East Carolina Barbecued pork and greens, barbecue sauce recipe below
According to Mt Vernon, New York’s Reginald T. Ward, Barbecue in Bertie, County, North Carolina means “chopped barbecue.” Ward, who I interviewed for 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 migrated to New York from Robbinsonville in Bertie County in the 1960s. In North Carolina Ward grew up barbecuing a whole pig chopped up with different spices “like vinegar and red pepper.” The word barbecue varies from region to region even across a state. Historically the folks in Bertie County, in eastern North Carolina, used a vinegar based sauce. Here is an Eastern North Carolina barbecue sauce recipe you can try this Memorial Day weekend.
Crawfish étouffée served with rice and cornbread, recipe below
Crawfish étouffée is another dish with lots of sauce and history. The dish shows the influence of Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans on new world cookery and it’s one of the first simple but tasty soul food dishes in Louisiana cuisine. The French settlers from Vendée, Poitou, and Brittany who eventually became known as Acadians and Cajuns brought with them the foodways of commoners in France who developed sauces intended to make simple dishes more appetizing and stretched their nutritional and filling values. In colonial Louisiana Africans shared the tradition of one-pot-meals with poor whites that lived among and around them. Africans also shared the ubiquitous habit of eating rice with most meals. Native American added the use of tomatoes in Crawfish étouffée; tomatoes are indigenous to the Americas. The word étouffée comes from the French word “to smother” and it means a luscious tomato based sauce. Here is link to wonderful crawfish étouffée like the delicious one I ate pictured above in New Orleans.
Moroccan-Salmon with sweet and spicy barbecue sauce, recipe below
Many of the innovations in Atlantic foodways, particularly the introduction of exotic ingredients from the East, occurred as a result of 800 years of North African cultural imperialism in the Iberian Peninsula after they seized power in 711 A.D. In the first chapter of my book Hog and Hominy (http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/webFeatures) I talk about how the Moors introduced a number of spices and herbs obtained through the Arabian spice trade into Iberian cookery and eventually to African cookery. Moorish seasoning techniques called for using sugar, spices, and herbs to enhance, not dominate the flavor of vegetables, poultry, red meat, and fish.These spices and cooking philosophies of Moorish and Iberian origins became important to African cooks. Moorish seasoning techniques directly influenced Iberian cookery from 711 to 1491 A.D. This, in turn, indirectly influenced African cookery.Here is a link to an incredible North African sweet and spicy barbecue sauce served with salmon. My wife made the recipe for me in our first year of marriage and the sensational taste of the sauce just smacked my mouth with pleasure. The recipe below also includes side dishes
Tartar sauce on cornmeal fried fish, recipes below
Poet Maya Angelou was born in 1928 in St. Louis but she spent many of her childhood years living with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas which was a rural farming community. “The summer picnic fish fry in the clearing by the pond was the biggest outdoor even of the year. Everyone was there,” writes Angelou. All churches were represented, as well as the social groups. . , professional people . . ., and all the excited children. The key to a good fried fish is in how one seasons it. Some use a wet beer batter or a dry corn meal which is my southern style. I recommend passing a fork held piece of fresh fish through corn meal seasoned with spices such as paprika, finely ground sea salt, and dill weed. I also recommend adding a Goya Adobo all purpose seasoning which can be purchased in a variety of spice and herb combinations. Great seasoned fried fish is essential, but another essential is a great tartar sauce. Tartar Sauce Recipe Ingredients 1 cup mayonnaise substitute or regular mayonnaise ¼ cup of sweet pickle relish (or more depending on your preference) 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard ½ teaspoon dried tarragon Salt and pepper for seasoning (optional) Method Whisk all ingredients in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper if you like and allow time to chill in the refrigerator before serving.
Mushroom sauce over steak and potato along with some greens, mushroom gravy recipes below
In The African Heritage Cookbook culinary writer Helen Mendes explains, “sauces and gravies are as intrinsic a part of Soul cooking as they had been of West African cooking. . . . Soul food is not dry food. With almost all meals some type of sauce or gravy is served. These like the West African sauces, are well seasoned,” She writes. To survive people in Africa, Europe, and the Americas have historically foraged in forest for edible berries, herbs, tubers, wild greens and mushrooms. Lately I’ve had a taste for a mushroom sauce. Here’s a southern one from Tennessee that serves about 3 to 5 people. This mushroom sauce works equally well over a barbecued steak, baked potato, or brown rice. I also provide a link to a easy but sensational port-wine mushroom sauce that goes well with various meat and vegan meat substitutes.
Tennessee mushroom sauce recipe
Ingredients
½ cup butter or butter substitute divided
2 (8-ounce) containers of fresh mushrooms ( I like portabella, shiitake, and or what’s on sale)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh scallions or Vidalia onions
3 tablespoons whole wheat or white flour
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 cups soy or regular milk
2 teaspoons hot sauce
¾ teaspoon sea salt
¾ teaspoon fresh ground pepper
Method
Melt 1/4 cup butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat; add mushrooms, and sauté 12 to 14 minutes or until liquid evaporates. Add onions and sauté for two minutes. Remove from heat. Melt remaining 1/4 cup butter in a large saucepan over medium heat; whisk in flour until smooth. Cook, whisking constantly, 1 minute; whisk in dry mustard. Gradually whisk in milk and next 3 ingredients; cook, whisking constantly, until mixture is thickened and bubbly. Stir in mushroom mixture, and cook until thoroughly heated.
