Culinary Historians of Chicago

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The Grit in Grits and Greens The Grits and Greens II Conference was another massive
undertaking for an organization composed of volunteers:
love of food has not lost its (voluntary) laborers. Bouquets
to everyone who devoted so much time and energy to the
cause. I have just one addition to the idea of Soul Food. Years
ago I was talking with the proprietor of Alices Restaurant on
the West Side. The dishes came from western and southern
Mississippi, south of Memphis and into neighboring
Arkansas. They seemed to me, after having read several of the Southern Living cookbooks, to be generally Southern. I asked
what the difference between Soul (or Black, as Alice said)
and White cookery might be. She smiled broadly, looked me
straight in the eye and said, You know what the difference
between us is? Ours has Soul in it! On the Early History of the CHC
The Culinary Historians of Chicago organization grew out
of casual conversation between Gloria Billick (our first sec-
retary without whose labors the CHC would not exist) and
me in the spring of 1993. A mature graduate student, she
was the first to begin work in culinary history at Roosevelt
University. A long-time member of the Culinary Historians
of Boston, one day she brought copies of that organizations
newsletter to my office at the university. Poring over these
excellent publications, we wondered why no such group had
been formed in Chicago. After recruiting a group of like-
minded people (Linda Calafiore, Carol Haddix and Joan
Reardon among others, with apologies to those original
members omitted here) we did just that. Our intention was
to have a broadly based membership that would include
working academicians, writers, chefs, and anyone else inter-
ested in the history of food and foodways. Discussions rising
from a diverse group, we thought, would be intellectually
stimulating in the same way that sampling diverse cuisines
would be stimulating in other ways. The Culinary Historians of Chicago held its first major event in the autumn of 1994. Louis Szathmary expressed
interest in the organization from the first he heard of it and
agreed to be our first speaker. Speaking to an audience of
more than 120, Chef Louis sketched the history of dining in
Chicago, illustrated with wonderful slides of old restaurants.
The lecture ended with exhortation: no one had ever studied
the history of dining in Chicago, nor in another other city
that he knew...and he knew many. With the citys rich
heritage slipping out of memory, he said, the Culinary Historians should begin this important a work. Expanded
to mean social and cultural history of food, this has become
our organizations main research goal. Not that we have concentrated solely on Chicago, or lacked grand plans. In the fall of 1993, Joan Reardon gave
a memorable, intimate talk on her experiences in Bordeaux
accompanied by a wonderful dinner put on by Chef Michael
Carmel and his students at Kendall Colleges culinary school.
On the grand scale, in May 1994, we and the Chicago
Historical Society sponsored a major symposium devoted to
the foods of the Columbian Exposition. Jan Longone of the
Wine and Food Library came from Ann Arbor, and Frank
Cassel, an eminent historian of the great Chicago event,
joined her as the main speakers. It was a thought-provoking
session capped by Eve Jochnowitz, from the New York
Culinary Historians, who gave a delightful survey of the
New York World's Fair of 1939. Thoughtful programs have been a feature of CHC. From meetings in ethnic restaurants to discussions of ethnic food-
ways, all have been tasty morsels of food for thought. And
many have been valuable contributions to further research.
Two, among many, come to mind. Long-time member and
eminent anthropologist, Susan Tax Freeman, delivered a
model lecture on the history of Spanish cuisine and food-
ways that was quoted in a recent book on Hispanic food.
