Ice Cream Series: Part 4 Carvel Ice Cream

A Carvel ice cream stand something like the one in Croton-on-Hudson. The stand closed sometime after I graduated high school in 1981. The town now has two very good ice parlors in each section of town. Click the image to enlarge it. Links to related stories and recipes below.

When I think about summer, I think about time spent at the Carvel ice cream stand in the Harmon section of my town Croton-on-Hudson. The Harmon name of the community is related to the Croton Harmon station on the Metro North and Amtrak rail line. Croton is one of many small Hudson Valley towns less than an hour north of New York City that never became overrun by fast food restaurants. In the summer the Carvel stand served as one of the main middle school and high school hang outs on Friday and Saturday nights from grades 8 to 10 or thereabouts; those years in teenager’s life when you were cool but car less. I lived a 15 minute bike ride away from the Carvel stand on the opposite side of town. As I road closer and closer to the stand on my bike, a glowing light grew brighter and revealed droves of classmates eating ice cream cones, flying saucers (ice cream sandwiches), ice cream Sundays, root beer floats, and lots of flirting between boys and girls. In reflection, Carvel provided a space for Croton youth just entering purity to flirt. That Carvel stand in Harmon remains linked in my mine with my middle and high school years and some my first attempts to talk with young women. Tom Carvel was a Greek immigrant from Athens who started the business in 1929 in Hartsdale, New York also in Westchester County where I grew up. The product is available all over the country now! Here is a link with more history about him and the company below and some other related links

Tom Carvel: http://www.carvel.com/about_us/history.htm

Carvel Stand photos: http://www.agilitynut.com/eateries/carvel.html

The Croton Dinner, another celebrated intuition: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2010/09/back-to-school-foodways-series-croton.html

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

Ice Cream Series: Part 3 Homemade Ice Cream

Homemade cherry ice cream, recipes below

The summer heat makes me think about the culinary meaning of this time of the year for my southern relatives who died long ago but my memories of them remain very alive. They migrated north to Ossining and North Tarrytown from rural North Carolina and Virginia. Long ago, rural folks would purchase a block of ice and chip off what they needed with an ice pick to make homemade ice cream. Making ice cream from scratch required lots of churning of the dasher filled ice, fresh cream, sugar, and the local fruit in season. In the South folks most often made ice cream in late June and the month of July because that was the fruit picking season when the fruit would be sweet—peaches raspberries, cherries (perhaps my favorite summer fruit), strawberries, or whatever local fruit grew in abundance where you lived. The in season fruit would be picked on say a Saturday and the ice cream made for the Sunday the evening dessert following a long hot church service and dinner on the grounds. Thus for many with southern roots, ice cream is closely associated with this time of the year, the local fruit in season, and Sunday evenings. Older relatives would tell me growing up that there is nothing better than homemade ice cream no matter who makes it. Today there are a lot of automated machines that allow you to make ice cream at home with your knowledge of what’s in it. Here are two ice cream recipe one traditional and one vegan.

Traditional Peach ice cream recipe: http://www.whats4eats.com/desserts/peach-ice-cream-recipe

Vegan strawberry ice cream video recipe: http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=jwWuL1m1T1M&feature=related

  

Ice Cream Series: Part 1 Custard

(Photo from http://www.agilitynut.com/eateries/carvel.html)

Starting a new series today on ice cream and other cold related treats. My dad had a sweet tooth and loved ice cream; so did his three boys. I am the youngest of three and I remember when I was about  six our family would load into the Rambler station wagon and head north to the base of Bear Mountain just outside of Peekskill to buy “custard.” This was the late 1960s early 1970s. My dad and his North Tarrytown family with roots in Cloverdale, Virginia were the only ones I knew who called soft serve ice cream by that term. On a hot summer evening there would be a line jutting out from the serving window of the ice cream stand. The stand was very basic stand with an offering of vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, or twist with all three flavors. One could order a large or small cone or cup; an ice cream sundae in a cup with cherries, nuts, and sprinkles; or, a banana split which was just a sundae as I recall it in a boat like paper container served with slices of banana instead of cherries and served with whipped cream on top. When I close my eyes now I can see my brothers and I at 6, 7, and 12 furiously licking the ice cream cones covered in chocolate or multi-colored sprinkles. Nobody talked we just licked and licked trying to stay ahead of the ice cream dripping from the cone onto our little chocolate-covered hands and wrists on a hot summer night.

