Stumping and Eating: Puerto Rican Cuchifritos

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Puerto Rican Papas Rellenas Recipe

Ingredients
Potatoes
Potato flakes or flour
Anatto powder seasoning (sazon) for coloring
Ground beef (vegan substitute)
Cooking oil
Salt
Adobo
Sofrito 

Method
Season ground  beef to taste and cook until brown. Cook potatoes as you would for mashed potatoes. Mash the potatoes, add potato flakes, annato powder and salt. Mix together. Make sure the potatoes are not too soft or too hard. Heat oil in the pot while mixing potatoes. Make a ball of the dough out of the mash potato making sure your hand is cuffed making a half a ball out of the dough. Now spoon some meat inside the dough in your hand. Make another ball and flatten over the stuffed half making a full ball out of the potato. If needed add some potato flakes or flour to make sure the ball stays intact. Deep fry the potato ball in hot oil and cook until the ball turns bright orange and crispy. 

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

In Florida, Vitriol Flies as Romney Sits Atop Polls Before Primary: [Watch or Listen 15 min 20sec]  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june12/campaign_01-30.html

If Gingrich Loses Florida, What's His Path Forward?: [Watch or Listen 38 sec] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/religion/jan-june12/stususan_01-30.html

Florida's I-4 Corridor Influences GOP Primary: [Listen 3 min 48 sec] http://www.npr.org/2012/01/30/146073039/floridas-i-4-corridor-drives-votes-to-gop-winner

How Primary Skirmish Toughens White House Bid: [Listen 11 min 59 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=146087628

Bilingualism A Political Liability?: [Listen 4 min 24 sec] http://www.npr.org/2012/01/29/146062632/bilingualism-a-political-liability

Stumping and Eating: Puerto Rican Rice and Beans

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

Rice and Beans History and Recipe: http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/01/rice-and-beanspeas-and-rice-series-part_22.html

Bilingualism A Political Liability?: [Listen 4 min 24 sec] http://www.npr.org/2012/01/29/146062632/bilingualism-a-political-liability

Gingrich and Romney Battle in Winner-Take-All Florida: [Watch 12 min  35 sec] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june12/campaign_01-27.html

Frederick Douglass Opie, “Eating, Dancing, and Courting in New York Black and Latino Relations, 1930-1970”: http://www.amazon.com/dancing-courting-relations-1930-1970-CONSUMERISM/dp/B001PC9SIW

Stumping and Eating: Puerto Rican Barbecue

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

Bizarre Food with Andrew Zimmern on Barbecue in Puerto Rico: [Watch starting at segment at 10 min 2 sec] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSz_EFMsBM0&feature=related

Puerto Rican in Central Florida Oral History Project: [Listen 10 min] http://myfloridahistory.org/node/1485

GOP Candidates Counting on Latino Voters: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/01/27/145995299/heading-into-final-fla-swing-gop-candidates-keep-courting-latino-voters

Jacksonian Democracy, Votes, and Food

Shaker Pie, this and other pie recipe below 

The Republican Primary in Florida is heating up with election day just around the corner. One common argument is that Governor Romney will win the primary because he has out spent his opponents 3 to 1.  As a Professor of History and Foodways this interpretation reminds me of the Jacksonian era. During the antebellum period party operatives used “election day treating,” a practice rooted in British political culture, to get people to vote (your vote in exchange for food and spirits—especially whisky and rum). Historically the tactic had a strong class dimension to it and particularly so after 1828 when Jacksonian Democrats increased popular participation in elections by reducing residency requirements for voting, eliminating the practice of voting by voice, and increasing access to voting places. For the poor election day meant a mouthwatering spread that might include in the words of traveler Adam Hodgson, “four or five turkeys on the table, and the greatest possible variety and profusion of meat, poultry, and pastry” and decanters full of brandy, whisky, and rum. When I think of an old put extremely good southern pastry, lemon shaker pie comes to mine. Here’s a recipe and some additional pies recipes that are often forgotten too. Also see the piece on history in the making in a Mississippi election today.