More recently, her husband and no less notable a scholar, Les
Freeman, gave an enthralling talk on the foods of the Upper
Paleolithic era in Europe and how we know about them. Over the years of our existence, the CHC has been graced with many such programs (again, apologies for those
I have neglected to mention). With new officers and a fully
functioning program committee, we are certain to have a
vital program schedule for the remainder of this and the
upcoming new year. Bruce Kraig, September 2001, Chicago I C I C Culinary Historians of Chicago FA L L 2 0 0 1 Bruce Kraig, PhD, President Don Newcomb, Vice President Scott Warner, Program Chairman Susan Ridgeway, Treasurer Cecile Magulies, Secretary Catherine Lambrecht, Web Secretary Nancy Ryan, Newsletter Barbara Olson and Dawn McGlone, Catering I C I C PRESIDENTS LETTER GRITS AND GREENS II: The Culinary Legacy of African-American Women On June 23 and 24, 2001, when the Culinary Historians of
Chicago presented its second annual conference on African-
American food, Grits and Greens II, this year's focus celebrated
the contributions of African-American women to American
culinary traditions. Tracing the history and documenting their
legacy was a trio of food historians, a panel of leading journal-
ists, four outstanding chefs who presented cooking demonstra-
tions, a food festival showcasing traditional and contemporary
African-American foods, and tours of cultural and culinary
landmarks in Chicago's south and west side neighborhoods. CONFERENCE SCHEDULE Saturday, June 23 - Harold Washington College Charla Draper, Moderator The Culinary Legacy of African-American Women Speakers: John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance Howard Paige, author of Aspects of African-American Foodways Anne L. Bower, assoc. Prof. of English, Ohio State University Soul Food and the Media- Panelists Donna Hodge, food editor of N'Digo magapaper Charlotte Lyons, food editor of Ebony magazine Donna Pierce, food editor of Upscale magazine DeNita Morris, food writer for BET online Illinois Institute of Art Culinary School Chef Demonstrations: Joe Randall, Chef Joe Randall's Cooking School, Savannah, Ga.: Low Country Cooking Kocoa Scott-Winbush, Kocoa's Kitchen, Inc., Chicago: Fusion Soul Food Cliff Rome, Executive Chef, Cannes Film Festival, CEO, Rome Development, Chicago: Mississippi Delta Cooking Karen Jackson, Opus 7, Ltd., Chicago: Caribbean-Asian Soul Food Festival - Roosevelt University Food Stations with Chicago's leading soul food restaurants and culinary schools Music by Blues great Diamond Jim Greene
Cookbook signings, raffles and door prizes Sunday, June 24 South Side Tour and Lunch West Side Tour and Lunch Conference Committee: Co-Chair Charla Draper, president, It's Food Biz! Chicago
Co-Chair Wilbert Jones, president, Healthy Concepts, Inc. Bruce Kraig, PhD., president, CHC, Professor Emeritus of History, Roosevelt University, Chicago Conference Treasurer Susan Ridgeway, treasurer, CHC Conference Publicity Chair Elizabeth Richter, executive producer of PBS series Hidden Journeys Silver Sponsors: Betty Crocker; Dairy Council of Wisconsin Bronze Sponsors: Shell; Illinois Humanities Council HOWARD PAIGE: A GLIMPSE OF THE 17th TO 19th-CENTURY WEST AFRICAN KITCHEN The first speaker, Howard Paige, is a researcher, historian
and writer of African-American food and food ways. His
book, Aspects of African-American Foodways is recognized
as a pioneering work in the field. He is on the advisory
board for the Anacostia Museum of the Smithsonian
Institution and the Greenfield Village Museum in Mich-
igan. Highlights of his talk follow. Mr. Paige opened his
talk with an acknowledgment of the limits and restric-
tions imposed on his subject by time. Doing justice to
The Culinary Legacy of African-American Women in
30 minutes was a tall order. My presentation could travel
back to East Africa, along the regions of the Olduvai
Gorge, where noted anthropologists of today determined
mans earliest beginning; and where he evidently took
his first meal; and where most likely an African woman
prepared it. Mr. Paige said, noting that by 6,000 B.C., black people in Africa were living in urban, farming communities, had
developed the cotton and oil producing plants, and had
introduced it to the Egyptians and ultimately to the
world. And, he said, It makes more sense...to revisit a
more relevant time in history, which is the 17th-19th cen-
tury in West Africa, the time and place from which most
present day African-American forbears originated. Mr. Paige described the division of labor among men and women in 17th-century West Africa: The preparation
of family meals was the primary chore of the female,
whose foods came from her own garden or the collective
farming of her community. Her larder was well stocked.
