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| Fried chicken recipes below |
Monday, February 28, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Vertamae Smart Grosvenor
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Solomon Northrop
Solomon Northrop (1808 –circa 1863) was an African American born free in New York’s Hudson Valley. He played the fiddle and often booked parties where he played for pay and thus made extra income. Two white men, Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton, posing as the representative of a traveling circus approached him at one of his musical outings and engaged him to play for a circus in Washington, D. C. in 1841. Northrop agreed. He traveled to New York City to obtain his freedmen papers then headed to Washington, D.C. which was one of the nation’s largest slave markets. Northrop, who was married with children, thought that the engagement would be short so he did not bother his wife with the details of his trip. Shortly after he checked into his Washington hotel, he met with Brown and Hamilton for a drink. The two men drugged him, stole his free papers, and sold him at a DC auction into slavery in Louisiana. Louisiana was one of the those slave states that masters in the upper south would use as leverage to keep rebellious slaves in line, warning them that if they did not obey either they or a loved one would be sold “down south” where one’s life as a slave proved much more difficult then say in Maryland or Virginia. Northrop would remain enslaved in Louisiana from 1841 to 1953 until he was finally he was able to get a message to a white patron in New York who successfully gained his manumission. After gaining is freedom, Northrop returned to the north where became a noted speaker on the anti-slavery speaking circuit. He would go on to document his ordeal in a published autobiography titled, Twelve Years A Slave by Solomon Northrop. The book undermined the argument of slavocrats who insisted that masters treated their slaves better than bosses treated wage workers in the free states. The book also provides an example of the agency of blacks folk both in and out of slavery to gain their freedom during the antebellum period. I used the book to gain valuable insights into southern foodways which I've talked about in earlier post.
Solomon Northrop on southern foodways: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-foodway-series-culinary.html
Friday, February 25, 2011
James Brown The Business Man
Cabbage and sweet potato coleslaw, recipes for coleslaw and kimchi below (Photo from jarvisfarm.com)
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’s Motown Records, Brown wanted his restaurants to have crossover appeal. In the late 1960s, Brown represented one of a number of African American celebs who used their brand names to launch restaurant franchises. Brown’s Gold Platter menu featured fried chicken, French fries, coleslaw, cornbread, catfish with hush puppies, and hamburgers. For unknown reasons, Brown’s soul food chain never made it past the experimental phase which two locations in Macon. Here is a good coleslaw and kimchi recipes. Both are made from cabbage and my southern wife and northern raised daughter love kimchi. Both make great side dishes for fried chicken catfish, and or hamburgers. Below also find links to stories I’ve done on other African American celebs that started restaurants.
Cabbage and Sweet potato coleslaw: http://jarvisfarm.com/cabbage-and-sweet-potato-slaw/
Zucchini Coleslaw: http://www.healthyfoodforliving.com/?p=9193
Kimchi recipe: http://www.kimchibulgogi.com/pogi-baechu-napa-kimchi/
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Paschal’s Restaurant
Photo of Paschal’s old location in South West Atlanta, recipes below
After the success of Montgomery Improvement Association and the end of the Jim Crow laws on buses in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) returned to Atlanta, Georgia. There he organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 and he served as the associated pastor of his father’s church. Paschal’s served as a popular meeting place for black activists and politicians. MLK and his SCLC lieutenants, Maynard Jackson, and Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) Julian Bond, who all attended Morehouse, held strategy meetings over Paschal’s famed fried chicken along with collard greens, corn bread, mac and cheese and sweet potato pie, or a plate of eggs, grits, and a cup of coffee. Brothers James and Robert Paschal first opened a lunch counter sandwich shop on Hunter Street in Atlanta in 1947. Overtime the brothers moved to a location adjacent to the AUC and expanded their business to include a motel, a night club on the famous Chitin Circuit, and a white table cloth restaurant. According to Marcellas C. D. Barksdale, who attended Morehouse in the early 1960s, during segregation Paschal’s remained the first choice for a Sunday meal for “Doctor and Mrs. so and so.” In addition to formal dining, Paschal’s also had a lunch counter and grill where you could also order fried chicken, collards and corn bread in a casual setting. Back when I taught in the Morehouse College History Department (2000-2003) Paschal's moved to a new elegant location that perhaps tripled its square footage and provided space for private dining rooms. The quality of the food had not changed and perhaps it even improved. Below are some recipes reminiscent of Paschal’s culinary legacy.