Shaker Pie Recipe: http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/gf/gf100623piecast_lost_pies_of


GOP Candidates Counting on Latino Voters: http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/01/27/145995299/heading-into-final-fla-swing-gop-candidates-keep-courting-latino-voters

Stumping and Eating: Puerto Rican Tamales

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Pasteles or Puerto Rican-Style Tamales: http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/11/ethnic-borderlands-and-foodways-in.html

 

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

In Spanish-Language Ads, A Question of Sincerity: [Listen 4 min 36 sec] http://www.npr.org/2012/01/26/145915069/in-spanish-language-ads-a-question-of-sincerity

 

Republicans Flight for the Latino Vote: [Listen 11 min 44 sec] http://www.npr.org/2012/01/26/145905359/republicans-fight-for-the-latino-vote

Stumping and Eating: Cuban Rice and Beans

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

Cuban Rice and Beans History and Recipe:http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/01/rice-and-beanspeas-and-rice-series-part_22.html

Stumping And Eating in Florida Part 1

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Cuban History with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/01/feeding-revolution-spanish-american-war.html

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

Food and the 2012 Campaign: http://www.p2012.org/food/index.html

Food Stamps In Recession Era America

Frederick Douglass Opie,  Babson College

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

'Food Stamp President': Race Code, Or Just Politics?: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/17/145312069/newts-food-stamp-president-racial-or-just-politics

Bob Dole & George McGovern - History of Food Stamp Program: [watch 14 min sec] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0_OWueb_8Y

Ethnic Breakdown of of SNAP 2010 Recipients: http://www.trivisonno.com/food-stamps-race 

Food Stamps and Invisible Americans

For South Carolinian Howard Furch the food stamp issue that Newt Gingrich raised during the last Republican primary debate is more about whether or not a candidate for president can empathize with unemployed and underemployed poor Americans struggling to put food on their table and feed their children. Furch asked, how can a candidate who can run up a $500,000 Tiffany bill and another one who can make a bet for $10,000 “relate to us?” His question reminded me of a book project that I'm working on that looks at Martin Luther King, Junior [MLK] through the lens of food. In his 1968 speech, “Remaining Awake Through A great Revolution,” King reflected on a recent trip he took to Marks, Mississippi, which at the time had the unflattering reputation as the poorest county in the United States. MLK recalled speaking with unemployed parents that had no kind of income, welfare, or food stamps. “I said how do you live? And they said well we go around—go around to the neighborhood and asked them for a little something. When the berry season comes, we pick berries; when the rabbit season comes, we hunt and catch a few rabbits that’s about it.”  In the northern ghettos of 1968 Newark, New Jersey and Harlem in New York City, MLK also found parents struggling to put food on the table and feed their children. King described these food deserts in the rural South and urban north “as kind of domestic colon[ies]” where the people remained invisible because the economic divide in United States limited contact between them and the more affluent Americans who worked, worshiped, and relaxed and in vastly different spaces. As King put it “our expressways carry us away from the ghetto, [and] we don't see the poor." I argue that in historic prospective Gingrich's current stump speech on food stamps and the president is more about class than race considering that the majority of citizens who have received food stamps have been white and poor. More on this topic tomorrow; in the meantime, enjoy the links below.

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

 My Food Stamp Post: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=food+stamps

'Food Stamp President': Race Code, Or Just Politics?: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/17/145312069/newts-food-stamp-president-racial-or-just-politics

Bob Dole & George McGovern - History of Food Stamp Program: [watch 14 min sec] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0_OWueb_8Y

Food Stamp Recipients in South Carolina: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/interactive/patchworknation/stats/food-stamps/food-stamp-recipients/sc/

Food and Females in South Carolina Political Culture

Frederick Douglass Opie, Professor of History and Foodways @ Babson College

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

South Carolina Voters and the GOP Debate: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/17/145357662/fiscal-conservatives-discuss-gop-debate