Staple crops included yams, millet, rice, cassava, or guinea
corn (sorghum), pigeon peas, kidney beans, black-eyed
peas, peanut (groundnuts), sesame seeds, pumpkin,
squash, eggplants (guinea squash), onions, maize (Indian-
corn), tomatoes, okra, hot peppers (Malagueta, pimento,
and pili-pili), akee, spinach, cabbage, sweet potatoes and
more. In addition to vegetables, her ingredients included
fruits, nuts, spices, dairy products, fish and game. To
make the tough meat of large animals suitable for chew-
ing, she tenderized it by wrapping it in leaves of the
papaya. After the tenderizing process, the meat was roast-
ed over open pits, and served with a non-tomato-based
sauce made of lime or lemon juice and hot peppers, the
forerunner of barbecue... Hot peppers were considered
a measure of affection: The more copiously she used hot
peppers in her sauces, the more love she was thought to
have for her family, especially for her husband. If, indeed,
his food was bland, her love for her husband was not
so hot! commented Mr. Paige. The West African cook was both imaginative and fru- gal, he said, describing how she used all the edible parts
of the vegetables, including the greens, and cooked those
greens in much the same way as they are cooked today --
seasoned well and allowed to simmer slowly until they 2 were soft and pleasing to the palate. Mr. Paige described a wide variety of preparation methods used by the West African cook to create sweet
and savory dishes, and the utensils she used: iron pots,
earthen vessels that resembled double boilers, long-han-
dled spoons, grating stones, mortars and pestles, and
more. A portrait of the West African housewife emerges: a skilled, creative and frugal cook. Which explains why her
forced labor was in such high demand in the kitchen of a
degenerative and brutal system: for it was her task in the
new world to perform her wonders in its kitchens and to
feed the people in the great country that America was to
become, concluded Mr. Paige. JOHN T. EDGE: THE WELCOME TABLE John T. Edge is the director of the Southern Foodways
Alliance at the University of Mississippis Center for the
Study of Southern Culture, where he runs an annual con-
ference on Southern foods. His articles have appeared in
Sauveur, Gourmet and the Oxford American magazines.
Among his five books are Southern Belly, the Ultimate
Food Lovers Companion to the South, and People and
Places, soon to be published. Excerpts follow. Mr. Edge insists that a Chicago restaurateur -- Chef Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo -- played
an inspirational role in his career. About a month into
my life in Oxford (I was a corporate swine for ten years in
Atlanta before moving to Oxford, Mississippi, in 1995), I
came across an article in USA Today about Rick Bayless.
The article described Bayless annual trips to Mexico with
his staff, spending weeks eating, studying and talking and
reading about regional native cuisine. A light bulb went
on in my head even before I read the articles closing
quote from Bayless wherein he described his touring
and tasting as a form of culinary anthropology. I began
to think about the South in those same terms. I began
to explore the idea that I could come to a better under-
standing of the South by taking a closer look at its food
habits, its foodways. He says, Simply put, I have come to
the conclusion that the food culture of the South is worth
deep and thoughtful consideration. And I have come to
the realization that much of what interests me, and much
of what Ive found to be most compelling, has to do with
food and race. Mr. Edges scrutiny of the foodways of the South has lead him down many roads less traveled -- and into some
irreverent and inspiring byways, one of which was the
Club From Nowhere. On a recent week long ramble about Montgomery [Alabama], I came upon an historical market like no
other I had seen before. Located just south of the capitol
on Dericot Street, in a working class neighborhood of tidy
brick and frame bungalows, it stands in honor of one of
the unsung heroines of the Civil Rights Movement, one of those people Martin Luther King Jr., called a member
of the ground crew. It reads: Georgia Gilmore February 5, 1920 - March 3, 1990. Georgia Gilmore, cited as a solid, energetic boycott participant and supporter, lived in this house during the
days of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Once arrested on
a bus, Gilmore was ardent in her efforts to raise funds for
the movement and organized the Club From Nowhere
whose members baked pies and cakes for sale to both
black and white customers. Opening her home to all, she
tirelessly cooked meals for participants including such
leaders as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Dr. Ralph David
Abernathy. Her culinary skills contributed to the cause of
justice as she actively worked to encourage civil rights for
the remainder of her life. But in talking to Georgia Gilmores family, friends and colleagues, Mr. Edge was to discover that the marker really
didnt give a clue to her life or work. Georgia Gilmore was
a mountain of a woman, nearly 250 pounds of girth,
grit and sass, who took no junk from anybody, no matter
who. Said Reverend Thomas E. Jordan, pastor of Lilly
Baptist Church in Montgomery, Even the white police
officers let her be. She wasnt a mean person, but like it
was with many black people, there was this perception
that she might be dangerous. The word was, Dont mess
with Georgia Gilmore, she might cut you. But Lord that
woman could cook. Said Edge, Reverend Al Dixon, a longtime customer of what would become her home-based catering service,
told me that when he came walking in the front door,
she would call from the kitchen...I got a big ole bowl of
buttermilk and some cornbread for you to crumble into
it, just like you want. Now sit down and eat, you old
heifer! Martin Luther King Jr. got much the same treat-
ment when he came calling...she was an equal oppor-
tunity name caller. Georgia Gilmores life, as described by Mr. Edge, was hard, but her character was mighty, tenacious and tough.
