SOUPS AND SALADS

For the Welcome Table

With just a few exceptions, African American cooks’ passion for leafy salads tossed with dressings, sauces, and spices does not trace as neatly as soup does from the African continent or the antebellum kitchen to the present. In fact, the idea of salad as we know it today has meant different things at different times. American salad could have been a congealed or molded concoction of fruit or vegetables suspended in gelatin, an ethnic mixture inspired by Germans and Italians, or any cooked poultry or seafood surrounded by a few lettuce leaves, John F. Mariani tells us in the Dictionary of American Food and Drink. African American cookbook author Abby Fisher’s 1881 collection, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, reflected her Alabama roots with just six salad recipes—chicken, veal, lamb, shrimp, crab, and meat.

After World War I, “women were looking for ways to save time in their cooking, and home economists, scientists, and the growing food-processing industry went to work to help them,” Sylvia Lovegren explained in Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads. “Salads in which the ingredients were unrecognizable, masked, or masquerading as something else were the idea.”

African American women reaching for affluence noted the trend. Service workers who had fought for social status during the post–Civil War years by continuing to work in “every day” careers gradually moved into the privileged class. Culinary arts helped them resist illiterate servant stereotypes, such as Mammy and Aunt Jemima, the way that the creative, visual, musical, theatrical, and cultural arts promoted notions of the “New Negro” during the Harlem Renaissance.

New social standing enabled early twentieth-century food industry professionals to join black women’s benevolent clubs and social organizations dedicated to community uplift, such as the Fannie Jackson Coppin Club and the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. Gladys Kidd, an educator, nutritionist, mentor, philanthropist, and granddaughter of bondservants, devoted her career and research to improving health through nutrition and safe food. Sarah Massey Overton ran a catering business, supported women’s suffrage, and was a charter member of San Jose’s Garden City Women’s Club. Some of these groups published cookbooks to fundraise for their activities. Fanciful salads and luscious soups caught on.

California state superintendent of domestic science, caterer, and member of the Federation of Negro Women’s Clubs Bertha L. Turner published The Federation Cook Book: A Collection of Tested Recipes, Contributed by the Colored Women of the State of California, a book that mirrored trends in the salad arts. Her 1910 collection of breads, meats, soups, and preserves featured a whopping twenty-six formulas for modest salads—such as Cherry Salad, Marshmallow Salad, and Chicken Salad—more than any other food category except cakes and desserts.

“The presence of salad on a menu became an effective way to distinguish the meal as one meant for the wealthy, or at least the ambitious middle class, which could afford relatively expensive ingredients wrought into a cajoling design,” Laura Shapiro explained in Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century.

(For a taste of how elaborate and artful this kind of salad making was, refer to the book Good Things to Eat, as Suggested by Rufus by chef Rufus Estes, who cooked for Pullman Private Car travelers. Published a year after Turner’s book, it featured rococo and skillful concoctions like Birds Nest Salad, which involved lettuce leaves curled into a “dainty little nest,” topped with a tiny speckled egg made by rolling cream cheese into an egg shape and sprinkling with parsley, the dressing hidden under the leaves, or Cauliflower Mayonnaise, which heaped seasoned florets on a platter, arranging them like a flower and surrounding them with carrots, turnips, and green peas.)

In the mid-twentieth century, with an emphasis on wholesome cooking, food editor Freda DeKnight steered readers of Ebony magazine and her cookbook, A Date with a Dish, back to salads that were “simple, vital to good health, not expensive, chock-full of vitamins and minerals, part of the roughage that our diets require.”

My own mother got into the salad spirit during my school-age years, tossing together a “chef’s salad” of julienned cold cuts, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce with Thousand Island dressing for an easy after-work meal.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, on the other hand, used the concept of salad to express aggravation and contempt during the Black Power movement of the 1960s. The story in her 1971 memoir/cookbook, Vibration Cooking: Or, The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl, takes place after a particularly stressful day, and involves a nosy white woman who inquires about collard greens:

“How do you people fix those?”

“Salad,” I said.

“Salad?”

“Yeah, salad.”

“But I was sure You People cooked them.”

“No, never…salad.”

“What kind of dressing?”

“Italian!”

African American soup history is another matter, remembered reverentially in 1988 by author Dunstan A. Harris in Island Cooking: Recipes from the Caribbean, this way: “Agricultural workers—slaves and indentured servants—began their long shifts on the sugar cane and banana plantations in the pre-dawn darkness. It was their custom to pool together each day a variety of vegetables raised from their subsistence garden plots, any scraps of meat that were available, as well as their rations of flour and salted meats. At that very hour, the designated cook would create a soup in a huge wrought-iron cauldron placed over a coal fire to slowly cook for several hours. At mid-day, when the workers broke for lunch, soup, perhaps the day’s most complete and nutritious meal, was served.”

From these humble beginnings, many soup recipes have become vital parts of Caribbean cuisine, Harris continued. Soups offered to visitors were usually strained and the broth served as an appetizer. At home, with family, soup might be a main course, rich in meat and hearty vegetables.

This is a tradition that spanned the Caribbean and beyond, throughout the African diaspora. Ruth Gaskins explained how this habit of soup making survived poor cabin cooking through the generations in her 1968 collection of “Traditional Negro Recipes,” titled A Good Heart and a Light Hand. She tells the story behind “the Negro Welcome,” hospitality symbolized by a pot of something wonderful to eat that is never empty, always waiting, with comfort for the soul. Gaskins recalled: “The Welcome comes from back in the days when we were slaves. For over 200 years we were told where to live and where to work. We were given husbands, and we made children, and all these things could be taken away from us. The only real comfort came at the end of the day, when we took either the food that we were given, or the food that we raised, or the food that we had caught, and we put it in the pot, and we sat with our own kind and talked and sang and ate.”

In freedom, Gaskins went on to say, the Welcome was evident especially in special times: church dinners and homecoming events, family reunions, and club activities—the Woman’s Burial Society, a Savings Club, and her mama’s ladies’ Luncheon Club among them. The Welcome meant she would see a dozen or so women dressed in their Sunday best—hats and good dresses and gloves—for lunch. “The hostess would really get away from the traditional foods. The menus always sounded like something out of the Thursday food page in the newspaper…creamed chicken in patty shells [puff pastry shells] or crab salad with all the little decorations around it. They’d sit at the dining room table which was set with all the best linen and every piece of silver that the hostess owned.”

The soups and salads collected here speak to that spirit of power, hope, and abundance—the Welcome’s ancestral call to hospitality, inspired by abundant fruits, vegetables, other rich ingredients, and a sense of joy in cooking that nurtures community.

CORN AND POTATO CHOWDER WITH CRAB

SERVES 4 TO 6

William Deas was South Carolina First Lady Blanche Rhett’s “able butler” and “one of the greatest cooks of the world,” wrote Rhett, Lettie Gay, and Helen Woodward in Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking. Many of the recipes in the 1930 cookbook are attributed to Deas and his “skilled hand.” The historian Arturo Schomburg listed several of Deas’s recipes, including his She-Crab Soup, in his unpublished outline for a Negro cookbook that would tell the full tale of black excellence in cooking.