Women’s suffrage Timeline: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/naw/nawstime.html

Oral History of Aikin South Carolina Suffragist League Leader Eulalie Salley: http://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/G-0054/G-0054.html

Singing Before We Eat: MLK and Evangelical Leaders

 Frederick Douglass Opie, Professor of History and Foodways @ Babson College

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

Santorum Gets Backing From Social Conservatives: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/14/145235051/social-conservatives-vote-to-back-santorum

Cooking Up Change: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/01/16/145179885/cooking-up-change-how-food-helped-fuel-the-civil-rights-movement

MLK Through The Lens of Food Part 4: The Montgomery Bus Boycott

Down home Montgomery, Alabama pound cake, recipes below  

Yesterday I started talking about Martin Luther King (MLK), Georgia Gilmore, food, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When Montgomery authorities arrested Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, just about the entire black community of the city rallied to her aid. ED Nixon, President of the Montgomery NAACP and active member of A Phillip Randolph’s Pullman Porter’s Union, organized a meeting of the city’s black leaders. To insure solidarity among this often fragmented group, they agreed on MLK, a newcomer with impeccable credentials (Morehouse grad, PhD. from Boston University, Daddy King’s son, and a gifted orator) to serve as the president and spokesmen of the newly established Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). Women, who Nixon did not invite to the MIA organizing meeting, organized their own groups. Georgia Gilmore, who took the lead, called them the “Club from No Where.” They included black women from the south side and west side of the city who organized clubs dedicated to using their baking skills to raise money for the MIA and the success of the bus boycott. I'll have more tomorrow on the Club from No Where, MLK, the bus boycott. Here’s a pound cake recipe like one members of the Club from No Where" would have used with my food translation.

Translated Simple Pound Cake Recipe:
1 pound butter substitute like Smart Balance
3 cups sugar
5 eggs (or egg substitute)
3 cups cake flour (you can get whole grain cake flour like baking with spelt flour)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup soy milk
A splash of vanilla, almond, or lemon extract

Method:
Mix butter, sugar, and eggs. Beat until light. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Add slowly to butter mixture alternating with milk. Bake for about an hour and some change at 325

Vegan pound cake recipe: http://aveganfordinner.blogspot.com/2006/12/promised-poundcake-and-pizza-friday.html

Lemon coconut vegan pound cake: http://www.nibbledish.com/people/laraadler/recipes/lemon-coconut-pound-cake-vegan

MLK Through The Lens of Food Part 3: Montgomery, Alabama

Stuffed pork chops, recipe below (photo from http://mistyyoon.com)

After Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) graduated from Morehouse, he left the South from 1948 to 1953 to attend graduate school in Pennsylvania and Boston. By age 24, MLK earned a Master’s of divinity and doctorate degree! He then married Coretta Scott and moves to Montgomery, Alabama become Pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. In Montgomery King lived just three blocks from Georgia Gilmore a renowned cook in that city. When the bus boycott started in 1955, Gilmore testified in court in support of it and her employer, the National Lunch Company where she worked as a cook, fired her. MLK encouraged Gilmore and gave her the capital necessary start a catering business and restaurant out of her home. Gilmore had both black and white customers and folks from all walks of life who came to love her fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, stuffed pork chops, stuffed peppers, and chitins with coleslaw. Anytime VIP’s came to town King would bring them to Gilmore’s restaurant and he often retreated there to a get a good and safe home cooked meal. Let me suggest these stuffed pork chop recipes to go with this story.