To raise money for the Montgomery boycotts organizing
body, headed by a young Martin Luther King, Jr., she
organized a group that sold cakes and pies all over town --
to beauty parlors and laundries, and cab stands and
doctors offices. She called it the Club From Nowhere, so
those people who were afraid of losing their job could still
work for the movement, he said. Georgia did more than
cook and sell food, she testified in court as a defense wit-
ness for King and other members of the MIA when the
city of Montgomery brought suit against them claiming
the boycott to be an unlawful conspiracy. When newspa-
pers and magazines -- including Life -- around the coun-
try reported her appearance on the witness stand, she
was fired from her job (cooking at a local cafeteria).
So Gilmore, funded in part by Dr. King, set up her own
restaurant and catering company in her home. After the 3 boycott ended successfully, Georgia Gilmores home
became a kind of unofficial executive dining room for the
Civil Rights Movement, where Martin Luther King Jr.,
Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert Kennedy broke bread. According to Georgias sister, Betty, Georgia died on Friday on the 25th anniversary of the march. She had
been cooking food that day, and at the visitation after her
funeral, the fried chicken and potato salad she had already
fixed for the marchers was served. ANNE L. BOWER: NO GRITS, SOME GREENS AND HISTORY IN BETWEEN Anne L. Bower is associate professor of English at Ohio
State University-Marion where she teaches American
literature and composition. She is the concept editor
of the newly republished The Historical Cookbook of the
American Negro (Beacon Press, 2000). Her earlier Recipe
for Reading: Community Cookbooks, Stories, Histories
(University of Massachusetts Press, 1977), deals with
how community cookbooks communicate the values of
a region, a religious organization, a philanthropy, or an
ethnicity. She earned her B.A. at Columbia University; her
M.A. and Ph.D. are from West Virginia University. Ms.
Bower spoke extemporaneously and in lieu of a prepared
text distributed photocopies of some of the cookbooks
pages to illustrate her points. The book, The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro, has a unique place in history as the first fund-
raising cookbook produced by the National Council of
Negro Women. Even its title is a reminder of the days
in 1936 when the National Council of Negro Women
(NCNW) was founded by Mary McLeod Bethune, writes
Dorothy I. Height in the foreword to the reprint edition.
Ms. Height is Chair and President Emeritus of the
NCNW. From her vantage point, as Advisor on Minority
Affairs to President Franklin Roosevelt, Mrs. Bethune
understood the meaning of collective power. To help
build a council of national organizations driven by a
sense of unity and purpose, she drew unto herself women
of substance from all walks of life. One of the women in Ms. Bethunes circle was Sue Bailey Thurman, who proposed developing the cookbook
in 1958, which she called a palatable approach to history
as a means of stimulating awareness and appreciation of
our history. Through the efforts of Anne L. Bower, the book has just been reprinted. Ms. Bower first encountered the book at
Radcliffes Schlesinger Library in 1992 and ...it was most
evident to me, as soon as I opened up The Historical
Cookbook, that here was something extraordinary.