She-crabs, when prepared with their eggs, give this soup a “delicious, glutinous quality” that is very different from standard crab soup. She-crab soup is a coastal Carolina staple and sees many cooks’ personal innovations: Charlotte Jenkins’s version in her cookbook Gullah Cuisine: By Land and By Sea enhances the flavor of lump crabmeat with cloves, mace, and Gullah Seafood Seasoning; Edna Lewis’s recipe calls for marinating the crabmeat in cream. But she-crabs are difficult to acquire outside of the Lowcountry, where they are trapped during laying season.

To enjoy crab soup even if you can’t get she-crabs at your local market, this mash-up, inspired by a recipe in My Life on a Plate by the singer Kelis, brings together the flavors of three popular soups into one: crab soup, potato soup, and corn chowder.

2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels (about 4 ears)

5 cups Vegetable Stock (recipe follows)

4 tablespoons butter, or ¼ pound salt pork, or 8 slices bacon

⅔ cup diced onion

2½ teaspoons minced garlic (about 3 cloves)

2 cups peeled and diced russet potato (1 large)

¾ cup diced carrot

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, minced

1½ teaspoons salt, or to taste

1 cup heavy whipping cream

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ pound lump crabmeat

Paprika, for garnish

1. In a blender or food processor, puree 1 cup of the corn kernels with 1 cup of the vegetable stock.

2. In a large saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat until sizzling. (Alternatively, cook the salt pork or bacon over medium heat until crisp and fat is rendered. Remove the pork to paper towels to drain.) Add the onion, stirring occasionally, then more frequently as it cooks, until softened but not browned, 8 to 10 minutes.

3. Stir in the garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until softened, about 30 seconds. Stir in the potato, carrot, thyme, and salt. Sauté for 2 minutes, stirring. Stir in the remaining 4 cups of stock, the remaining 1 cup of corn kernels, and the reserved corn puree. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer. Cook until the potato is tender and the soup has thickened slightly, 20 to 30 minutes.

4. Stir in the cream, pepper, and crab and cook for about 2 minutes longer to just heat the soup through. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper.

5. Divide the soup into the bowls, sprinkle with paprika, and serve immediately.

VEGETABLE STOCK

MAKES ABOUT 2½ QUARTS

I save trimmed vegetable ends, stems, and leaves in my freezer, and when I have a gracious plenty, I make this stock. Pour the cooled stock in ice cube trays and freeze for up to 6 months.

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 large carrots, cut into large dice

1 large onion, peeled and quartered

1 cup diced (½ inch) celery stalks and leaves

1 large green bell pepper, cut into large squares

4 garlic cloves, smashed

1 leek, quartered

1 cup broccoli stems, cut into large dice (½ inch)

1½ cups asparagus ends

1 cup mushroom stems

Stems from ½ bunch parsley

1½ cups spinach stems (from about 1 bunch)

1 cabbage core, quartered

2 bay leaves

10 black peppercorns (about ¼ teaspoon)

In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add the carrots, onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic. Cook and stir until the vegetables are tender-crisp, 6 to 8 minutes. Add 12 cups water, the leek, broccoli stems, asparagus ends, mushroom stems, parsley stems, spinach stems, cabbage core, bay leaves, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer gently for 2 hours. The broth develops stronger flavor the longer you let it simmer. Strain the stock (through several layers of cheesecloth if you want it very clear) and discard the vegetables. Store, tightly covered, in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or freeze.

CRAB SOUP

Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking, Blanche Rhett, Lettie Gay, and Helen Woodward, 1930 [African American chef William Deas made this crab soup famous in Charleston with the addition of crab roe, known commonly today as “She-Crab Soup.”]

1 dozen she crabs

2 cups milk

½ cup cream

1 tablespoon butter

1 small onion

Black pepper and salt

½ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon flour

1 tablespoon sherry

Cook the crabs until tender–about 20 minutes in boiling, salted water. Pick the meat from the shells and put the crab meat with the crab eggs into a double boiler. Add the butter, onion and a little black pepper. Let simmer for 5 minutes. Heat the milk and add to the mixture. Stir together and add the cream and the Worcestershire sauce. Thicken with the flour, add the sherry and salt to taste. Cook over a low flame for one-half hour.

Gumbo Ya-Ya

In 1901, The Picayune’s Creole Cook Book introduced its gumbo recipes by explaining that “Gumbo, of all other products of the New Orleans cuisine, represents a most distinctive type of the evolution of good cookery under the hands of the famous Creole cuisinieres of old New Orleans,” by describing the making of a “good ‘Gombo a la Creole’” as an “occult science,” and finally crediting that knowledge to the “old negro cooks” who handed their methods down “from generation to generation.”

A common refrain in historic cookbooks about rather than by black cooks is that these cooks made delicious food through some kind of mystical power, an innate talent, rather than through honed skills and hard work. It’s a stereotype that, while on the surface complimentary, only served to pigeonhole and limit black cooks by declaring them inscrutable and denying them their earned wisdom and abilities to adapt, learn, and create.

Still, when it comes to gumbo, there are admittedly volumes of mystery and sources of confusion.

The word gumbo comes from gombo, the word in several West African languages for okra, which may explain why early renditions of the thick, aromatic stew contained okra, along with vegetables, meat, or seafood. Okra is a finger-shaped vegetable that can be green or red and is mucilaginous when sliced and cooked. Devotees love that slime; it thickens gumbo and gives the stew body. Okra soup and okra or ochra gumbo appeared to be interchangeable terms in early African American cookbooks, flavored by ham and a rich broth made by simmering beef or poultry bones. Later on, in references to Ghanaian and Bahamian okra soup, a cook might stir tomatoes and other vegetables, plus seafood, into the pot, but no beef. Another iteration, okra stew, probably descended from African beef soup, made with greens and okra but no tomatoes.

Aspects of this lineage were obscured even further in America by the cook’s choice of words, the incorporation of Native American filé (a thickener then sometimes called sassafras flour), and the French and Creole practices of thickening soups with a roux (once white authors embraced “ochra soups” in their nineteenth-century cookbooks). After that, soups thickened with any combination of these ingredients started to bear the name “gumbo.”

Then there are regional characteristics. Author, songwriter, and civil rights activist James Weldon Johnson recalled a dish among the Creoles in the Lowcountry—“Charlestonian” gumbo prepared in a large pot similar to those used in the old slave quarters: okra, water, salt, and pepper; bits of diced chicken and ham; and whole shrimps, crabmeat (some of it left in pieces of the shell), onions, tomatoes, and thyme slow cooked for hours and served over cooked rice.

In Louisiana, Creole chef, cooking teacher, and restaurateur Lena Richard published a recipe for okra gumbo thickened with a roux and filé, though most cooks do not approve of working all three ingredients into a single dish. Jesse Lewis and Leah Chase added ham, veal, and sometimes sausage to their “Creole” gumbo pot.