Apple stuffed pork chops: http://mistyyoon.com/2010/01/15/apple-stuffed-pork-chops/

Stuffed pork chops: http://recipes.aarp.org/recipes/stuffed-pork-chops

Vegan stuffed pork chops: http://jennshaggy.blogspot.com/2008/12/vegan-goat-cheese-spinach-and-sun-dried.html

MLK Through The Lens of Food Part 2: The Morehouse Years

Collard and Pinto Bean Chile, recipe below  (photo from http://www.atlantamagazine.com/)

MLK attended Morehouse College in Atlanta, an all male Historical Black College (HBCU). MLK enrolled at the house at age 15 in 1944 graduating with honors in 1948! Morehouse was part of the Atlanta University Center (AUC), located in Southwest Atlanta, and African-American community. AUC schools included the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta University), Morris Brown College, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. Most HBCU students like King “were trying to go some place and get good food off campus. Because the food was just institutional,” remembers Spelman grad Stanlie M. James. The fact that HBCU cafeterias served one meal option that tasted “institutional,” translation—lacked soul, seemed the biggest complaint of students in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. More on MLK tomorrow. Here is a soulful recipe from Atlanta Magazine that fits with this story.

Collard and Pinto Bean Chile: http://www.atlantamagazine.com/southernrecipes/entrees/story.aspx?ID=1339550

Morehouse Cafeteria worker strike: http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/morehouse-cafeteria-workers-on-663491.html

MLK Through The Lens of Food Part 1: Feed the Preacher

Sweet potato cobbler, recipe below

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Jr's (MLK) Birthday. For me MLK, the black church, Atlanta, and Morehouse College are synonymous. MLK’s father, “Daddy King” was a prominent black preacher in Atlanta, the Black Southern Baptist Convention, and nationally. As such MLK and his family spent a lot of Sundays as the dinner guest of a member of his father’s congregation or that of another congregation when he was an invited speaker, “every family was expected to feed the preacher at least once during the year” writes  Joyce White who grew up in Alabama in the 1940s across the borders from MLK's native Georgia.  These great down home meals included various dishes ranging from roast pork, rice with gravy, fried chicken, stewed tomatoes, corn, macaroni and cheese, biscuits, corn bread, okra, and you had to leave room for a great dessert. Here is a sweet potato recipe that I’ve hear is sensational:

Sweet Potato Cobbler recipe: http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Sweet-Potato-Cobbler

MLK the College Student in a 1947 op-ed: http://www.mlkonline.net/the-purpose-of-education.html

Barbecue And The South Carolina Primary

 Frederick Douglass Opie, Professor of History and Foodways @ Babson College

The Barbecue Song!: [watch 3 min 25sec] http://filmshare.info/view/812/the-bbq-song/

Barbecue history with recipes:

http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/12/european-influences-on-american.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/05/african-roots-of-carolina-and-florida.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/05/barbecue-sauce-eastern-north-carolina.html

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

Religion, Politics, And Food In The South Carolina Primary

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

The Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

South Carolina History And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=South+Carolina

In Search Of An 'Anti-Romney': Guide To The Players: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/13/145129137/in-search-of-an-anti-romney-guide-to-the-players

Evangelical Leaders Struggle To Crown A Candidate: [Listen 4 min 22 sec]

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/13/145121706/evangelical-leaders-struggle-to-crown-a-candidate

Eating and Stumping: The South Carolina Primary Part 1

Professor of History and Foodways Frederick Douglass Opie from his office at Babson College

They say confession is good for the soul. Well after many weeks and days of fear and trepidation of learning this new technology, today I'm posting my first of, Lord willing, many more video blogs. Like many things in life, the fear of learning this new technology held me back for too long and once I did it, I said, why did you wait so long? This is easy! As I learned when I first started this blog some three years ago, practice makes perfect, or as one of my lacrosse coaches once told me perfect practice makes perfect. Hope you enjoy the blog and share your comments and stories in the comments section below.

The Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

South Carolina History And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=South+Carolina

GOP Candidates Turn Attention To South Carolina: Listen [31 min 6 sec]: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/11/145046984/gop-candidates-turn-attention-to-south-carolina

The Country Store: Campaigning in New Hampshire vs. South Carolina

A 1940s Louisiana Country Store, recipes below (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)  click to enlarge image

The New Hampshire primary is over and those still in the race have turned their attention back to South Carolina.  I can't help but notice the contrast between retail politics in New Hampshire and South Carolina. In New Hampshire retail politics has historically meant meet and greets at Rotary clubs, country clubs, coffee houses, private homes,  taverns, clam bakes, lobster bakes, barbecues, bakeries, sandwich shops and something unique—the country store.  A look at candidate visits in South Carolina and one is hard-pressed to find a country store on any of their itineraries. Country store have been important institutions in rural South Carolina, yet they are not part of retail politics in 2011 and 2012, but they were in rural New Hampshire.  Historically, general stores, town stores, or country stores served as the center of rural communities. They functioned as spaces and places where farmers  families could purchase items that they did not or could not raise on their farms such molasses, sugar, salt, baking powder/baking soda, and snacks such as pickled pigs feet, chewing gum, soft drinks, ice cream, and cheese and crackers among others. It was not uncommon for a country store owner to save up enough money to convert the store into part grocery store and part eatery that included a short inexpensive menu steeped in local staples, produce and seafood and game that few could prepare as well as the cook at the country store. These stores/eateries also served as spaces where one shared and gathered information on events near and far. As a result they naturally evolved into important spaces for candidates running for office. In short, candidates and or party activist  well-versed  in the per functionary traditions of retail politics (shaking hands, breaking bread, and a well-rehearsed stump speech tailored to the needs of locals) have historically had to make the rounds at country stores if they wanted the support of rural New Hampshire voters.  Below I have links to related stories with recipes. More tomorrow on retail politics and food in the South Carolina primary.

Country store history and recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=store

The Series Stumping And Eating: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

Stumping And Eating: The New Hampshire Primary Part 2

New England Clam Chowder, recipes below (photo from http://heatovento350.blogspot.com)

Today is the final push to get voters to the polls in the New Hampshire primary.  Let's talk about the lunch and dinner events that candidates did leading up to today. Similar to the number of breakfast events which I discussed yesterday, I counted 41 lunches with campaign staff, volunteers (Republican Activist), and meet and greet voters' events. I found about the same number of public and private dinners among them spaghetti dinners . Among the dinners the First in the Nation Presidential Dinner Cruise on the M/S Mount Washington on Lake Winnipesaukee looked like a very posh event for those flush with discretionary money. Coffee with the candidate events served as the least expensive for campaigns and activist to organize and they seemed a necessary for gaining support of New Hampshire voters. Candidates met voters and coffee houses across the state, as well as in private homes. Republican activist hosted coffees in their homes as a way of convincing voters to support their candidate. At such events an event an activist host might serve cheeses, fruits, donuts and/or pastries. Moreover, New Hampshire’s WMUR-TV in collaboration with the New Hampshire Institute of Politics hosted a “Candidate Café” held at the Airport Diner in Manchester. The same station held a “Coffee with the Candidate” series at the Portland Pie in Manchester as well. Napoleon famously remarked that an army marches on its belly. The same could be said of candidates and their 2012 March to the White House. Below find a clam chowder from the Old Salt Restaurant in Hampton one of the stops on the New Hampshire Primary campaign trail and other related links. Please share your campaign and food stories in the comment section below.

Old Salt Restaurant Clam Chowder Recipe 

N.H. Female Voters Weigh In On Primary Issues: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/09/144888871/n-h-female-voters-weigh-in-on-primary-issues

The Series Stumping And Eating: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food

