Electoral Politics and Food: A Steak in Your Vote

Tomahawk steak, recipe below

I am starting a new foodways series today on “election day treating,” the historic practice of insuring voter turnout and political allegiants with the promise of food and or drink. Here is my first installment. We are a week away from midterm elections which will determine who controls the U. S. House of Representatives and perhaps give republicans or democratic control of the U. S. Senate. In addition there are important local elections and more than thirty gubernatorial selections around the country. The political fervor reminds me of a story that my Cousin Katie told me long ago. She was perhaps the best cook in our family and a delight to be around. As a doctoral student studying history at Syracuse University in the 1990s, I lived off campus at my older Cousin house on Borden Avenue on the North West side of the city of Syracuse; she was in her 70s at the time. It was election season in the 1990s and I was surprised to learn that she was a registered Republican. I was Surprised because, like most African Americans, our family was full of registered Democrats with roots in the political realignment that occurred with blacks flocked to the Dems during the era of FDR and his Federal National Relief Agency (NRA). The NRA provided food relief for many African Americans on the verge of starvation. The story goes that Cousin Katie moved to Syracuse from Ossining, New York sometime in the late 1940s. She quickly learned that the Republican Party in her area of the city gave out fat and juicy steaks to those who supported GOP candidates. As result, during tough times, some like my cousin realigned themselves politically with their stomachs. Below is a very serious steak recipe that is not at all vegan friendly but it works with this story.

Tomahawk steak recipe: http://mantestedrecipes.com/recipe/2808/tomahawk-steak.aspx

Civil War Foodways Series: Black Cooks in Confederate Camps

Dandelion salad with beets and cheese, recipe below

Throughout the U.C. Civil War, some confederate armies depended on the labor of slaves and free blacks pressed into service to construct fortifications, transport materiel, tend cavalry horses, and cook mass camp meals for both officers and the rank and file soldiers. Historically enslaved Africans had learned how to hunt and cook wild game like turkey, raccoon, and rabbit, and also how to cook local plant foods like dandelion greens. Except for the turkey, most Africans had already hunted and cooked corresponding animals in West Africa. Similarly, Africans had also cooked with oysters before arriving in the Chesapeake Bay region and the Carolinas. The same is true with plants, but much of the knowledge of local edible plants in North America they had learned from Native Americans during the early colonial period. Here is recipe for a great dandelion salad with beets and cheese. I had this at a Southern Foodways Alliance Conference down in Oxford Mississippi and it was out of this world good.

Dandelion Green Salad with Beets and Goat Cheese recipe: http://flapperfood.blogspot.com/2009/07/dandelion-green-salad-with-beets-and.html

Care Packages and Confederate Soldiers During The Civil War

Southern fried chicken, recipes below

As we shall learn later, during the civil war the sweeteners representative one of the food items in highest demands along with vegetables. Believe it or not soldiers on occasion received care packages of a sort from home, more than likely these came from wealthy families. Among confederates soldiers and their families, care packages representative an early war years phenomena particularly in and around Richmond, Virginia the capital of the confederacy. Southern fried chicken, a delicacy among almost all sectors of the south, arrived quite often to the soldiers stationed near Richmond. One story goes that a wealthy southerner from Mecklenburg County, Virginia, shipped some 300 live fowls to troops stationed in Jamestown Virginia. How to make really good fried chicken may seem intuitive to those of you who are comfortable in the kitchen. But I regularly meet folks who are not and they appreciate the recipes like these below for fried chicken.

Everything you wanted to know about southern fried chicken link: http://www.southernfriedchickenrecipe.com/

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

Video of vegan fried chicken recipe:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te6Cv7RTazU

Hispanic History Month and Foodways Series: Colonial Mexico

Nopalitos with Tomatoes and Onions, recipe below

In colonial Mexico City indigenous women gradually shaped the cookery and preferences of Iberian owned homes and eateries. This happened despite the attempt of Iberian born wives to teach their Indian cooks how to prepare meals according to Spanish culinary styles. In Mexico City the women servants who cooked for elite families slipped local ingredients like tomatoes into Spanish recipes believing no one would notice any difference in taste. However, Spanish women realized the change but also recognized that it “turned out much cheaper [and easier] to feed everyone” in a large household on meals made with available and less expensive local ingredients than scarce and expensive imported ones from Spain. In short, the culinary and economic savvy of Indigenous women, some free and some enslaved, resulted in the transformation that occurred in the diet of new arrivals from Europe. Here is a traditional Mexican recipe that is illustrative of the influence of indigenous women on Mexican cuisine.

Nopalitos with tomatoes and onions recipe: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/nopalitos_with_tomatoes_and_onions/