Mexican chocolate based mole sauce, several recipes below
During the era of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1917, Langston Hughes’ father lived as an American expatriate fleeing the restrictions of Jim Crow laws and customs in the United States. Rising Mexican nationalism caused many white American to flee Mexico thus providing job opening for some African-American professional like Hughes. A young Langston went to Mexico at about the age of fourteen to live with his father. He provides wonderful descriptions of the food. “In Mexico City . . . my father took me to call on three charming middle-aged Mexican ladies who . . . served the most marvelous dishes . . .—roast duck stuffed with pears and turkey with mole sauce, a [spicy chocolate based] sauce that takes several days to prepare, so complex is its making.” Mole, which comes in many varieties, is perhaps one of Mexico’s signature culinary contributions to the world. Most moles sauces contain chocolate and spices such as cloves, cinnamon, parsley, and pepper along with other ingredients here are links to various mole recipes including vegan selections.
Ropa vieja (left) a traditional Cuban dish made with a tomato based sauce.
In the midst of a series on sauces from Africa to America; today I am talking about the sauce served with the Cuban dish ropa vieja or old clothes. This dish fits my working definition of soul food—a fabulous-tasting dish made from simple, inexpensive ingredients and Soul food is enjoyed by folk, whom it reminds of their rural and African roots and cultures, as well as adaptations to conditions of slavery and freedom in the Americas. The ropa vieja is sautéed shredded beef covered with a rich tomato based sauce seasoned with spices and vegetables such as onion, bell pepper, garlic, cumin, and cilantro.Here are two recipes for ropa vieja a traditional Cuban dish: Traditional ropa vieja recipe:http://inatinykitchen.blogspot.com/2006/11/ropa-vieja.html
Acarajé (a popular street cart food in Brazil) with mango salsa; I am a mango salsa guy but traditionalist love it with the hot and spicy acarajé sauce, recipes below.
Acarajé is a sort of blacked-eyed-pea dumpling fried in dendê or palm oil served with a hot spicy sauce made with malagueta pepper. In doing research for my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy I learned that Black-eyed-peas, palm oil, and malagueta pepper are made from plants indigenous to Africa and which arrived in the Americas via the Colombian exchange and African slave Trade. For instance, we know that, as early as 1742, South Carolinians cultivated Ethiopian or Guinea Pepper from an African tree that planter and slave owner Eliza Lucas Pinckney claimed a “good Ingredient” in seasoning some southern delicacies. Malagueta pepper proved just as popular in colonial Brazil. Below are recipes for acarajé sauce, a mango salsa, and two recipes for acarajé, one traditional and the other vegan.
Acarajé sauce recipe
Ingredients 4 dry malagueta peppers ¼ cup Dried ground shrimp 1 small Chopped onion ½ teaspoon Salt ½ teaspoon Ginger 2 tablespoons Dendê oil (palm oil) or try olive oil
Method Pound first 5 ingredients together and mix thoroughly or put through blender. Heat in the oil for about 10 minutes serve over a great tasting acarajé.
A Southern Barbecue, a wood engraving from a sketch by Horace Bradley, published in Harper's Weekly, July 1887. Barbecue sauce recipes below.
Before their arrival in the Americas, young women in West and Central Africa learned how to cook whatever wild game the men of their village or tribe brought home. African women cooked most meats over an open pit and ate them with a sauce similar to what we now call a barbecue sauce made from lime or lemon juice and hot peppers. The point here is that enslaved Africans came from regions where they barbecued during feast days. Thus, barbecuing was another African technique that they had to adapt to the ingredients available to them as enslaved African cooks on white-owned plantations. Today folks in the state of Florida are most associated with adding lime or lemon to their tomato based barbecue sauce and Carolina pit barbecue seems closet to what we see with West and Central African barbecue with a heavy hand on hot peppers, lemon and or lime. Below are recipes for a Carolina pit barbecue sauce with lemon and lime and an Eastern Carolina barbecue sauce with lots of hot pepper; there is also related barbecue sauce link.
The Book’s grassroots approach to foodways reveals the global origins of food traditions, the forces that shape food traditions, and the distinctive cultural collaborations that have occurred among Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Americans throughout history. Hog and Hominy shows how food can be an indicator of social position, a site of community building, and cultural identity.
ADD Warning
For those, like my wife, who can’t stand typos, watch out! I have severe ADD which kept me from moving forward with this blog for too long. My friend encouraged me to start blogging and just disclose my disability the same way I do on the first day of class as a college professor. Folks I regularly make spelling mistakes because of my disability. In order to get two books and several academic journal articles published I use a professional copy editor. To blog that would take too much time and money. So if you can overlook my typos, enjoy my musings.
Frederick Douglass Opie is the author of Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America, Black Labor Migration in Caribbean Guatemala, 1882-1923, and the forthcoming book Black and Latino Coalitions in New York 1959 to 1989. He has appeared in the NYC cable TV series Appetite City hosted by former New York Times food critic William Grimes,the History Channel's "101 Fast Foods That Have Changed the World," and Film Maker Byron Hurt's documentary Soul Food Junkie. Opie is the Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow at The W. E. B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University and Professor of History and Foodways at Babson College
East Carolina Barbecued pork and greens, barbecue sauce recipe below