Corn bread recipes: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-day-series-corn-bread-and.html
Mac and cheese recipes: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Southern-Macaroni-and-Cheese/MoreRecipesLikeThis.aspx
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: W. E. B. Dubois
Fried chicken, recipes below
People often ask me why I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in history. In part, a PBS documentary on the life and work of W. E. B. Dubois (1868-1963) I saw back in the winter of 1985, just after I graduated from Syracuse University, inspired me. Dubois life as a scholar and activist resonated with my goals and aspiration back then to make a impact with my life's work. Talk about an impact, how about Dubois’ book The Souls of Black Folk which he published in 1903 and it's still in print and used in history and African American studies courses around the world! The book is part history, part autobiography, and Dubois delves also into a bit of food writing. For example, he tells about the time when he served as teacher in a country school in rural Tennessee back when he was a student at Fisk University. Dubois graduated from this Nashville Historically Black College in 1888 in the middle of the period we historians call white redemption, when white supremacist groups like the Knights of the White Chameleon turned back many of the gains made during reconstruction (1863-1877) like the creation of colored blind state funded public schools in the South. Dubois taught at one segregated public school in a piedmont region of post-reconstruction Tennessee during a summer break from Fisk. “On Friday nights I often went home with some of the children [from the school]—sometimes to Doc Burke’s farm,” recalls Dubois. “In the tiny back kitchen I was often invited to ‘take out and help’ myself to fried chicken and wheat biscuits, ‘meat’ and corn pone, string-beans and berries.” Dubois would later go on to provide rich descriptions of food and the black church in the The Souls of Black Folk, which he argues represented “the social centre” of African-American life. He writes, “this building is the central club-house of a community of a thousand or more Negroes. . . Entertainments, suppers, and lectures are held besides the five or six regular weekly religious services.” Here are some fried chicken recipes that remind me of Dubois’s description of southern foodways at the turn of the century.
Fried chicken recipe:http://americanfood.about.com/od/chickenrecipes/ss/Fried-Chicken-Recipe.htm
Video vegan fried chicken recipe:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te6Cv7RTazU
NPR's Tell Me More Black History Month Appreciation of Dubois: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/09/133623714/honoring-leading-thinker-w-e-b-dubois
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: National Council of Negro Women
The Black Family Dinner Quilt Cookbook (first edition 1993)
Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955) founded The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), a non-profit organization in 1935 during the Depression. Bethune worked principally as an educator and later she served as member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt “Black Cabinet” advising the president on issues related his African American constituency. NCNW programs focused on improving the lives and opportunities for people in the United States and Africa. For example it published under the direction of the NCNW’s Dorothy I. Height (1912-2010) http://www.npr.org/2011/02/17/133839602/dorothy-height-queen-of-black-womens-empowerment, The Black Family Dinner Quilt Cookbook (first edition 1993). Still in publication, the book is an important part of the organizations national obesity abatement initiative which provides excellent tips for cooking heart-healthy soul food which I also talk about in my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy. NCNW’s cook book suggests cooking and baking with margarine or liquid vegetable oils such as canola oil, safflower oil, or olive oil, instead of lard. Other instructions for heart-healthy meals include roasting, baking, broiling, grilling, and stir-frying instead of deep-fat frying. Use smoked turkey, turkey bacon, and imitation soy meat products instead of ham hocks, fatback, and bacon to season greens and other vegetables. Remove most of the skin (which is primarily fat) from poultry before cooking. Eat more fiber-rich foods such as legumes, whole grain products, fruits and vegetables, brown rice, red potatoes, and whole wheat, spelt, or spinach pasta. Avoid organ meats as much as possible. Use olive oil and vinegar and vegetable-based mayonnaise dressing instead of real mayonnaise-based dressings. Eat soy or rice milk ice cream with zero cholesterol instead of high cholesterol ice cream.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Colonial America
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| Tom Tom, a one pot dish, recipes below |
By the eighteenth century northern colonies in first Dutch and then British North America had become increasingly dependent on enslaved African laborers. For example, between 1700 and 1774 there were about 6,800 slaves in New York; 2,800 directly from Africa and 4,000 from the Americas. With them came African retentions in music, dance, dress, and foodways. Tom Tom, described as, “a very good Pudding Composed with the Flour of Indian Corn, and boild [sic] with Flesh, fish Cayenne pepper,” and okra (an African plant), is example of a dish that one might find a vender selling at a Pinkster celebration in colonial New York City and the surrounding area. Here is an interesting East Asian recipe for Tom Tom Gai (also called Tom Yum) which seems very similar to the one pot dish described above. We do know that Asians foodways began to circulate in Madagascar in the ninth century as Indonesian migrants settled there to facilitate trade between Asia and Africa. We also know that the Dutch imported slaves from Madagascar into their American colonies in the Caribbean and New York.