Wedding and Food Series: Part 6 Wedding Cake in Rural Early 20th Century Florida

Coconut layer cake, this and other recipes below

I am concluding my series on weddings today talking about wedding cakes in early 20^th century Florida using a scene from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Hurston tells us Janie Crawford and Logan Killicks got married in her grandmother’s parlor on a “Saturday evening with three cakes and big platters of fried rabbit and chicken.” I want to discuss the cake description in the context of analyzing links with African and American foodways. The two types of cakes one sees described in largely pre-civil war travel accounts are every day cakes made from corn (and cassava in the others parts of the Americas) and special occasion cakes made with more refined grains like wheat flour. The Mandinka on the coast of the Gambia for example, made “sweet cakes [made from] pounded rice and honey” (There is no indication if these were special occasion or every day cakes). Most of what we describe today as cakes were prepared for special occasions like weddings or in smaller amounts as fast food sold on the streets in urban centers. For instance, in nineteenth century Cuba and Brazil enslaved African women hawked sweets and tempting cakes for their masters.   We also have an account from the Norwood Estate in nineteenth century Louisiana of a slave owner who served her slaves a lavish Christmas meal including “frosted cake, and pastry of many kinds.” Finally, a 1904 description of a special occasion in Georgia describes a table spread with chicken, gingerbread, and “a jelly-cake.” So in short, the term cake described in Their Eyes Were Watching God shows, I would argue tenuous links to Africa and other parts of the Americas. Admittedly, there is an insufficient description of the cake in Janie’s West Florida wedding to be more conclusive about diasporic links and possibilities

Everything you wanted to know about cake: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2010/08/everything-you-wanted-to-know-about.html

Six cake stories and recipes and more: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=cakes&updated-max=2011-06-14T07%3A39%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=20

Link to Complete Wedding Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Wedding+and+Food+Series

Wedding and Food Series: Part 5 Early 20th Century Rural Florida

Fried chicken and other recipes below

To conclude my series on weddings and foods I turn today and tomorrow to the work of Zora Neale Hurston and her ethnographic and semi-biographical novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. The novel provides an insightful description of a Floridian country wedding in the early 20^th century. Janie Crawford, the novel’s griot, describes her wedding to Logan Killicks a farmer twice her age. The two gott married in her grandmother’s parlor on a “Saturday evening with three cakes and big platters of fried rabbit and chicken. Everything to eat in abundance,” Her “Nanny and Mrs. Washburn [a white family who employed her grandmother as a live in domestic] had seen to that.” The preparation of chicken on a special occasion like a wedding has links to West Africa. In my own work I found that the Igbo, Hausa, and Mande of West Africa ate poultry on special occasions as part of religious ceremonies.  In fact, travel accounts dating back to before the 1800s show Mande women batter frying chicken. In short, I maintain that eating fried chicken at the Wedding in West Florida is an example of an African survival and one seen in the Caribbean and other parts of the Americas. During the antebellum period most enslaved Africans only had time to make labor intensive fried chicken on days their master gave them off such as Sundays, a few holidays, and religious days. As for the fried rabbit as part of the wedding reception, my research on foodways also found that the West African inhabitants of the city of Accra, in the Kingdom of Ghana, commonly hunted and prepared rabbit. In addition, after their arrival in the Americas, Native American reinforced this practice introducing Africans and Europeans to local varieties of rabbit and the methods they used to trap and cook them. Frying became the preferred method because it proved quick and required only a large pot and few utensils. In places like the Caribbean and Brazil people fried wild game in more readily available palm oil instead of pork lard.

