Eldridge Cleaver on Chitterlings and Social Class

A former Black Panther, Eldridge Cleaver never got into the soul food restaurant franchise business like Ali, James, Brown, or Mahalia Jackson, but he plenty to say about food and class. “You hear a lot of jazz about Soul Food,” he wrote in 1968. “Take chitterlings: the ghetto blacks eat them from necessity while the black bourgeoisie” hold them in contempt. For affluent blacks, “eating chitterlings is like going slumming” says Cleaver. During a Q &A at a lecture and book signing I did yesterday, a person asked me, so what can you tell us about chitterlings? This is a question I often get at lectures I give on 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. I tell people that, after watching travel channels show Bizarre Food, I have learned that chitterlings are not distinctive to African Americans and soul food, they are distinctive and comfort food of poor folks all over the world. Poor folks cannot afford to throw away any source of protein. Folks with money have always eaten high on the hog and held poor cuts and portions of the hog like chitterlings in contempt. In contrast, those who’s financial circumstances forces them to eat low on the hog including chitterlings, trotters (pig’s feet), and pigs snots don’t have a lot of choices. Cleaver noted, “people in the ghetto want steaks. Beef Steaks,” but unfortunately they can only afford chitterlings which butchers often gave way or sold dirt cheap. In short, what we eat is most often an indicator of a social class and earning power.

James Brown’s Gold Platter Soul Food Restaurants

Southern fruity and nutty coleslaw, recipe below

Born and raised in Augusta, Georgia, singer, songwriter, and choreographer James Brown is considered the undisputed Godfather of soul. In 1969 Brown entered a soul food restaurant franchising business called “Gold Platter.” At the time, Brown earned 4.5 million a year from his own production company, record label, three radio stations, apartment buildings, and share in a securities firm, According to a 1969 Jet magazine article, “Soul Brother No. 1” went into business with “a group of white Georgia businessmen in Macon.” Brown insisted that “providing investment and job opportunities for members of minority races,” represented one of his central goals. Like Barry Gordy, Brown want his restaurants to appeal to more than black consumers and appear in black communities. Mahlia Jackson (who I posted on yesterday) and James Brown were two of a long list of celebrities who used their brand names to launch restaurant franchises many of which featured fried chicken in the late 1960s. They had in common the goal of capitalizing on the success of Harlan Sanders’ KFC franchise business which sold during the era to a corporate entity at a huge profit (see my earlier post on KFC history in the blog archives). Gold Platter’s menu featured chicken with French fries, coleslaw, cornbread, catfish with hush puppies, and hamburgers with everything served on a gold platter. For unknown reasons, Brown’s soul food chain never made it past the experimental phase which two locations in Macon that black entrepreneur and Macon native Edward Grant, Sr. managed. Here is a good coleslaw recipe, an essential with fried chicken or fish in my humble opinion.

Coleslaw Recipe:

Ingredients
1 small cabbage (try mixing red and green cabbage)
3 t. mayonnaise (or vegan substitute)
2 t. lemon juice
2 t. apple cider vinegar
2 t. spicy honey Dijon mustard
1 apple of your choice (try mixing a red and green apple)
1/2 cup of raisins
1/2 cup of walnuts

Method
Dice/shred cabbage and apple. Mix mayonnaise, lemon juice, vinegar and mustard and pour over cabbage, apples, raisins, and walnuts and toss.

Mahalia Jackson’s Gloree-Fried Chicken (carryout only)