Traditional Tom Tom Gai recipe: http://www.indobase.com/recipes/details/tom-tom-gai.php
Vegan Tom Tom Gai recipe: http://vegsfblog.com/2010/02/11/vegetarian-thai-hot-and-sour-soup-tom-yum-gai/
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Muhammad Ali
Champburger, burger recipes below (Photo from http://www.mixingbowl.com/home/view.castle)
As a Member of the Nation of Islam, a black pacifist religious organization, Muhammad Ali refused to be drafted into the U. S. army during the Vietnam War. As he told one reporter, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Congs. No Viet Cong ever called me Nigger.” His anti-war position resulted in Federal authorities sentenced him to five years imprisonment, and a fine of $1, 00,000 (He appealed the decision consequently keeping out of jail) and forced him to surrender his passport thus preventing him from earning money fighting abroad. Furthermore the World Boxing Association took his title and boxing license so he could not fight in the United States. To support his family, Ali among other activities, signed a restaurant franchise deal in 1968 that launched a chain of black-owned-and-operated “Champburger Palaces” in black neighborhoods. Champburger menus included Champburgers, all beef “hot dogs, along with fried chicken, fried and boiled fish and Mr. Champ soft drinks.
Best burger recipes: http://www.culinary.net/articlesfeatures/FeatureDetail.aspx?ID=1455
Best veggie burger recipes: http://www.tamaraduker.com/2010/01/resolved-the-best-homemade-veggie-burger/
Portobello mushroom burger recipe: http://www.veggienumnum.com/2010/06/portobello-mushroom-burger-w-homemade-fries/
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
Popovers, recipes below
Adam Clayton Powell Jr. (1908-1972) became the first African American to serve in the U. S. Congress (1945 to 1971) representing the 22nd congressional district, which included Harlem. Powell also served as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, perhaps the most politically powerful African American congregation in New York City. Both of Powell’s parents were southerners. “I was born more than a half century ago, when [a] black stove was a place of magic where the coal fire always glowed and from which good things came,” writes Powell. He goes on to say, “I don’t know how we modern men live on such paltry offerings—food then was food. For breakfast we had a different hot bread every morning—muffins, biscuits, corn bread, loaves of hot oatmeal bread with handfuls of raisins and blueberries sprinkled through them; pancakes so big that they seemed to be a yard wide but, in fact, were only the size of a big frying pan. . . and popovers so big you could put up your hand inside, which there was room for plenty of butter.” A Popover is a hollow quick bread shaped like a muffin and made from a thin batter of eggs, milk, and flour. Popovers evolved out of English pudding batters from the 17th century with their first documented history in a 1850 letter and later in a late nineteenth century cook book. Its popularity made its way from Maine to New York and some called for greasing the muffin tins with beef or pork drippings creating a meat flavored pastry. Other interpretations used garlic and herbs in the batter and still another recipe included substituting purred pumpkin for some of the flour and further flavoring the batter with allspice, nutmeg, and or cinnamon. Today most popovers have a butter flavor instead of meat or eggnog like flavor.
