This Juneteenth, consider including some new-to-you foods that honor our country’s African American heritage. If you find that doing this is remarkably easy and delicious, don’t be too surprised.
In the founding days of our nation it was usually Black Americans, typically enslaved people, feeding not only most of the founding fathers but also the field hands and the entire household. The foods that came out of their kitchens were a unique blend of African vegetables and spices, ingredients available in colonial America and the preferences of the diners. While American food includes a dizzying array of influences from our diverse immigrant population, there is no doubt that the work and creativity of Black Americans in our nation’s kitchens still resonates through menus today.
Vibrant, nourishing, resourceful, rich – these are some of the words I would use to describe the foods developed by the first African Americans and their descendants. “Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine,” by Kelley Fanto Deetz is a rigorously researched account of the role enslaved people played in early American kitchens. “The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks,” by Toni Tipton-Martin, follows the often overshadowed or forgotten history of African American cooking beginning with an 1827 house servant’s manual, through to modern classics.
When you’re ready to start cooking, “Watermelon and Red Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteenth and Black Celebrations” by Nicole Taylor, is a natural place to start. It’s a little too late to start a batch of homemade ginger beer in time for Juneteenth, but you can get some store bought ginger beer and use that in the watermelon ginger beer recipe. Or maybe you prefer to make your own rhubarb barbecue sauce. Taylor includes an introduction to basic techniques, ingredients and kitchen supplies in addition to the many recipes for creative and enticing food and drink that combine classic and modern elements of African American cooking.
If you’re more interested in barbecue than anything else “Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue,” by Adrian Miller, might be the cookbook for you. Miller explores the influence of Black culture in barbecue and shares 22 recipes.
Or if you’d like some health food-focused or vegetarian options, take a look at “Soul Food Love: Healthy Recipes Inspired by 100 Years of Cooking in a Black Family,” by the mother-daughter team of Alice and Caroline Randall, combines a family heritage of cooking with a mind toward healthier outcomes “to help everyone live longer.” Or check out “Instant Pot Vegan Soul Food Cookbook” by Ashlee Lewis to learn about the faster, healthier way to include vegan options in your celebrations.
African American recipes and cooking styles cover a vast array, probably much more diverse than you realize. Chef and author, Toni Tipton-Martin has collected a sampling of recipes from the African American Diaspora. “Jubilee: Recipes From Two Centuries of African American Cooking,” combines recipes from antique books, celebrity chefs and African American elders with snippets of anecdotes and little bits of history and background.
These books just begin to scratch the surface of African American cooking. There are so many more books steeped in culture and history, such as, “Meals, Music and Muses,” or “An African American Cookbook: Remembering the Underground Railroad.”
If you want to delve deeper, you can find a more extensive list of African American Cookbooks here.