Today’s “seafood gumbo” descends from this okra soup/stew lineage. And as evidence of its continued popularity and variety, there were three seafood gumbo recipes developed by three different cooks in a recipe collection, Real Men Cook, created by K. Kofi Moyo and the black men who organized a massive, nationwide charity fundraising cook-off in 1989 (which continues annually on Father’s Day). Volunteering athletes, musicians, physicians, attorneys, chefs, politicians, restaurateurs, caterers, celebrities, members of the media, and clergy stepped outside of their usual routines, became food-safety certified, purchased and transported ingredients, then got their culinary groove on for guests in several US cities. These guys broke all the okra gumbo rules: they used beef stock and tomatoes, and they relied upon all three thickeners.

That is why, to capture the essence of the gumbo story, I’m down with Queen Ida Guillory’s philosophy, both as a performer and as a culinary artist: “Va pour ça!”—“Go for it!” Known as the queen of zydeco, she wants us to be guided by that motto when making gumbo, and to remember that there are as many gumbo combinations as there are cooks stirring the pot.

I call that gumbo ya-ya—Cajun for “everybody talking all at once.”

OKRA GUMBO

SERVES 6

Abby Fisher was a former bondswoman who lived in Northern California, won awards for her pickles and preserves, and published the second known cookbook by an African American, What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, in 1881, with the help of the women in her community. “Ochra” Gumbo was Recipe Number 44. Her formula, which involved boiling a beef shank to create a savory and alluring broth, survived through the ages, the recipe variously being called okra stew, okra soup, and okra gumbo. It became a “Friday night-before-payday” recipe that Bob Jeffries simmered with “cat bits”—leftover bits and pieces of fatty bacon or “shreds” of baked ham saved from the bones, or both—in the Soul Food Cook Book.

My approach to diasporic gumbo recalls aspects of West African, island, Lowcountry, and Louisiana gumbos and the Tomato-Okra Gumbo in Queen Ida Guillory’s Cookin’ with Queen Ida: “Bon Temps” Creole Recipes (and Stories) from the Queen of Zydeco Music. As a timesaver, the music legend starts cooking the stock first, then measures and cuts up everything else. I sauté the okra over high heat so that the pods ooze less.

2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon paprika

2 pounds bone-in beef short ribs or shanks

2 bay leaves

1 pound beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch chunks

2 tablespoons bacon drippings

1 pound fresh okra, trimmed and cut into ¼-inch slices

1 cup chopped onion

⅓ cup chopped celery

⅔ cup chopped green bell pepper

1 tablespoon minced garlic (about 3 cloves)

1½ teaspoons minced Scotch bonnet pepper

½ teaspoon dried thyme

1½ cups diced canned tomatoes, undrained

½ pound crabmeat (optional)

1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails on (optional)

Hot cooked rice, for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.

2. In a small bowl, combine the salt, black pepper, cayenne, and paprika. Season the short ribs with 1½ teaspoons of the seasoning mixture. Place in a shallow baking pan and roast until browned and the fat has rendered, about 45 minutes.

3. Transfer the bones to a large Dutch oven or heavy soup pot. Discard the fat. Add 2 quarts water, the bay leaves, and stew meat. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 2 hours. The broth develops stronger flavor the longer you let it simmer. Use tongs to remove the bones. When cool enough to handle, trim any meat from the bones and return the meat to the pot. Discard the fat and the bones.

4. In a large skillet, heat the bacon fat. Add the okra and sauté over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until lightly browned, 7 to 10 minutes. Add the onion, celery, and bell pepper; sauté until well softened, 10 minutes. Add the garlic, chile pepper, thyme, tomatoes, and remaining seasoning mixture; cook for 5 minutes more.

5. Add the sautéed vegetables to the Dutch oven and simmer until the okra is tender and the flavors have melded, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove and discard the bay leaves. If using crab and/or shrimp, stir them in during the last 5 minutes of cooking time. Taste to adjust the seasoning, and serve with rice.

OCHRA GUMBO

What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, Abby Fisher, 1881

Get a beef shank, have it cracked and put to boil in one gallon of water. Boil to half a gallon, then strain and put back on fire. Cut ochra in small pieces and put in soup; don’t put in any ends of ochra. Season with salt and pepper while cooking. Stir it occasionally and keep it from burning. To be sent to table with dry boiled rice. Never stir rice while boiling. Season rice always with salt when it is first put on to cook, and do not have too much water in rice while boiling.

SEAFOOD GUMBO

SERVES 10

When making Louisiana’s famed thick, murky stew, remember that there are several types of gumbo, based on the ingredient that thickens the broth: okra, filé powder (ground sassafras leaves), or a smooth brown roux. You may choose any of these, or a combination, but okra and filé are seldom used together.

I adapted this recipe from Leroy’s Catering in Miami, as printed in K. Kofi Moyo’s Real Men Cook, because it so closely resembles the way I make mine at home. Stirring the medium-brown roux for gumbo requires patience, but the silky broth that results is well worth the time and effort.

½ cup vegetable oil

½ cup all-purpose flour (or ¾ cup, if you like a thicker gumbo)

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped green onions (about 8)

¾ cup chopped green bell pepper

¾ cup chopped celery

1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 to 4 cloves)

½ teaspoon minced Scotch Bonnet pepper, or to taste

1 teaspoon dried thyme

2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

2½ quarts Chicken Stock (recipe follows) or Fish Stock (this page), or a combination, warmed

1 bay leaf

1 pound fresh or frozen okra, sliced ¼ inch thick

1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 pint shucked oysters

1 pound claw crabmeat, picked over

Plenty of hot cooked rice, for serving

¼ cup minced fresh parsley

1. In a large Dutch oven or heavy soup pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat until hot, almost smoking. Gradually whisk in the flour, being careful not to splash the mixture so you don’t get burned. Reduce the heat to low and cook and stir the roux continuously until medium brown and smooth, 20 to 30 minutes.

2. Increase heat to medium-high. Add the onion, green onions, bell pepper, and celery and stir until the vegetables are wilted but not browned, about 7 minutes. Add the garlic, chile pepper, thyme, salt, black pepper, and cayenne. Reduce the heat to low and cook to allow the flavors to marry, about 20 minutes.

3. Whisk in the warm stock in batches to prevent splattering. Add the bay leaf, then bring back to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes. Taste and add salt as desired. Add the okra, shrimp, oysters, and crab and simmer until just cooked, another few minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and let stand for 1 hour for the flavors to mingle. Remove and discard the bay leaf.

4. Return the pot to medium-low heat just until the soup is hot again. Spoon into serving bowls, add hot rice as desired, and sprinkle with parsley.

CHICKEN STOCK

MAKES ABOUT 3½ QUARTS

1 (5- to 6-pound) stewing hen or 3 pounds chicken bones (backs, necks, etc.)

