stew, biscuits, greens, and grits” and “batches of fried chicken and potato salad” for Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) fundraisers. She and her SNCC colleagues served the food at parties where supporters enjoyed her delicious low country food and the soulful music of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gay, and other noted artist of that era. Like Montgomery’s Georgia Gilmore, and the Paschal brothers of Atlanta, Grosvenor played an important part in feeding the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. Here’s a buttermilk biscuit recipe reflected her contribution to advances the cause of SNCC and ending Jim Crow policies across the country.

Buttermilk Biscuit Recipe (makes about 10 biscuits):
Nonstick cooking spray
2 cups spelt flour 1/8 teaspoon baking soda to up the flour rise/ or use 2 cups self-rising flour
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon sea salt
¼ cup sugar
4 tablespoon vegetable shortening
2/3 cup heavy or whipping cream/half and half works too
1 cup buttermilk, or until dough is like cottage cheese
1 cup whole-wheat flour for shaping the wet dough into biscuits
2 tablespoons melted butter to brush over the baked biscuits

Method:
Preheat the oven to 425; spray cook sheet or cast iron skillet with non-stick spray; combine dry ingredients except for the 1 cup flour for shaping the dough; stir in buttermilk and cream and let stand for 2-3 minutes. Flour your hands and softly shape your biscuits. If you’re rushing, use an ice-cream scooper. Place the biscuits tightly against each other on wax paper so they will rise up instead of out. Sprinkle with flour then place then on the sprayed surface for baking. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and brush with the melted butter and serve.

Feeding the Revolution: SNCC and Paschal’s Restaurant in Atlanta Part II

In 1960, Lonnie King, Julian Bond, Herschelle Sullivan, Carolyn Long, Joseph Pierce, and others Black students from the Atlanta University Center (AUC) organized what they called the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights (COAHR). They recruited students, trained them in non-violence strategy, and then moved on several segregated Atlanta lunch counters in protest including Rich’s a flagship department store in downtown Atlanta. Atlanta officials arrested them and while they remained in jail their parents gathered at Paschal’s restaurant. We “would keep the restaurant open all night because their families would come to Paschal's to wait until they had been released from jail,” remembers one of the Paschal brothers who owned the business. Thus when they made bail, the members of the COAHR went straight to Paschal’s where the restaurant owners feed them and their families for free. Congressman John Lewis, from Atlanta, a former member of SNCC, recalls that when the food was not free at Paschal’s during the sit-in movements, you could still get a plate of fried chicken, a wedge of corn bread, candied yams, and some greens for the price of a poor man’s feast--a dollar and some change.

Feeding the Revolution: SNCC and Paschal’s Restaurant in Atlanta

Founded in 1960, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) used the strategy of direct action to advance the desegregation agenda of the collective civil rights movement. SNCC gained international attention when in February of 1960 members launched a sit-in demonstration at a lunch-counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. At the time Julian Bond attended Morehouse College (the House) in Atlanta and first heard about while sitting in a café (possibly Paschal’s) “a place where students went between--or instead of—classes,” says Bond. He and other Morehouse students organized a local SNCC chapter and launched their own lunch-counter sit-ins in Atlanta. Many of the strategy successions for their sit-ins occurred at Paschal’s just around the corner from the House because the Paschal brothers provided both food and space for Bond, Lonnie King (another Morehouse man) and others Atlanta University Center students who responded SNCC's example of direct action. Those familiar with Paschal’s remember fondly the fried catfish, mashed potatoes, sweet tea, and lemon pie on the menu. More on SNCC in Atlanta and Paschal’s tomorrow. Today, here is a lemon pie recipe that reminds of a good SNCC meeting in Paschal's: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/lemon_tart/

Feeding the Revolution: Martin Luther King and Paschal’s Restaurant in South West Atlanta

Paschal’s Restaurant in South West Atlanta played an important role during the civil rights movement providing a meeting place for Martin Luther King (MLK), who their vegetable soup, and other movement strategist. Furthermore, like Georgia Gilmore business in Montgomery, Paschal’s in Atlanta literally feed the rank file of the civil rights revolution and its leaders with sensational soul food. According to Marcellas C. D. Barksdale, who attended Morehouse in the early 1960s, Paschal’s was no dump. To the contrary, it was a white-tablecloth restaurant for middle and upper class African Americans in Atlanta. He argues that it was the “number-one so-called classy restaurant” for African-American professionals. During segregation it remained the first choice for a Sunday meal for “Doctor and Mrs. so and so.” In addition, well-to-do Morehouse students would also take their “public girlfriends” to Pascal’s for Sunday dinner, says Barksdale. You could get full course, great-tasting meals for two people for five dollars. In addition to formal dining, Pascal’s also had a lunch counter and grill where you could also order fried chicken, collards and corn bread in a casual setting. Below is my corn bread recipe. Paschal's moved to new location not far from it's old space and it's been given a very upscale makeover. Really nice that I have been to and the tradition of good soul food continues. I talk about Paschal's in my book Hog and Hominy: Soul Food From Africa to America http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/excerpt.

Sweet corn bread recipe:

3/4 self-rising cornmeal
1 cup Spelt flour (it’s better tasting and healthier than white or wheat flour)
1/2 cup cane sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup vanilla soymilk, (a fortified soy milk is a very good tasting healthy choice, I suggest the Vitasoy brand for newbies)
1 egg or egg substitute (beaten)
2 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp butter (Try I Can’t Believe It’s not Butter available at most supermarkets and Costco)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400; Combine dry ingredients. Add milk, egg and oil. Mix well. Spray a large cast iron skillet like the one in the photo or a 9 inch pie pan with Pam. Bake until tooth pick inserted in center comes out clean (about 25 minutes). Melt butter and brush over the top of the bread when it comes fresh out the oven; serves 8.