If good food and the recipes that conspire herbs and veggies and proteins (that's chef talk for meat) goes unwritten or locked in the confines of our elders' minds, does that mean they will potentially fade from the tables and bellies of the future whom they were meant to nourish?
Chef Jeff is making sure as the generations evolve the nourishing flavor that has fed us for centuries does not perish along with it. America I Am, his newest culinary/literary gift, collects the soul of America in the guise of food and preserves it as the new recipe collection released under the Henderson Group. Chef Jeff, also of Food Network fame, includes 130 recipes of the southern soul food canon, from gumbo of the Gulf region, to pound cakes and the devilish red velvet cake.
Nicole Taylor, former Atlanta native turned New York transplant, is featured in the community recipe book. The self proclaimed Food Culturist, who is "humbled" by the recipe's inclusion, contributed the opening recipe: My Backyard Pecans with Rosemary, a delight that sounds mouth popping and airily refreshing.
Manifesting recipes that largely go undocumented in the African American community is an indelible task. The generation born, like my grandparents, in proximity to the stock market crash, the Great Depression and an inevitable second World war had much more to consider rather than assigning a secretary and record keeper of colored peoples recipes. They, instead, collected in their minds. Measurements are measurable only by sight and timers are unnecessary- color dictates completion.
These elders passed on quite an archive, one derived from and congealed with African traditions. Jessica Harris picks up where Chef Jeff leaves off with her collection High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America. Harris takes the American food we love, traces its origin to the continent, through language, tribal origin, and history, then serves up a connection and flavor that is visceral and undeniable. For example, the okra, adored in all it's slimy, white seeded glory in the hodge podge of gumbo, hails from the Igbo of Nigeria, but is a delicacy known most famously in N'awlins.
For the home cook who has grandmothers like mine, no handwritten recipes or measuring cups in sight, these collections make for good supplement for the belly and the soul.
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