1 medium onion, quartered

3 celery stalks, with leaves, ends trimmed

3 bay leaves

¼ teaspoon black peppercorns

2 sprigs thyme or ¼ teaspoon dried thyme

3 sprigs parsley

In a large heavy stockpot, combine 5 quarts water, the chicken or bones, and onion. Cut the celery stalks in half and add them to the pot. Add the bay leaves, peppercorns, thyme, and parsley. Bring the stock to just under a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low, partially cover, and simmer until the chicken is very tender and the broth is rich-tasting, 2 to 3 hours. The broth develops stronger flavor the longer you let it simmer. If using a whole chicken, remove the chicken from the broth, and when it’s cool enough to handle, pull off the meat and reserve it for another use. Strain the stock, let cool, and refrigerate until the fat floats to the top. Use a slotted spoon to skim off the fat and discard. Store tightly covered for up to 1 week in the refrigerator, or freeze.

NOTE: To ensure you always have homemade stock on hand, freeze cooled stock in ice cube trays. Pop out the cubes and store them in heavy-duty freezer bags. Thaw them as needed.

GUMBO FILÉ

New Orleans Cookbook, Lena Richard, 1939

1 cup chopped chicken meat

2½ quarts chicken stock

½ dozen crabs

1 pound lake shrimp

½ pound or 1 slice raw ham

1 bay leaf

3 teaspoons filé

1 medium sized onion

1 clove of garlic

3 tablespoons flour

4 tablespoons cooking oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Fry ham and shrimp in cooking oil until ham is a golden brown. Remove ham and shrimp from fat. Make a roux with flour and fat, add onions and cook until a golden brown. Add crabs, chicken, ham and shrimp, stock and all seasonings except salt and pepper. Cook over a slow fire until liquid has reduced to about 1½ quarts. Season with salt and pepper and, just before serving, stir in filé. It is customary to serve Gumbo Filé with rice.

CRAWFISH BISQUE

SERVES 4

Order crawfish bisque in a restaurant, and what you really get is crawfish soup. African American cooks have been making this dish, under both these names—and others, fancy-sounding or not—for a long, long time.

Bisque means “thick soup” in French, usually made rich by the addition of cream. Over the years, our cooks used the term to refer to cream soup or “cream of” soup, and they relied on various techniques to give the soup body—from egg yolks to a simple white sauce to the classic French mixture beurre manié. (Beurre manié translates to rubbed or kneaded butter. The practice requires a light twist of the fingers—imagine you’re snapping your fingers to knead together little cubes of butter with flour, which you can stir into a soup or sauce at the end of the cooking time to add body.)

In 1932, a white author named Mary Moore Bremer featured potage d’écrevisses (crayfish soup) in her collection of “proven recipes of New Orleans’ most favored dishes.” A black cook in a bandanna graced the cover of the spiral-bound collection. Inside, Bremer explained that the cooking of the region owed its allure to the flavors of France, Spain, and Italy, and to the fact that “the negro woman, who reigned in the kitchen, had inherited from her ancestors in Africa, as well as in America, a knowledge of herbs that made her skill look like magic.”

The essence of that kitchen prowess isn’t wizardry; it is more likely a lifetime of hard work, skills learned, and usage of the “holy trinity,” a mix of pungent onion, bright green bell pepper, and crisp celery. This recipe is an adaptation of Leah Chase’s springtime crawfish soup from The Dooky Chase Cookbook.

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

¼ cup chopped onion

⅓ cup chopped celery

⅓ cup chopped green bell pepper

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon paprika

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 cups Fish Stock (recipe follows)

¼ teaspoon dried thyme

1 bay leaf

1 pound cooked crawfish tails

1 cup half-and-half

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

1. In a large Dutch oven or heavy soup pot, heat the butter and flour over medium heat. Cook, stirring, about 5 minutes to make a light blonde roux. Stir in the onion, celery, and bell pepper and cook until the vegetables are starting to soften, about 2 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook 1 minute longer. Stir in the paprika, salt, and cayenne. Add the fish stock, thyme, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and the soup has thickened.

2. Remove the soup from the heat. Remove and discard the bay leaf and puree the soup in batches in a blender. Return the soup to the pot. Add the crawfish tails and half-and-half and simmer for 15 minutes to marry the flavors. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt if desired. Garnish with parsley.

FISH STOCK

MAKES ABOUT 3½ QUARTS

Boiled fish heads, bones, or shrimp shells (or a combination) are the basis of this rich cooking stock, but do not use the heads of fatty fish that have strong tastes of their own, like salmon. Among the many pictures Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor painted of her Lowcountry upbringing in Vibration Cooking: Or the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl was one of an “epicurean delight”—a stew her mother made by long-simmering onions and green pepper with fish heads she bought for five cents a pound. The brew, known as fish head stew, was served over grits.

5 pounds fish heads, bones, and/or shrimp shells

2 cups large chunks celery, including leaves

2 medium onions, peeled and quartered

2 bay leaves

1 sprig parsley

¼ teaspoon whole black peppercorns

In a large heavy saucepan, combine 4 quarts water, the bones, celery, and onions. Add the bay leaves, parsley, and peppercorns. Bring to a boil over medium-low heat (it will take a while, but gentle heat is what keeps this stock clear and fresh tasting), then reduce the heat to low and gently simmer, uncovered, 1 to 2 hours, skimming off any foam that rises to the top of the pot. The broth develops stronger flavor the longer you let it simmer. Strain the broth through a colander to remove the bones and vegetables. Then strain it again through a fine-mesh sieve and discard any solids. Refrigerate the broth until fat floats to the top. Use a slotted spoon to skim fat and discard. Store tightly covered for up to 3 days in the refrigerator, or freeze.

POTAGE D’ECREVISSES

New Orleans Creole Recipes, Mary Moore Bremer, 1932

Wash four dozen crayfish in several waters to get the mud off. Boil in plain water and save this. When cold, take meat out of shells, just as with shrimp, saving two dozen shells, or heads, as they are called.

To make the bisque: Use half the meat and the remaining shells. Chop one half pound of ham, one pound of veal, one large carrot, two parsnips, one large onion. Put one rounded tablespoon of lard into a saucepan; when hot, add one large onion and four shallots, minced. When onion commences to brown, add the chopped vegetables and meat. Now stir in two tablespoons of flour, one tablespoon of butter, and brown, to make roux. Add a small can of tomatoes and let simmer for five minutes; add twelve allspice, six cloves, one clove of garlic, two bay leaves, one tablespoon of chopped celery leaves, one tablespoon of minced parsley, one teaspoon thyme, salt and pepper to taste. Pour from saucepan into the hot water in which the crayfish were boiled. Add the meat and shells and a small can of mushrooms. Let simmer for about two hours, then mash and strain and thin with water to the consistency of thick cream.

Stuffing the heads: Chop an onion very fine and let brown, slightly, in a tablespoon of butter. Squeeze a cup of bread which has been soaked in water, or a cup of cooked rice, and add to the reserved crayfish meat, well seasoned with pepper and salt. Chop another onion and put in melted butter and fry for about 10 minutes; season with parsley and thyme. Take off fire and stuff the reserved heads with this. Put on each head a dot of butter and place in oven to bake for a few minutes.