Food and New Year’s Resolutions

Salad greens with beets and goat cheese, recipe below

In the summer of 2010 I had minor knew surgery that I had me laid up for a while then we made what turned out to be a very stressful relocation from metro New York to metro Boston. Add to this a harsh winter last year that just would not stop and I gained 20 pounds by the summer of 2011. In response, I bought running shoes and hit the pavement jogging on the weekends to aid to the bike riding and stationary bike riding I do week day mornings before heading into the office. In addition I cut down on deserts and eating late at night. By the end of 2011 I had lost the extra 20 pounds around my midsection and returned from a size 36 waist to a size 34. To keep the weight off, I am eating more produce and moving more.  During my travels through the South last week I noted how difficult it could be to find cooks who did not season cabbage and collard greens without pork and noted places that can be best be described as food deserts--they neighborhoods without access to fresh produce never mind s grocery store.  I mentioned this because it New Year’s resolution time again when folks try and lose weight. North Americans are historically more overweight than residents of any other nation in the world; African-American eating habits are just as problematic as the eating habits of other ethnic groups within the United States. According to Joan B. Lewis, a member of the American Dietitian Association and a registered dietitian with more than forty years of experience, historically, most of the eating patterns that you see among Americans are “sugar, salt, fat, you know fatty products, a whole lot of fried stuff, a whole lot of pork products, a whole lot of fast food, no vegetables, no fruit, [and generally] no good wholesome things" that reduce one's chance of obesity and risk factors for high blood pressure and diabetes. If you must make a New Year’s resolution, commit to making it a habit to eat more vegetables and fruits and exercise more. Here is the recipe to the salad featured above.

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

The Soul Southern Eating: Grits

Shrimp over grits, recipes below

Last week I drove down south in an RV and did field work with my family along for the ride. You cannot say you have eaten southern cuisine with out enjoying a plate of grits which I would argue is one of the several staples that make up the core or soul of southern cuisine. What I like most about eating breakfast in the south is that people don't play; the they feed you and you don't need to eat again  in most cases until 1 or 2 pm! As a largely agricultural and fishing societies southerners developed foodways that overtime had the family cook and or operators of boarding houses, and eateries preparing a large breakfast including seafood and other similarly lunch or dinner time foods in other cultures to help workers complete rigorous calorie burning manual labor.  The problem is now most of us simply don't do that that much manual labor from sun up to sun down six days a week. I also enjoy grits because like rice you can serve all kinds of food on top of them and they absorb flavors very well. Aretha Franklin, who was born in south,  had a favorite eatery when performing in New York City called Kelly’s restaurant in Atlantic City where she had a reputation for ordering after-hours meals of hot sauced wings and grits. Like fried chicken and waffles, hot wings and grits are closely associated with entertainer whose jobs had them getting off work early in the morning. Grits are made from ground hominy and  that's where I derived part of the title of my book Hog and Hominy . As the link below shows, the origins of hominy are ancient Guatemala maize culture and from there it migrated to the Indians of North America who introduced it to European settlers and enslaved Africans. Today it is very popular on the menu of many southern and Latin American restaurants. Here’s a New Year’s cooking resolution; try cooking with grits this year or serving them as a side dish. Here are some recipes:

Shrimp and Grits: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=443571


Vegetarian Menudo: http://recipes.chef2chef.net/recipe-archive/56/299250.shtml


Vegetarian Pozole: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/soup/recipe-vegetarian-posole-075578


Garlic cheese grits: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=853994

Maize culture and recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/11/native-american-foodways-corn.html

Aretha Franklin stories with recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Aretha

Field Work and Food in Metro DC

Cashew Nog, recipe below (photo from http://catnip13.blogspot.com)

Passed through D.C. on the way to Florida in a RV. The stop reminded me of the time I spent in the city while in graduate school in the 1990s. After I passed my comps and received the approval of my dissertation proposal, I headed to Washington, D. C. to do research using State Department records in the National Archives. For the next two years I would be researching and writing about an African Diaspora on the Caribbean Coast of turn of the century Guatemala in Central America. The problem was I had little to no research support. I had spent a good amount of time applying for funding including a Full Bright Application to do archival research in Guatemala. Unfortunately I found out after I completed my degree that a professor who agreed to write a letter of recommendation for my funding application had submitted letters that undermined my work and thus sabotaged my chances of getting research support. These things don’t happen often but they happen so be careful who you ask for a letter of recommendation. To make ends meet, I took out student loans to finance the last stage of Ph.D. studies. Fortunately my brother, a Howard University graduate, opened his home to me on 14^th and Fairmount to me. His home was relatively close to the National Archives, the foodie friendly Adam Morgan Section, and U Street. This was in 1996 before the gentrification of U Street and the arrival of Whole Foods Market there. The house was also blocks from Georgia Avenue and Howard University which had a great bodega like place with a hot bar called Everlasting Life. This place I remember well because it had the best food, including appetizers, entrees, desserts, and smoothies and everything organic and vegan. Anytime I return to D. C. I make a trip there. Their cashew nog made from freshly ground cashews, soy and coconut milk represented the most iconic item on the menu and it’s incredible! And the desserts, they had really great baked goods.