New Orleans fried catfish, hush puppies, and Creole tartar sauce recipes below

The black power movement made soul food both fashionable and popular in urban restaurants as it gave black people a sense of pride in regard to their food. In addition, the message of black power also inspired a vibrant black entrepreneurial spirit that resulted in several black restaurant chains in the late 1960s. Notable African-American celebrities in the 1960s invested in short-lived attempts to sell soul food restaurant franchises. I want to talk about them over the next couple of days starting today with gospel recording artist Mahalia Jackson. Born in 1911 the daughter of a Baptist preacher, Jackson grew up on Pitt Street in the same section of New Orleans as Louie Armstrong, the Uptown section know to locals as Back of Town; Jackson was 10 years younger than Satchmo. Also like Satchmo, Jackson migrated to Chicago—he in 1918 and she in 1927—where they launched their music careers; she was sixteen at the time and he was almost the same age a decade earlier. By the 1950s she became a household name and toured internationally. We know that in part she used the capital she earned to launch a fried chicken chain in 1968 called, Mahalia Jackson’s Gloree-Fried Chicken just four years before she died. Co-owned Benjamin Hooks (who on to become executive director of the NAACP), the franchise is best described as classic soul food carryout restaurant with a "Soul Bowl" of chicken giblets in gravy on rice as well as “mouth-watering southern fried chicken along with catfish, sweet potato pie [, fried pie] and hot biscuits.” It's mantra,"It’s Gloree-Fried, and that’s the gospel truth,” could been seen on the two franchises in Chicago which owners operated alongside of gas station. Other cities with franchises included Memphis, Cleveland, Jacksonville, and Detroit. Jackson received royalties for the use of her name on the business that proved short lived. Every successful soul food restaurant in my humble business must have some great fried chicken and great fried fish on the menu. Here are New Orleans fried catfish, hush puppies, and Creole tartar sauce recipes: http://www.nolacuisine.com/2006/08/01/fried-catfish-recipe/

“Struttin” With Mardi Gras Music and Food

New Orleans Barbecue Shrimp, recipe below

We are in Mardi Gras season folks so let stay with that historical and culinary theme. When I think of New Orleans two things immediately come to mind: the music of Louie Armstrong and Food. Armstrong’s song “Struttin' With Some Barbeque” (see a music video of the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSbRs2TjVKs) is tailored made for my blog. New Orleans barbecue has its roots in its Spanish and African culinary heritage. The Spanish who controlled New Orleans from 1736 to 1801, learned barbecuing from the Caribbean based Arawak-Carib Indians who did a lot of nonsauce barbecuing of meat on green wood grills they called brabacots. The Spanish translated the word to barbacoa, from which we get the English word barbecue. In addition, before their arrival in the New Orleans, young women in Africa learned how to barbecue whatever wild game and fish the men of their village or tribe brought home with a sauce similar to what we now call a barbecue sauce made from lime or lemon juice and hot peppers. African most often barbecued on special occasions like religious holidays, ceremonies, and days like Mardi Gras. In New Orleans enslaved Africans had to adapt to the ingredients available to them thus in New Orleans people have historically barbecued pork, chicken, and especially shrimp because it’s been so plentiful. Here is New Orleans Barbecue Shrimp recipe:


New Orleans Barbecue Shrimp


Ingredients
2 pounds Jumbo Shrimp
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup bottled clam Juice
1 medium lemon, sliced
1 tablespoon Old Bay seasoning
1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1 teaspoon black pepper
8 tablespoons butter, divided
1 cup chopped yellow onion
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 cup mild barbecue sauce
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper sauce
2 tablespoons chopped chive


Method
Peel and devein the shrimp, leaving only the tails attached, reserving the shells. In a medium saucepan, combine the shells, wine, clam juice, sliced lemon, Old Bay, and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes. Strain the shrimp stock and reserve.Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a sauté pan over medium heat. Add onions and a dash of salt. Sweat the onions until soft. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute. Add the shrimp stock, barbecue sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Bring to a boil. Add the shrimp and cayenne pepper sauce. Cook for 4 minutes or so until the shrimp turns pink. Add the remaining butter. Sprinkle with chives and season with salt and cracked black pepper. Serve in bowls with crusty bread.

Maya Angelou and Depression Era Missouri and Arkansas

Chicken and Peanut Stew, traditional and vegan recipes below

During the Depression poet Maya Angelou, born in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri, lived in two worlds: urban black St Louis which she described as “a gold-rush town” with speak easies, gambling joints, and houses of prostitution and Stamps, Arkansas a country town with a saw mill, cotton, gin, and lots of farm land. In St. Louis she Grandma Baxter made her mark and a good deal of money in part as a well connected political boss peddling votes in exchange for favors. Her Arkansas grandmother, a cook and country store owning entrepreneur, also did well. The urban and rural worlds that Angelou grew up in makes for some interesting contrasts. For example, in Stamps she tells us that we harvested peanuts “raw from the field and roasted [them] in the bottom of the oven on cold nights. The rich scents used to fill the house and we were always expected to eat too many. But that was a Stamps custom” Angelou recalls. “In St. Louis, peanuts were brought in paper bags and mixed with jelly beans, which meant that we ate the salt and sugar together and I found them a delicious treat.” In my book Hog and Hominy I show that Portuguese slave traders introduced many South American plants to the coast of West and Central Africa including peanuts before the 19th century. Overtime African farmers incorporated the plant into their fields and cookery particularly as one pot meals. Enslaved Africans then introduced peanuts to North Americans during the African slave trade thereafter. Here is a chicken and peanut stew recipe with an easy translation for vegans.