Put stuffed heads in tureen and pour bisque over. Serve hot with buttered croutons in a separate dish.

Groundnut Soup

William Ed Grimé wanted the world to appreciate African expertise that existed before enslavement, so he assembled quotations from botanists and naturalists as objective testimony about the Old World foods that the enslaved brought with them and the native plants they employed in bondage. He published in 1979 the Ethno-Botany of the Black Americans, a book dedicated in memory of Quassi, a servant with “exceptional knowledge of the therapeutic value of plants.”

Peanuts were among them, to the point where slavers took advantage of Africans’ knowledge of them. Grimé offered these observations by H. Barham and J. Lunan, travelers to Jamaica in 1794 and 1814, respectively: “Some say, if eaten much, they cause the head-ache; but I never knew any such effect, even by those who chiefly lived upon them; for masters of ships often feed negroes with them all their voyage. They may be eaten raw, roasted, or boiled. The oil drawn from them by expression is as good as oil of almonds.”

Known commonly then as “American groundnut, earth-nuts, gub-a-gubs, peanut, pindals, and pindars,” these edible seeds are actually legumes—not nuts—and they are the foundation of a variety of soups, stews, breads, and sauces in Africa.

Reclaiming that expertise for his community, Dr. George Washington Carver offered five versions of peanut soup in his Bulletin No. 31, How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing It for Human Consumption, a 1925 collection of recipes, nutrition tips, and farm practices.

PEANUT SOUP

SERVES 6 TO 8

This luxurious soup, which makes a decadent first course, brings to mind one of Dr. George Washington Carver’s recipes for peanut soup. I adapted the recipe from a French Caribbean Creole soup created by Jeanne Louise Duzant “Ma” Chance for her 1985 recipe collection, Ma Chance’s French Caribbean Creole Cooking. I enriched it, doubling the peanut butter and substituting cream for milk.

While Dr. Carver, and the West African cooks before him, would have cooked raw peanuts, removed their skins, and mashed, ground, or pounded them until smooth, there is no need to do so in your kitchen. Natural peanut butter, without added sugar, is your friend.

4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter

½ cup minced onion

1 teaspoon minced garlic (about 1 clove)

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 cup natural peanut butter (unsweetened)

1 quart Chicken Stock (this page)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

Salt and black pepper

Hot pepper sauce (optional)

Crushed roasted peanuts, for garnish (optional)

1. In a medium saucepan, heat the butter over medium heat until it is sizzling. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until translucent but not browned, about 3 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and use a whisk to stir it together, about 30 seconds. Whisk in the peanut butter until softened and smooth.

2. Gradually whisk in the chicken stock and bring it to a very gentle simmer. Reduce the heat to low and cook it very gently for 20 minutes to thicken and marry the flavors, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

3. Stir in the cream and let it gently heat up to your desired serving temperature. Do not overheat, or the oil might separate. Season to taste with plenty of salt, black pepper, and hot pepper sauce (if using). Serve sprinkled with crushed peanuts as a garnish, if desired.

WEST AFRICAN GROUNDNUT STEW

SERVES 6

In 1985, the Africa News Service of Durham, North Carolina, tasked Tami Hultman with compiling a book of recipes to acknowledge the popular and nutritious peanut and other ingredients and culinary techniques that enslaved Africans had reimagined in the American South. The Africa News Cookbook: African Cooking for Western Kitchens showed off three varieties of chicken and groundnut stew, each made unique by the addition of local vegetables. This quintessential blend is strikingly similar to the Senegalese peanut stew called mafé (see this page).

1 (4-pound) chicken, cut into parts

2 cups chopped onion (about 2 medium)

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup diced carrots

2 teaspoons salt, or to taste

6 whole black peppercorns

1 bay leaf

½ cup natural peanut butter

4 cups undrained chopped canned tomatoes

½ teaspoon minced fresh ginger

½ teaspoon curry powder

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

¼ cup dry white wine (optional)

Freshly cooked rice, for serving

1. In a soup pot or Dutch oven, combine 1 quart water, the chicken, onion, garlic, carrots, salt, peppercorns, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, until the chicken is cooked through, about 45 minutes. Strain the broth and return the liquid to the pot. When cool enough to handle, separate the chicken meat from the skin and bones, bay leaf, and other solids. Discard the skin and bones. Dice the chicken and set aside.

2. In a small bowl, stir about ½ cup of the hot broth into the peanut butter and mix until smooth. Return the peanut butter mixture to the pot along with the tomatoes, ginger, curry powder, cayenne, pepper flakes, and the white wine, if desired. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer 20 minutes to allow the flavors to marry, skimming the fat with a spoon if necessary.

3. Return the chicken to the pot and heat through. Taste, adding salt to adjust the seasoning, and serve with rice.

Green Gumbo

Green gumbo, or gumbo z’herbes, is Louisiana’s translation of the tradition of stewed greens. It’s a mixture of seven or more greens, often with smoked meats and poultry, associated with Holy Thursday and considered the “Queen of all Gumbos.” I also saw strains of the dish in the old plantation habit of consuming the “treasured water” reserved from cooking greens, known as potlikker, with cornmeal dumplings. (Mary Mac’s Tea Room in Atlanta still expresses hospitality to first-time guests with a complimentary cup of potlikker and a side of cornbread, to be crumbled into the smoky broth.)

All of this can be traced to the West African way with greens and to West Indian callaloo. Throughout West Africa, women and children gathered “bush greens,” which were simmered with oil, peppers, and seasonings or added to soups. These broad-leafed spinach-like plants accompanied Africans to the West Indies, where the thick green leaves were bundled and sold in open markets as callaloo. Dried okra gave the soup body.

West Indian pepperpot simmers callaloo greens with an assortment of salted or fresh fish, meats, and vegetables in a gumbo-like stew that is served with a starch—sweet potatoes or yams, cornmeal or flour dumplings—Heidi Haughy Cusick wrote in Soul and Spice: African Cooking in the Americas. Many West Indian cooks have a pepperpot kettle bubbling on the stove daily, “with the end of the previous day’s pepperpot forming the beginning of the next day’s stew. Some pepperpots have been simmering for generations,” Cusick quipped.

GUMBO Z’HERBES

SERVES 10 TO 12

All kinds of techniques give this dish body: Leah Chase’s version calls for a mix of roux and pureed vegetables to thicken; Nathaniel Burton, coauthor of Creole Feast: Fifteen Master Chefs of New Orleans Reveal Their Secrets, thickens his green gumbo with a low, slow simmer, not a roux. This version leans Burton’s way, making it more like a dense stew, rather than a classic brown gumbo.