Southern Fried Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

Fried Chicken Batter

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 egg or egg substitute

1 cup buttermilk or soy milk            

2 teaspoons chicken-style seasoning

½ teaspoon salt

Combine all ingredients and mix well.

Seasoning Flour

½ cup all-purpose flour     

2 teaspoon chicken-style seasoning

1 teaspoon garlic powder  

  

Chicken

Fresh cut and cleaned chicken or Vegan chicken substitute.

Method

Add 1 teaspoon garlic powder. Let Stand for one to two hours. Drain Dip in batter and then dredge in flour mixture. Deep fry until golden brown in canola oil. Serves four people.

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

Link to Complete Wedding Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Wedding+and+Food+Series

My fried Rabbit experience: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2009/11/my-bizarre-thanksgiving-day-memory.html

Wedding and Food Series: Part 3 Colonial America

Jamaican run down a one pot meal, recipes below 

The survival of wedding traditions and cookery depended on the region of the Americas to which  Europeans and Africans, disembarked, and the Amerindians who inhabited those regions. Those who lived and worked in the Caribbean or the Carolinas did so in largely black majority populations where the African influenced the European more than the European the African. Thus African wedding traditions survived. In Virginia, Africans lived in a more restricted cultural environment than the Caribbean and the Carolinas because they were in the minority, making up only 30 to 40 percent of the population thus European weddings traditions dominated the Chesapeake region of the colonial south. Most indentured servants and enslaved people conducted their weddings and receptions in and around their living quarters with and without the consent of their masters. As the links below illustrate, these early colonial inhabitants across the Americas created creolized traditions with lots of cultural syncretism including unique food and music with African, European, and Amerindian influences. British and later US laws did not recognize slaves marriages but Spanish and Portuguese laws did; but in either case white and black indentured servants and enslaved Africans held weddings followed by and receptions full of good music and food. I imagine the food would have been similar to that served at enslaved held balls. A travel account from 1790 informs us that the cooks for a black ball in the British West Indies prepared “a number of pots, some of which are good and savory; chiefly their swine, poultry, salt beef, pork, herrings, and vegetables with roasted, barbecued, and fricasseed” meats. Here are two perfect West Indian wedding recipes:


Fish ceviche recipe: http://www.easyliving.co.uk/recipes/fish/caribbean-ceviche


Vegan Jamaican run down recipe: http://www.vegan-food.net/recipe/774/Jamaican-Yam-Run-Down-Casserole/

Related link on indentured servants and music: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1794557

Wedding and Food Series: Part 2 Everybody Pitch In

West African Black-eyed peas, roasted chicken, and Jollof rice, traditional and vegetarian recipes below

On special occasions, like a wedding, the Congolese entertained their guests with a banquet complete with rice, roasted and dressed venison, fowl, and milk. Similarly, an Igbo hostess cooked stewed meat and duck and served it with foofoo instead of rice. Africans held a belief that an honorable person showed reverence to God, community leaders, friends, and family through the use of music and food. As a result, West African incorporated music and food into their wedding celebrations. For example, a week before the day of a wedding in West Africa, the bride’s family organizes a family meeting to solicit contribution for the wedding feast. Some contributed palm oil, rice, fish, and firewood. But the message is clear; the bride’s family had the charge of providing great food on the wedding day for their guest and especially the groom’s family. Here is a recipe for jollof rice which made all over West Africa sometimes with fish or chicken. There is also a link to a vegetarian version.