Packed with important social and cultural information,
advocating philosophies of civil rights for all and world
peace, arranged according to the calendar year, and
featuring and intriguing mix of African-American and
normative 1950s dishes, this book seemed very special, she writes in her introduction to the reprint edition. Ms. Bower points out that the amazing amount of history sandwiched between the recipes of the book
was in response to a special need in the 1950s to make
African-Americans aware of their own history. A strong
oral tradition and viable church communities encouraged
a certain level of this transmission, writes Bower, ...but
it was clear to African-American educators in the earlier
part of the twentieth century that this knowledge was
fragmented and incomplete. Bower describes the history that Thurman and her collaborators put together for The Historical Cookbook
was a mix of familiar information and historical material
that was not widely known. For example, while the cook-
book includes information about world-famous figures
such as Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver
and Sojourner Truth, it also tells about Elijah Lovejoy
who died in 1837 defending the Alston, Illinois, Observer,
an abolitionist paper, and Susan Elizabeth Frazier, the first
African-American to teach in New York Citys integrated
schools. As for the recipes, Bower says the book draws on African roots without drawing attention to the national
origin of recipes and foods, and it takes a fairly eclectic
approach to the culinary arts. Getting The Historical Cookbook reprinted was a major effort. The original plates were lost and the facsimi-
le edition was reprinted using a printed edition with
diminished quality in the visual materials. However, she
writes, Despite the difficulties of bringing The Historical
Cookbook of the American Negro back into print and the
experimentations youll undergo in perfecting some of the
recipes..., this extraordinary cookbook remains a unique
compendium of recipes, history and social philosophy....
Clearly Sue Bailey Thurman and the NCNW Cookbook
Committee believed that we, the cookbook readers, would
be nourished by history as much as by food. Reading this
book and trying its recipes, we can celebrate the heroines
and heroes of the past, well known or obscure, and we can
honor the new sense of history the books authors helped
to create. And, of course, we can then enjoy the commun-
ion-like act of sharing food and all it symbolizes. SOUL FOOD AND THE MEDIA During the morning session, a panel of distinguished
journalists explored the question: How can the media
impact the survival of soul food cooking? Panelists
were Donna Hodge, food editor of NDigo magapaper;
Charlotte Lyons, food editor of Ebony magazine, Donna
Pierce, food editor of Upscale magazine and DeNita
Morris, food writer for BET online. Ms. Morris said, Its hard to sell traditional soul food recipes to 18- to 35-year-olds with no time to cook, and
she asked why there were not more soul food channel
stations and more cookbooks. 4 Ms. Pierce discussed the evolution of consciousness surrounding soul food, and distributed A Sampling of
Images in Cookbooks and Magazines, showing the
stereotypical, often denigrating, images and names (Uncle
Remus Mint Julep, Pickininny Cookies, Massas Cheese
Croquettes, Mammys Chicken patties, Aunt Jemimas
Lemon Pie) given soul food in plantation style and
Southern cookbooks. Such stereotypes played a major
role in African-Americans lack of pride in their foodways
during the first half of the 20th century. And, she asked
the question: What is the difference between soul food
and Southern food? Soul food shouldnt lose its identity.
Soul food now is very descriptive, she said, and we
should be conscious and careful and enjoy the pride of
our African-American foodways. Ms. Lyons commented that one of the major differ- ences between soul food and Southern food was, Soul
food is spicier, has a high flavor profile, and herbs and
seasonings in general are used at a higher level than in
Southern cooking. Ms. Hodge added to the definition of soul food: Its about comfort foods, grits and green and fried chicken.