1 pound collard greens

3 pounds greens (such as mustard, collard, turnip greens, watercress, kale, chard, beet and carrot tops, spinach), washed, stemmed, and coarsely chopped

¼ head cabbage, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste

½ pound beef brisket or veal, cut into ¼-inch dice

¾ teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste

2 tablespoons bacon drippings or vegetable oil

½ pound smoked sausage, sliced into thick coins

½ pound ham, cut into ¼-inch dice

2 cups chopped onions

½ cup chopped green onions

1 cup chopped green bell pepper

1½ cups chopped celery

1 tablespoon minced chile pepper

1 tablespoon minced garlic (2 to 3 cloves)

1 teaspoon dried thyme

¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 bay leaves

1 quart Chicken Stock (this page)

2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves, minced

Freshly cooked rice, for serving

1. In a large Dutch oven or heavy soup pot, combine the collards and 4 cups water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and simmer until the collards are tender, about 30 minutes. Add the greens, cabbage, and 1 tablespoon salt to the pot. Return to a boil, then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cook, covered, until the greens are very tender. (Depending upon the greens you choose, this could be over an hour.) Drain the greens in a colander, reserving the cooking liquid (the “potlikker”). Coarsely chop the greens. Measure out 2 cups of the potlikker and set aside. (Save the remainder in the refrigerator for another use; it has a lot of natural flavor, sweetness, and nutrition.)

2. Season the brisket with ½ teaspoon of salt and ¼ teaspoon of black pepper.In a large skillet, heat the bacon fat over medium-high heat. Add the brisket, sausage, and ham and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, to render the fat and brown the meats. Stir in the onions, green onions, bell pepper, celery, chile pepper, and garlic and sauté until the vegetables are tender-crisp, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in the dried thyme, 1½ teaspoons salt, ½ teaspoon black pepper, and the cayenne and cook until fragrant, 2 to 3 minutes longer.

3. In the Dutch oven or soup pot, combine the cooked greens, the reserved 2 cups potlikker, and the browned meat and vegetables. Cook for 15 minutes to concentrate the flavors. Stir in the bay leaves and chicken stock. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook until the meats are tender, about 45 minutes. Remove and discard the bay leaves. After 30 minutes, taste and adjust the seasoning with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Stir in the parsley and fresh thyme. Serve over hot cooked rice.

PEPPERPOT

SERVES 6 TO 8

This recipe is a soup of tender-cooked greens made intensely hot, with Scotch bonnets as the eponymous pepper, and enriched with okra and a splash of coconut milk, which gives it an island character.

1 pound callaloo (see Note) or a mix of cooking greens, washed, stem ends trimmed

¼ pound salt pork or slab bacon, finely chopped (or 3 to 4 tablespoons oil)

1 cup chopped onion

½ cup chopped celery

1 Scotch bonnet pepper, minced

3 garlic cloves, minced

¼ teaspoon dried thyme

6 cups Chicken Stock (this page)

½ cup coconut milk

1 large sweet potato, peeled and cut into ½-inch dice

½ pound fresh okra, trimmed and cut into ½-inch slices

½ pound crabmeat, picked over

Salt and black pepper

Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

1. Coarsely chop the greens into 1-inch pieces and set aside.

2. In a Dutch oven or large soup pot, cook the pork over medium-low heat until browned and the fat is rendered, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the browned bits from the pan and drain on paper towels.

3. Stir the onion, celery, and chile pepper into the pot and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium-high heat until the vegetables are tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the garlic and thyme and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the chicken stock and reserved browned pork. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Stir in the chopped greens, coconut milk, and sweet potato. Return to a boil, then simmer until the greens and sweet potato are tender, about 15 minutes (it may be longer, depending upon the greens you use). Stir in the okra and cook for 10 minutes. Add the crab during the last 5 minutes of cooking time. Season to taste with a generous amount of salt and black pepper. Sprinkle with parsley to serve.

NOTE: Look for callaloo in African and Latin grocery stores, or substitute a mix of Swiss chard, kale, collard greens, and spinach.

Layered and Tossed Salads

Over time, black cookbooks have presented the pageantry of black salad-making through recipes that often identify aspects of culture (techniques rooted in diasporic or Southern cooking and local ingredients), and some cooks fused their salads with trendy elements. African and West Indian cooks mention fruit combinations most often when salad is the subject, perhaps explaining the spell cast by ambrosia, the fruit and coconut combination. Rural country cooks like Mildred Council, Dori Sanders, and Edna Lewis remembered salads of thinly sliced cucumber and onions marinated in vinegar and pickled farm-fresh vegetables dressed with vinegar to cool the heat of summertime. Caterers Cleora Butler and the bourgeois ladies of the Negro Culinary Arts Club of Los Angeles assembled “dainty delights” like tomato aspic made with Knox Sparkling Granulated Gelatine or cherries suspended in cola-laced Jell-O to flaunt their access to new or exotic ingredients. And there were the fibrous raw combinations that home economists including Freda DeKnight and Carrie Alberta Lyford adapted, salads from global cultures that promote good health, such as Middle Eastern tabbouleh, the French Salade Niçoise, and a dish simply entitled Mexican Salad. By the 1980s, these cooling mixtures reflected simplicity, balance, and good taste.

Mrs. Artaway Fillmore was famous for the “fine salads” she created for guests at the Hotel Lubbock in West Texas and as a Dallas caterer. Two elaborate creations in the Lone Star Cook Book and Meat Special: From the Slaughter Pen to the Dining Room (1929) reveal her layered salad–making supremacy: lettuce arranged with pineapple and tomato slices on top, and lettuce shreds topped with seasoned sweet potato mash and crowned with mashed russet potatoes that were piped on with a pastry bag—a study in exuberance.

BROCCOLI AND CAULIFLOWER SALAD WITH CURRIED DRESSING

SERVES 8 TO 10

This version of the layered salad elevates mayonnaise dressing with a taste of spice. It was enlivened by cooking school teacher Sarah Helen Mahammitt, who in 1939 sweetened mayonnaise and spiked it with curry powder. You can make the dressing the night before and assemble the salad later, but the salad should rest at least 8 hours before serving so the flavors can mingle. Curry—the mixture of ground and toasted spices such as turmeric, anise, coriander, cloves, cumin, and fenugreek—is most often associated with India, but cooks along trade and slavery routes invented variations of their own, marrying migrating aromatic seeds and berries with local ingredients throughout Africa and the Caribbean—especially in Trinidad, Guadeloupe, and Martinique.

8 slices bacon

1 cup mayonnaise

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

¼ to ½ teaspoon curry powder, to taste

Salt

4 cups broccoli florets, trimmed and cut into bite-size pieces

½ cup sliced celery

4 cups cauliflower florets, trimmed and cut into bite-size pieces

¾ cup raisins

¾ cup toasted slivered almonds

1. In a medium skillet, cook the bacon over medium-high heat until crisp, about 7 minutes. Drain on paper towels and crumble when cool enough to handle. Reserve the fat for another use.