Jollof Rice Recipe:

Ingredients
Oil for frying (palm or regular vegetable oil)
1 chicken
1 or 2 finely chopped onions
salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper according to taste
Flavoring:
chopped chili pepper
2 or 3 crushed cloves of garlic
bay leaf
curry powder
2 cups of chicken or beef stock or Maggi cubes or vegan substitutes
3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
bell pepper or sweet green pepper, chopped
green peas or string beans
(carrots/cabbage chopped)
four cups rice
4 tbsp can tomato paste
2 tbsp dried shrimp or crayfish or vegan substitute
Garnishes: fresh parsley and cilantro chopped and lettuce shredded

Method
Heat oil and brown chicken or fish. Remove the meat and add the onions, the salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic, bay leaf and curry in the oil. Fry for a moment and add vegetables. Fry the mixture until the onions become tender. Add the stock and the chicken and boil for about 20 minutes. Then add the dried shrimps/crayfish and the chili and bring to boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Put the rice in a separate saucepan. Add water and tomato paste. Cover and cook for about 20 minutes until the rice is done (add warm water or broth if necessary). Adjust seasoning. Serve with garnishes according to taste.

Vegetarian-jollof-rice recipe: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/vegetarian-jollof-rice-401724

More on wedding traditions: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2010/06/wedding-and-food-series-part-i-origin.html

Wedding and Food Series: Part I Salt

Blocks of salt

Tomorrow is the first day of summer. Lots of people are planning June and July weddings. Today I am rolling out a series on Weddings and Food in history. I am starting in Africa then moving to the Americas. Here is an interesting look at food related wedding gifts in West Africa. For many West African societies eating with a generous amount of salt represented the favorite way to consume food. For example, in the late eighteenth century, West Africans living in the interior of the Gambia River region viewed salt for seasoning their food as “the greatest of all luxuries,” writes English traveler Mongo Park. So here’s the wedding link—in pre-colonial Meta society in Cameroon the groom’s family sent a gift basket with a large cylindrical block of dried salt to the bride’s mother on the day following the wedding night. If the bride proved to be a virgin, the groom’s family sent an entire block of salt. But if the bride turned out not be a virgin, the groom’s family sent a block of salt with a hole drilled through it. Thus women who received a complete block of salt were praised in their village for doing such an honorable job raising their daughters and those who received a block with a hole were held in contempt for failing to raise a sexual pure daughter. Boy have times changed!

Dad I Remember: A Father's Dad Poem for Foodies

Vanilla "Custard" with strawberries, related stories and recipes below

For father’s day I decided to share a foodie excerpt from I poem I wrote for my Father in September of 2007. He had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and so many memories overwhelmed me as road the train from work to see him at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City. My father asked me to speak at his memorial service. Despite being professional speaker, that served as one of the most difficult talks I have ever given This is part of what I shared on that day in April of 2008. Happy Father’s day:

Dad I Remember

Frederick Douglass Opie, September 2007

Dad I remember once we subdued the weeds and poison-ivy in our yard how you and I played catch with my first baseball mitt. How proud you were watching me and Marshall compete on our village’s minor and little league teams. How ecstatic you were at the news that I made the all-star team and how disappointed you first were when I abandoned baseball for lacrosse. I remember how you helped me get over the insecurity I felt when people laughed at how pigeon toed I was and still am. You shared with me that one of the greatest athletes of whole time, your hero Jackie Robinson, ran with a similar gate. Dad, that really helped me as I struggled with being so different and so many ways from my white peers in such a white town.

Dad I remember how hard you worked to provide for your family, to give us opportunities that you never had as a child. I remember the academic tests and tutors you worked overtime to pay for and the camps and leagues you paid for. I remember the camping trips and the car rides to the base of Bear Mountain to buy “custard.” You were the only one I knew who called soft serve ice cream by that term.

Dad I remember that you were very well read and a gifted oral historian. As I compose this poem I do so to share with you and others all the great memories that you have given me. The way you faced your final days with such dignity and acceptance is truly amazing. I know the last dozen or more years of your life have not been easy and that you endured allot of pain. But Dad thanks for sticking around as long as you did and sharing yourself with me. As Bob Hope sang, Dad, thanks for the memories.