Popover recipe: http://rootsoftaste.wordpress.com/2010/11/11/popovers-rise-to-the-occasion/
Vegan popover recipe: http://www.ecovegangal.com/2008/12/vegan-popovers.html
Popover tips and tricks: http://home.insightbb.com/~bonnett/popover/popover_tipsandtricks.htm
Monday, February 7, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Nina Simone
Roasted potato and green bean salad, recipes below
Singer and song writer Nina Simone (1933-2003) was born and raised in Tyron, North Carolina. During the Great Depression, the federal government put one of its Federal National Relief Agency (NRA) food distribution depots in Tyron. In my book Hog and Hominyhttp://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 the NRA. Simone’s father and others 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 that they canned for the winter months and the surplus food they received on the job. 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 . . [a]nd 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 some green bean recipes.
Vegetarian green bean recipes: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Vegetarian/VegetarianGreenBeans.htm
Green bean casserole: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/11/best-vegan-green-bean-casserole.html
Roasted Potato and Green Bean Salad: http://foodmuses.wordpress.com/2010/08/01/roasted-potato-and-green-bean-salad/
Vegan green bean recipes: http://vegweb.com/index.php?board=453.0
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Jimi Hendrix
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Brunswick stew, recipes below (Photo from http://veganthyme.blogspot.com/)
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Guitarist Jimi Hendrix grew up in 1940s Seattle Washington with the musical influences of black neighborhood block parties and a black Pentecostal church. Moreover Little Richard's family home was just down the street from Hendrix and Hendrix both knew him and later copied is outlandish on stage style. After a stint in the military Hendrix started his music career playing for different bands on the Chitlin Circuit in the early 1960s. A string of black-owned honky-tonks, nightclubs, and theaters, the circuit weaved throughout the Southeast and Midwest. There was the New Era in Nashville; Paschal’s Carousel Lounge in Atlanta ; Chicago’s Regal Theater; The Royal in Baltimore; and New York’s Apollo Theater to name just a few venues. Entertainers called it the Chitlin’ Circuit because some club owners sold chitlin’s and other soul food dishes out of their kitchens. Hendrix used the stage name Maurice James “played with everybody who was anybody on the” the circuit writes Musicologist Oscar J. Jordan III including the Isley Brothers, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, BB King, and Little Richard. The Chitlin’ Circuit was crucial to artists like Hendrix because it was the only way to perform for their fans during a period when the white largely ignored black artist. Here is a recipe for Brunswick stew which I imagine as Chitin circuit menu item on a cold winter night served up with some piping hot buttered bread to clean out the bottom of the bowl good fashion.
Traditional Brunswick stew recipe: http://itjustdawnedonme.com/?p=258
Vegan Brunswick stew and spelt biscuit recipe: http://veganthyme.blogspot.com/2009/12/vegan-brunswick-stew-topped-with-spelt.html
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Black History Month For Foodies Series: Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka speaking at a rally; Louisiana gumbo, recipes below
One of the leading figures in the black power and black arts movements of the late 1960s was Amiri Baraka, formerly LeRoi Jones. Born in 1934 in Newark New Jersey, Baraka wrote an essay on soul food as a rebuttal to critics who argued that African Americans had no language or characteristic cuisine. He insisted that hog maws, chitterling sweet potato pie, gravy and pork sausage, fried chicken, or chicken in the basket, barbecued ribs, hoppin’ John, hush puppies, fried fish, hoe cakes, biscuits, salt pork, dumplings, and gumbo all came directly out of the black belt region of the South and represented the best of African-American cookery. He and others like him called for a new, independent, proud black identity. Baraka advocated soul food as black folk’s cuisine and argued 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. In response to the black power and black arts movements, publication of the first soul food cookbooks began to appear in progressive book stores in the 1960s. I cannot recommend any better meal on a cold February day then a piping hot bowl or cup of gumbo; here are two recipes below.
Traditional gumbo recipe: http://www.bigoven.com/170608-New-Orleans-Creole-Gumbo-recipe.html
Vegan gumbo recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=27730.0
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