2. In a small bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, sugar, vinegar, curry powder, and salt to taste.

3. In a serving bowl, layer the broccoli florets, celery, and cauliflower. Pour on all of the dressing. Add a layer of raisins, then almonds, then top with the bacon. Cover with a tight-fitting lid or plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 8 hours or overnight. Toss before serving.

COOKED SALAD DRESSING

A Date with a Dish, Freda DeKnight, 1948

2 eggs

1 tablespoon flour

2 tablespoons sugar

¼ teaspoon cayenne

¼ teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup vinegar

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon dry mustard

Mix together all dry ingredients. Add to slightly beaten eggs. Beat until smooth. Add milk and vinegar. Cook in double boiler 20 minutes. Yield: 1½ cups.

WILTED MIXED GREENS WITH BACON

SERVES 8 TO 10

The dish we’ve come to know as warm spinach salad—greens tossed with a hot bacon dressing—wasn’t really a salad at all, to hear the black cookbook authors tell it through the years. Survey the vegetables section of soul food and early twentieth-century black cookbooks and look for this uberpopular combination with titles like “wilted” or “killed” lettuce or spinach, or you might miss it.

Back in the day, farm folks tossed combinations of bitter greens and herbs, such as escarole, chicory, purslane, and watercress, with a warm dressing they stirred together right in a hot skillet after cooking bacon. In harder times, wild weeds like dandelion and poke, as in “poke sallet,” answered the call. Soul cooks carried on the tradition of wilting lettuce leaves instead of spinach. Harmony McCoy, resident chef at Murietta Hot Springs Resort in California, tried to slim down the dish for waistline watchers by topping watercress with a dusting of crumbled bacon and bottled low-cal dressing.

I returned to the wilted lettuce tradition here with so-called power greens. These greens are dark and rich in vitamins and minerals and taste delicious. Try it my way, then experiment with your favorite combination of tender baby greens and herbs.

2 pounds mixed tender greens (spinach, arugula, chard, baby kale, watercress)

4 radishes, thinly sliced

½ cup thinly sliced red onion

2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced

1 cup grape tomatoes, cut into halves

8 slices bacon

⅔ cup cider vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons salt

¼ teaspoon black pepper

⅓ cup crumbled blue cheese (optional)

1. In a large salad bowl, toss together the greens, radishes, onion, eggs, and tomatoes.

2. In a large skillet, cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp, about 7 minutes. Leaving the rendered bacon fat in the skillet, remove the bacon to drain on paper towels and crumble when cool enough to handle.

3. Heat the bacon fat in the skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper. Swirl the pan over the heat for 1 to 2 minutes to concentrate the flavors and slightly thicken the dressing. Pour the hot dressing over the greens and toss quickly to coat. Sprinkle the greens with the crumbled bacon and blue cheese (if using).

OKRA SALAD

SERVES 4 TO 6

Salada de quiabo is a Brazilian salad that is a classic example of a migrating African ingredient adapting to its new home and making its way onto everyday and fancy menus.

In the early twentieth century, several authors, including Mrs. W. T. Hayes and Carrie Pauline Lynch, carried on the Afro-Brazilian custom; both layered boiled okra with lettuce, onion, and a hot pepper with tomatoes, grated horseradish, and a vinaigrette. In modern times, Afro-Vegan chef Bryant Terry keeps the diasporic tradition alive, grilling the okra and finishing with corn kernels and fresh basil.

My interpretation piggybacks on all of these. A tangy lemon dressing is tossed with quintessential salad bowl ingredients. Fried okra is perched on top, a recipe that comes by way of Maum Chrish’—a fictitious Gullah cook patterned after a real Charleston woman who shared her recipes in Virginia Mixson Geraty’s 1992 cookbook, Bittle en’ T’ing’: Gullah Cooking with Maum Chrish’.

Peanut oil, for shallow-frying

1 cup cornmeal

¼ cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon black pepper

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 pound fresh okra, trimmed and cut into ½-inch slices

2 cups buttermilk

1 head Bibb lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces

1 cup chopped tomato

¾ cup minced red onion

¾ cup minced green bell pepper

Lemon Dressing (recipe follows)

3 slices bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled

1. Pour 1 inch oil into a deep heavy skillet and heat to 375°F over medium-high heat.

2. In a shallow dish, combine the cornmeal, flour, salt, garlic powder, black pepper, and cayenne. In a separate bowl, carefully toss the okra with the buttermilk. Use a slotted spoon to remove the okra from the buttermilk, allowing the excess milk to drain. Dredge the okra in the cornmeal mixture. Carefully spoon the dry ingredients over the okra to coat thoroughly.

3. Working in batches, lift the okra from the cornmeal with a slotted spoon, shaking to remove excess, and add to the hot oil. Cook 1½ to 2 minutes, then turn and cook on the other side until browned, about 1 minute more. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the okra to paper towels to drain.

4. In a large salad bowl, combine the lettuce, tomato, onion, bell pepper, and lemon dressing, to taste. Toss to mix well. Spoon the okra on top of the salad. Garnish with the crumbled bacon.

LEMON DRESSING

MAKES ABOUT 1 CUP

½ cup fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon minced shallots

1 teaspoon honey

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and black pepper

In a small bowl, combine the lemon juice, mustard, shallots, and honey. Gradually whisk in the oil in a slow steady stream, whisking constantly until the mixture is thick and emulsified. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir before using.

FRIED OKRA

Bittle en’ T’ing’: Gullah Cooking with Maum Chrish’, Virginia Mixson Geraty, 1992

According to the legend, Maum Chrish’ was the granddaughter of slaves and learned to cook from her mother. She believed fried okra was “Buckruh ok’ry (white people’s okra),” because Gullah-Geechee people prefer the vegetable stewed and viscous, served with rice, hominy, or cornbread. Here is her fried okra recipe in the Gullah language, followed by the translation.

Count de buckruh, en’ cut one han’ fuh eb’ry head. Wash de ok’ry en’ cut’um een leetle slice.

Mekace en’ dus’um wid flowuh so dem ent hab chance fuh leak tummuch. Seaz’n’um wid salt en’peppuh en’mekace en’fry’um een berry hot greese. Tek’ um out de greese soon ez’e tu’n brong. Tek cya’ ’e yent bu’n.

Mis’ Ginia lub ’e ok’ry stan’so. Uh tell’um ok’ry ent mek fuh chew.

Translation:

Count the number of people who will be eating and cut a handful of okra for each one. Wash the okra pods and cut them into slices.

Quickly dust them with flour, or the flavorful juices will be lost. Season with salt and pepper, and fry the slices in very hot cooking oil until they are browned. Be careful or they will burn.

Miss Ginia likes okra cooked this way. I told her okra is not supposed to be chewed.

LAYERED GARDEN SALAD WITH GARLIC AND HERB DRESSING

SERVES 6

Restaurateur and author Mildred “Mama Dip” Council adapted the classic seven-layer salad with her own mix of shredded fresh spinach and lettuce, chopped celery, green onions, green peas, ham, and hard-boiled eggs, spread with a buttermilk–sour cream dressing, and topped with cheese. Assembling the salad ahead was a timesaver and made it easy to transport to summer barbecues and picnics. This colorful eight-layer salad modifies that dish. My thick and creamy garlic and herb dressing is a wonderful stand-in for the boiled dressing that once saturated garden salad, or for bottled ranch dressing.