Its also about family and tradition and Sunday suppers
and family gatherings. In our fast-paced society its
important to remind people to pass on the information
and tradition. Its also important to learn to modify the
recipes and dishes nutritionally without sacrificing taste
and flavor. Jeannette Jordan, R.D. and the American Dietetic Associations spokesperson for African-American nutri-
tion issues underscored her comment, saying, Its impor-
tant to preserve both taste and nutrition. Her comments elicited a question from the audience: Why not instant soul food? How about using canned col-
lard greens and other convenience foods and doctoring
them in the home kitchen? The moderator, Charla Draper, suggested there was a need for more good soul food restaurants, which are still
in short supply in a city the size of Chicago. PROOF OF THE PUDDING The proof of the pudding is in the eating, proclaimed
Don Quixote de la Mancha (Miguel Cervantes), a wisdom
that echoed throughout Grits & Greens and Everything
in Between beginning with the opening registration --
where conference attendees bolstered body and spirit for
the intellectual onslaught to come. The fortifying began at
an abundant continental buffet of breakfast pastries, star-
ring glossy rows of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, to lunch, to
afternoon cooking demonstrations with tastings, the gala
evening food festival, and Saturdays culinary tours to
Chicagos South and West Sides. Lunch featured a local culinary icon: Chicago-style hot dogs complete with chopped onions, tiny sport peppers,
chopped tomatoes, cucumber, neon-green pickle relish, mustard (never ketchup!) and celery salt. Show-and-tell feasting continued during the chefs demonstrations at the Illinois Institute of Art Culinary
School. Cooking school proprietor Joe Randall from
Savannah, Ga., taught as he cooked and discussed the
major influence on American cuisine which came from
African slaves, the people who least intended to be here,
he said. Chef Randall demonstrated and served Sea Island
Smothered Shrimp on Creamy Stone-Ground Grits and
Oyster and Shrimp Purloo. A quick take on traditional soul food came from Chef Clifford Rome, Jr., proprietor of Rome Development, an
upscale catering and food consulting firm. He showed
how even todays pressed-for-time cook can coax the long,
slow-cooked flavors of traditional dishes in about an hour
and a half. Most of his dishes were more healthful, lower-
fat renditions of the originals. Examples include Wilted
Collard Greens with Smoked Turkey (made with chicken
stock and simmered for 1-1/2 hours), and Chef s Oven
Baked Sweet Potatoes, a richly flavored but contemporary
version of old-fashioned candied yams, using fresh orange
juice, lemon zest and spices. Chef Romes Southern
Influenced Red Beans and Rice were made with olive oil,
smoked turkey sausage, white or brown oven-baked rice
and chicken stock. Chef Kocoa Scott-Winbush of Kocoas Kitchen, Inc., took soul food to creative culinary heights with an entree
of Chicken and Collard Green Crepes and, for dessert,
seductive Peach Bread Pudding made with brioche and
flavored with peach Schnapps. Chef Karen Jackson of Opus 7, Ltd., gave soul food a Caribbean-Asian twist with Mini Sweet Potato Pancakes
and a Papaya-Mango Sauce. Her Pulled Chili-Spiced Pork
was a combination of the texture and succulence of tradi-
tional southern barbecue along with exotic spices from
the marinade: orange, chilies, coriander, allspice, achiote
and cinnamon. Recipes for the chefs demonstrations dishes as well as for many served at the food festival are featured on the
CHC website: www.culinaryhistorians.org. 5 ABOUT CHC Founded in 1993, the Culinary Historians of Chicago is a
non-profit educational organization committed to the study of
the history of food and drink in human cultures. The members
are from a wide range of competencies: those who are everyday
cooks or amateur historians to the food professionals and those
in academia. Our common denominator is that all are food enthusiasts. The Culinary Historians of Chicago uniquely blend the aca-
demic with the popular in presentations to our members and
the public in many venues including seminars, conferences,
publications and other media. The CHC meets monthly at the Chicago Historical Society. Programs range from ethnic food traditions, to food history --
both reverent and irreverent -- and seminars presented by
experts in a wide variety of fields that range from culinary to
publishing. Annual membership is $30 for individuals, $40 for couples and $15 for students. Your membership will include a member-
ship card, our newsletter, and notifications of all coming
events, as well as special member discounts. For membership information contact:
Susan Ridgeway
2113 Sanborn Circle
Plainfield, IL 60544
phone: 815-439-3960; fax: 815-254-9483
email: saridgeway0622@yahoo.com
www.culinaryhistorians.org 2001 NEWSLETTER SCHEDULE The following is the deadline schedule for the Culinary
Historians newsletters in 2001. NOVEMBER 1 Send all materials for the newsletter to: Nancy Ross Ryan
2970 N. Lake Shore Drive, #8C
Chicago, IL 60657
773-883-1575; fax 1510
e-mail, nrryan@xsite.net by the date listed. The most efficient way to send items for the newsletter is by
e-mail or on computer diskette. Anything you give to me in
person, on paper, via mail or fax has to be re-keyboarded into
the computer, which is very time-consuming. So, if possible, try
to e-mail (put item(s) in the message portion of e-mail rather
than send it as an attachment) or send your submissions,
especially longer ones, on disk. Your disks will be returned.

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