Chicken and Peanut Stew
Ingredients
1/2 cup cornmeal
Salt and freshly ground pepper
One 3 1/2 -pound chicken (or vegan chicken substitute) cut into 8 pieces, rinsed and patted dry
1/4 cup canola oil
2 small onions, coarsely chopped
1 jalapeño--stemmed, seeded and minced
1 cup water
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup raw peanuts (2 1/2 ounces)
8 unpeeled garlic cloves
1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into 1 1/2 -inch chunks
1 1/2 pounds long thin eggplants, sliced crosswise 1 1/2 inches thick
2 small yellow squash, sliced crosswise 1 1/2 inches thick
1 bunch scallions cut into 2-inch lengths


Method
Bread the chicken with cornmeal, salt, and pepper. Fry chicken in a large skillet or casserole until golden brown and transfer it a large platter. Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the fat and add the onions and jalapeño and cook over low heat until just softened. Add the water, vinegar, peanuts and garlic, season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Return the chicken, cover, and simmer over low heat until tender and cooked through, around 45 minutes. Put the chicken on a platter. Add sweet potatoes, eggplant, and yellow squash to the casserole. Cover and cook on low heat until the vegetables are tender, perhaps for an hour. Put the chicken back in the casserole, mi in the scallions and simmer until the scallions are tender and the chicken is hot, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and it’s ready to serve.

Nina Simone and North Carolina Cookery

Brown Betty and ice cream, recipe below  

African American singer, composer, and civil rights activist Eunice Kathleen Waymon aka Nina Simone (1933-2003) was born and raised in Tyron, North Carolina, a southern resort town. In 1933 the Federal National Relief Agency (NRA), one of FDR’s New Deal Depression era programs, chose Tyron for one of its surplus food distribution program area depots. In my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/webFeatures I talk about how many survived the Depression with the help of NGOs and government relief through the NRA. Nina Simone’s father and other men in Tyron received NRA truck-driving jobs. “Not only did the men at the depot get given a little extra food to take home, but the drivers built up a network of people who would trade food among themselves,” Simone recalls. Families would trade what they raised in excess from their gardens and the surplus food they received on the job. Drivers traded leftover “collard greens, string beans, tomatoes and sometimes eggs” with drivers who had “more sugar or flour, say, than they needed. Most of what she remembers from the very earliest part of her life “is tied up with food and music.” Her mother would stretch the family budget with “rice pudding, brown betty. And beans. Tons of beans” says Simon. “We were poor for a long time but I can’t remember ever going hungry, not once.” Here are two brown betty recipes. I choose it because it’s a traditional southern recipe but often unknown to the grandchildren of southerners born and raised here in the north like me.


Traditional brown betty recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Apple-Brown-Betty-106204

Crockpot brown betty recipe: http://www.olsouthrecipes.com/crockpot/apple_betty.html


Vegan brown betty recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=14007.0

Amiri Baraka, the Black Arts Movement, and Food

Sweet Potato Pie Recipe below

The black power movement and the glorification of distinctively black culture inspired the emergence of the black arts movement of the 1960s. One of the leading figures in the black arts movement was Amiri Baraka, formerly LeRoi Jones born in 1934 in Newark New Jersey. Baraka and others like him called for a new, independent, proud black identity. Soul was the cultural arm of the black power movement that called for, among other actions, singing, talking, and eating according to the African heritage of black people in America. Baraka advocated soul food as black folk’s cuisine and wrote a lot about his 1966 book Home: Social Essays. He argues that Harlem cuisine his soul food and it comes straight from southern migrants. “Sweet potato pies, a good friend of mine asked recently, ‘Do they taste anything like pumpkin?’ Negative. They taste more like memor[ies],” of the south. Here is sweet potato pie recipe that naturally fits with this post. By the way, on many occasion I had some great pumpkin pie at the Uptown Juice Bar on 125th Street in Harlem made with raisins and coconut in the filling, stuff melted in your mouth. However they stopped making it but still sell lots of sweet potato pie everyday. Great spot to get some healthy forms of soul food just a couple of blocks west of Metro North and on the 1 and 2 subway line.

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.