1 cup sliced cucumber

1 large tomato, cut into eighths

5 radishes, sliced

¼ cup sliced red onion

1 celery stalk, sliced

¼ cup shredded carrots

1 hard-boiled egg, sliced

1 cup sweet green peas, blanched and chilled

8 cups mixed chopped greens (such as romaine lettuce, endive, leaf lettuce, and watercress)

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley

Garlic and Herb Dressing (recipe follows)

In a salad bowl, layer the cucumber, tomatoes, radishes, red onion, celery, carrots, egg slices, peas, greens, and parsley. Top with the garlic and herb dressing. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve. Toss before serving.

GARLIC AND HERB DRESSING

MAKES ¾ CUP

This dressing is light and refreshing on crisp lettuces and assorted veggies, but it also makes a fine dip for parties. It will remind you of bottled ranch dressing, only better.

¼ cup mayonnaise

¼ cup sour cream

3 tablespoons buttermilk

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon tarragon vinegar

1 tablespoon chopped fresh chives

1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

1½ teaspoons minced fresh dill

¼ teaspoon minced garlic

⅛ teaspoon onion salt

¼ teaspoon celery salt

¼ teaspoon salt

⅛ teaspoon garlic salt

Pinch of black pepper

In a small bowl or jar with a tight-fitting lid, whisk or shake together the mayonnaise, sour cream, buttermilk, lemon juice, vinegar, chives, parsley, dill, garlic, onion salt, celery salt, salt, garlic salt, and pepper. Store in the refrigerator tightly covered. Shake well before using.

NOTE: To serve as a dip, add equal amounts of mayonnaise and sour cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, until it reaches your desired thickness.

Potato Salad

The August Quarterly, also known as the Big Quarterly, is an African American freedom festival held annually in Delaware since the early 1800s to celebrate unity, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and the right of assembly. The event provided an opportunity for enslaved and free peoples of African descent from neighboring states to gather quarterly for worship, socializing, and sharing cultural traditions. Festival-goers danced, told stories, and shared African music, good humor, and home-style cooking, according to a story in America Eats!, the Works Progress Administration’s unpublished manuscript of regional food profiles.

Potato salad was right there at the top of the menu; it is one of those standard-issue picnic dishes that seems to be everyone’s favorite. Yes, there are myriad recipes that claim to wear the mantle of “best potato salad EVER.” And, yes, it is possible to be a fan of mustard-based, mayonnaise-based, or some combination of both all at the same time.

If you want to stay close to the classic preparation, Maya Angelou’s garnish of extra egg slices around the edge of the bowl will take you straight back to summer family reunions and holiday gatherings like the Quarterly. You can peel and cut the potatoes before cooking, but if you leave them whole they will retain more of their flavor.

Potato salad also gets more “dope” the more you experiment. You can show off your cultural flair with aromatic African spices, go uptown with a little Creole lagniappe—Creole mustard and spicy seasoning—or feed the soul with the addition of cooked shrimp, as Sallie Ann Robinson does with her Sea Islands Sunday dinner favorite—“Tada” Salad, in Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way.

West African yam salad is one of my newest discoveries, a colorful and chic variation of a Nigerian standby. Simply toss together honey vinaigrette, thinly sliced sweet onion, colorful bell peppers, and cooked, diced yams or sweet potatoes, and chill overnight in the refrigerator to let the flavors develop. Or, for a stateside side dish that pairs well with pork, give my interpretation of B. Smith’s sweet potato salad a try.

COUNTRY-STYLE POTATO SALAD

SERVES 10 TO 12

There was a time when russet potatoes were standard issue for potato salad. Not today. Creative cooks like former Top Chef contender Tanya Holland have upgraded the picnic staple. The owner of Oakland’s once very popular restaurant, Brown Sugar Kitchen, Holland tossed fingerling potatoes with a red wine vinaigrette, herbs, and watercress in her restaurant’s eponymous cookbook. You might also up your potato salad game with waxy red or Yukon Gold potatoes, but any potatoes will be delicious in this classic mayo-and-mustard–based recipe.

5 cups peeled and cut-up potatoes, in 1-inch cubes (about 2 pounds)

Salt

½ cup diced celery

½ cup sliced green onions

4 hard-boiled eggs, coarsely chopped

3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish

2 tablespoons yellow, Creole, or Dijon mustard

¾ cup mayonnaise

½ teaspoon black pepper

Paprika, for finishing

1. In a large saucepan, combine the potatoes with salted water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and simmer until fork-tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Drain and cool.

2. In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, celery, green onions, eggs, and relish. In a small bowl, stir together mustard, mayonnaise, pepper, and salt to taste. Gently fold this into the potato mixture, until well mixed. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight to allow flavors to marry.

3. Sprinkle the potato salad with paprika before serving.

SWEET POTATO SALAD WITH ORANGE-MAPLE DRESSING

SERVES 6

I met Patrick Clark in 1990 when he was an up-and-coming chef at Los Angeles’s Bice restaurant and I was the nutrition writer for the Times. One of the country’s brightest culinary stars, let alone one of black America’s culinary lights, he passed away suddenly while we were working on a cookbook proposal, translating his restaurant specialties for home kitchens. To honor his memory, Chicago’s renowned chef Charlie Trotter assembled several of Clark’s recipes and others from the industry’s top chefs in a fundraising collection, Cooking with Patrick Clark. Grilled sweet potato salad with chile and ginger vinaigrette was among them.

The dish is a popular alternative to classic potato salad with a connection to the tropics. Several black authors have put their own spin on it, including Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, and the Food Network’s Pat and Gina Neely. But I offer this take on the dish from B. Smith Cooks Southern-Style as a tribute to the cookbook author, restaurateur, entrepreneur, and model Barbara Smith.

3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into ¾-inch cubes

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons maple syrup

¼ cup orange juice

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

¼ teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg

¼ teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

½ cup chopped green onions

½ cup chopped fresh parsley

¼ cup coarsely chopped toasted pecans

¼ cup golden raisins

¼ cup black raisins

Black pepper

1. In a large pot, combine the sweet potatoes and enough lightly salted water to cover. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and cook until just tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and allow the potatoes to cool to room temperature. (Alternatively, simmer the potatoes whole for 15 minutes, cool, peel, and slice ¾ inch thick, brush with vegetable oil, and grill over moderately hot coals until just cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes per side.) Cut the potatoes into ¾-inch cubes and transfer to a large bowl.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, maple syrup, orange juice, vinegar, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.

3. Add the onions, parsley, pecans, and raisins to the bowl of sweet potatoes and toss together. Gently stir in the dressing, tossing just until combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Refrigerate until ready to serve.