My Dad and Food stories below:

Going for Custard with my Dad: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2009/08/custard.html

My Dad, Frank’s Fuel, and Food: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2010/09/hispanic-history-month-and-foodways_19.html

My Dad and the Great Depression: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-day-series-thanks-for-acts.html

African American Festivals/Parades and food Part 2: Election Day

Election Day cake, recipes below

Negro Election Day (election of black Kings and governors) in New England in May or June was the best known African American festival during the colonial period. Other spring festivals included Pinkster and General Training (Black militias in parade drills), in various parts of the North. These events included northern blacks dressed in fine apparel, enjoying music, dancing, and selling and consuming of food and beverages. An Election Day event in 1760 Boston included feasting on large amounts of Election Day cake, gingerbread and beer. At a General Training festival in the Township of Bedminster, New Jersey blacks had root beer in the barrel and round ginger bread cakes for sale in wagons. As in the south, northern blacks slaves endured food apartheid from white masters seeking to reduce their expenses. Thus holidays and special occasions like Pinkster, Training Day and Election Day provided enslaved Africans food in abundance several times a year. Here are recipes and links to more on the history of Election Day cakes:


Election Day cake recipe: http://starchefs.com/chocolate_lovers/2002/html/november/recipe_04.shtml

1896 Boston Cooking School Election Cake Recipe

Ingredients

½ cup butter
8 finely chopped figs
1 cup bread dough
1 ¼ cups flour
1 egg
½ teaspoon soda
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup sour milk

2/3 cup raisins seeded, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon clove
¼ teaspoon mace
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt

Method:

Work butter into dough, using the hand. Add egg well beaten, sugar, milk, fruit dredged with two tablespoons flour, and flour mixed and sifted with remaining ingredients. Put into a well-buttered bread pan, cover, and let rise one and one-fourth hours. Bake one hour in a slow oven. Cover with chocolate frosting.

More on Election Day Cakes: http://culinarytypes.blogspot.com/2008/11/cast-your-vote-to-bring-back-election.html

Asian Foodways Series: Part 7 Asian Restaurants in black communities

Traditional soul food menu items

Coming to a close on a series I have been doing on Asian influences on African and African Diaspora foodways. Lots of traditional soul food restaurants have gone out of business in the last couple of years. The African American entrepreneurs who started some of these restaurants used their hard earned profits to purchase, renovate, and expand their homes and businesses and put their children through college. As they aged, they discouraged their children from going into the tough restaurant business with the long hours and little vacation time. As result many restaurants closed when the original owners got too old and sick to operate them. So go out of business when the restaurants no longer proved profitable as rent and the cost of food increase. In some cases Asian entrepreneurs have filled the void opening restaurants in black communities like Manna’s Soul Food & Salad Bar in Harlem which as maybe 3 locations within a 10 black radius. Asian folk own and black folks work and eat in it. In addition traditional soul food restaurants are competing with KFC and other fast food places for customers. Here is a link an article about the struggle of black owned soul food restaurants in New York including a video:

The Decline of Traditional Soul Food Joints in Harlem: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/23/nyregion/23copelands.html?_r=1&ref=soul_food

Asian Foodways Series: Part 6 Asian Migration to the United States

Chinese spare ribs, recipe below

People often ask me why are there so many of the old soul food joints going out of business and where can you get good soul food today? In doing research for my book Hog and Hominy, I found that in many instances fast food restaurants have co opted soul food dishes selling them cheaper than traditional mom and pop restaurants. In addition, the operators of those successful mom and pop soul food restaurants were originally migrants from the rural to urban south or urban north. Many of these pioneering entrepreneurs were folks without college degrees who started restaurants around the country and built reputations as great down home eateries with a "just like mom's taste associated with their dishes." Asian migrants have come to the U. S. over the last twenty years and similarly started restaurants, many of them Chinese restaurants in African American communities with soul food items on their menus. So in short, some of the best soul food today can be found in Chinese restaurants in black communities (and at black family reunions, funerals, and special events days at black churches). Here are two links with recipes that work well with this story:

Vegetarian Chinese spareribs recipe: http://chinesefood.about.com/od/spareribs/r/spareribsour.htm

Chinese soul food blog: http://www.chinesesoulfood.com/chinese-soul-food/2009/6/22/hoisin-chicken-and-yu-choy.html