Everlasting Life Menu: http://www.everlastinglifecafe.com/menu.html

Cashew Nog recipe: http://www.veganbaking.net/vegan-recipes/alcoholic-drinks/cashew-egg-nog.html

Georgia and Civil War Foodways

Stir Fried sweet potato greens and shrimp, recipe below

My family and I are doing a RV trip from Boston to Florida with stops in the Carolinas and Georgia. Here is a look at the Civil War through the lens of food. Samuel H. Sprott was the son of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian immigrants born in 1840 in Sumter County, Alabama. During the Civil War he enlisted as a private in the Fortieth Alabama Regiment of the confederate army. Sprott provides a description of confederate food shortages during the Atlanta campaign: “We had been living the entire campaign on toasted cornbread, and broiled bacon, and the men were nearly crazy for vegetable[s] . . . I saw men gathering poke salad, potato tops, lamb’s quarters, and even the tender shoots of the careless weed,” in an attempt to eat some greens. Lambs quarters are edible members of the spinach and Swiss chard family but with more nutrients and potato tops are sweet potato leaves. As a “weed” and a tuber that grew underground, lambs quarters and sweet potatoes would have survived General William Tecumseh Sherman’s scorched earth strategy during his march through Georgia which he used to try starving confederate forces into surrendering, which they did in April of 1865. My research reveals lots or recipes for both plants and the popularity of sweet potato tops in Asian cookery. Below are a number of recipes using both plants. Lamb quarters came to North America from Europe, most likely the United Kingdom, during the colonial period. Sweet potato is an American plant that most likely travelers introduced to Asia via Africa in the eighteenth century. For more on southern foodways and plant history see my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/tableOfContents.

Lamb quarter recipes: http://www.mariquita.com/recipes/lambs%20quarters.htm

Sweet potato tops salad recipe: http://ascientistinthekitchen.net/salads/sweet-potato-kamote-tops-salad/

Stir fried sweet potato tops and shrimp recipe: http://www.myasiankitchenny.com/2009/08/stir-fry-sweet-potato-leaves-in-sambal.html

New Year's Day Traditions and Food

A sign in some unknown part of the Southern United States, related recipes below

“I don’t care where you are,” writes North Carolinian Reginald Ward, black folk are going to eat “strictly pork” on New Year ’s Day. Tradition calls for cooking “black-eyed peas, hog head, a whole hog head now, pig tails, pigs feet.” He goes on to say, “You can go just about anywhere, and people who were born in the South, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee,” cook pork on New Year’s Day. I interviewed Ward for my book Hog and Hominy. Having lived in California in the 1960s, Ward noticed that, “everybody born in the South was looking for pork” on New Year’s. As a result, the price of smoked and pickled pork parts like pigs’ feet and hog maws in California supermarkets became expensive around New Year’s. Historically this how southerners ate on New Year’s; and this tradition has caused a lot of serious health problems because folks ate a lot of pork on other days of the year too. Ease up on the pork this New Year’s day and for the coming year. We can celebrate New Years and eat healthy and good tasting food too. Here some recipes you can try that are traditional but healthy and great tasting.

Vegan Smothered cabbage recipe: http://www.all-creatures.org/mhvs/recipes-

Vegan jambalaya recipe: http://www.veganmeat.com/recipes2/jambalaya.html

Vegan ropa vieja recipe:http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=27125

Off the hook Vegan Brunswick stew recipe: http://veganthyme.blogspot.com/2009/12/vegan-brunswick-stew-topped-with-spelt.html