Asian Foodways Series: Part 5 Plantains

Fried plantains with fruit, several plantain recipes below

In the midst of a series on Asian influences on African and African Diaspora foodways. Today I am going to talk about plantains which are indigenous to India. We know that after Asian traders introduced them to Africa during the Christian era, cooks gradually made them a staple across West and Central Africa. African cooks steamed, boiled, grilled, and fried plantains. Some recipes call for green ones which taste more like a potato or you they ate them overripe in they are sweet. African women made plantains into flour for breads and fritters, drinks, fried chips, and as fufu. Like other Asian plants, Africans introduced them to the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade. For example, in the seventeenth century, most British planters in Barbados fed enslaved Africans rations of potatoes, a thick gruel made from kidney beans and occasionally some meat when an ox died. The slaves hated their rations and loudly protested until their masters added a regular portion of plantains to their meals. Below are a host of great plantain recipes:


Plantain recipes from Africa, the Caribbean, and America: http://www.grabemsnacks.com/plantain-recipes.html#pr

Plantain related food history and recipes: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=plantains&updated-max=2010-09-23T02%3A31%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=20

Asian Foodways Series: Part 3 Okra

Bhindi Ki Subji (stir-fried okra) with traditional Indian bread, recipes below

The impetus for today's post on okra and the link between African and Asian foodways comes from a great Bhindi Ki Subji (stir-fried okra) dinner I had at a colleague's house. Okra is a plant indigenous to West Africa. Apparently North Africans and or Portuguese traders introduced it to South East Asia during the Christian era. Today one can find okra stuffed, crispy fried, stirred fried with prawns, or sautéed with potatoes and or tomatoes across many parts of India and eaten almost all over Asia. Similarly Africans used okra in a variety of ways in their kitchens and they introduced it to kitchens in various parts of the Americas during the Atlantic slave trade. More recently, “I lived for Sunday dinner,” says South Carolinian Alexander Small. He goes on to say. “Southern fried chicken, fried okra, creamed corn, . . . buttermilk biscuits, a mountain of potato salad with sweet pickles.” Today he counts okra among a short list of his favorite foods. Here are some okra recipes below from different geographic regions:

African okra recipes: http://www.ifood.tv/network/african_okra/recipes

Indian okra recipes: http://indianfood.about.com/od/vegetarianrecipes/tp/bhindirecipes.htm

Southern okra recipes: http://southernfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa081401b.htm

Sweetest okra recipe (vegan): http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=10974.0

Asian Foodways Series: Part 2 Eggplant

Grilled Chinese eggplant, this and other recipes below

I’m doing a series on Asian foodways and today let's talk about eggplant which originated in the Far East. Eggplant is indigenous to India and from there it spread throughout South East Asia. The first record of its cultivation as food goes back to fifth century China. There is a debate over who introduced it to Africa—the Portuguese, Indonesian traders or Arab traders. However it’s clear that eggplant arrived in Africa before the Middle Ages and before it spread to Europe and specifically Italy, the country most often associated with the plant. Eggplant arrived and grew in colonial Southern British colonies as early as 1737 with some insisting that the Atlantic slave facilitated its introduction to the Americas from West Africa. In North America, Africans introduced eggplant to Native American foodways, “but many southerners looked on them as poisonous until the twentieth century,” writes Southern Historian John Gray Taylor. Below I have links to eggplant recipes

Eggplant and Shrimp recipe from Ghana: http://recipeisland.com/blog1/recipe-island/ghana-recipes/ghana-sesew-froe-shrimp-and-eggplant/

Southern cornbread scalloped eggplant recipe: http://www.grouprecipes.com/16933/southern-cornbread-scalloped-eggplant.html

Pakistani Aaloo Baingan (Eggplant and potato in a curry sauce) recipe http://www.angelfire.com/country/fauziaspakistan/aaloobaingan.html

Various eggplant recipes and cooking tips: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes_menus/collections/healthy_eggplant_recipes