RECIPES: Gullah-Geechee foodways take spotlight
Kardea Brown has heard people describe her as an “old soul” for as long as she can remember. But not until she was in college at Oglethorpe University, surrounded by classmates living what seemed to her the fast-paced lifestyles of a reality show, did it fully sink in what they meant.
Despite living most of her life in cities, “my girlhood — and later my womanhood — was steeped in all the cultural rituals of West Africa that our enslaved descendants were able to preserve,” she writes in the introduction to “The Way Home: A Celebration of Sea Islands Food and Family With Over 100 Recipes” (Amistad, $34.99).
Brown was born in Charleston, South Carolina, near Wadmalaw Island, a sparsely populated barrier island within the Gullah region of the Lowcountry where the generations before her, also known as Geechee, had lived for centuries with much of their African language and customs intact. Though she moved to the suburbs of Atlanta as a toddler, she returned frequently to that tightknit and still relatively insulated world throughout her formative years to stay with her grandmother while her mom (Patricia Green, who now lives in Loganville) juggled multiple jobs to pay the bills.
She credits both matriarchs for instilling in her a deep appreciation for the Gullah-Geechee foodways she now shares with the masses as the star of the Food Network’s “Delicious Miss Brown.” Her new book, like the show, revolves around the meals of down-home coastal flavors rooted in tradition — along with some of her own contemporary flourishes — she prepares for the community she calls her “cousins” at her home on Edisto Island.
“Live by the land, live by the sea” is the philosophy that defines Gullah-Geechee cooking to this day, she explained in a phone interview. She speaks with reverence of the humble yet creative dishes her forebears fashioned with garden produce, fresh-caught seafood, and whatever scraps they had to work with. Ever-abundant rice was “the perfect vehicle for stretching those ingredients into a meal and keeping them sustained after a hard day’s work.”
Crab rice, made with the fresh claw meat her grandmother picked by hand during blue crab season, was a typical midweek dish, as were one-pot meals such as the vegetable-rich okra soup that had been the favorite of her great-grandfather, “Snookums.” Weekends, she said, were for community feasts with all the trimmings, such as fried fish, red rice, collards, and her grandmother’s famous sweet potato pie.
Back in Stone Mountain, she spent Sundays watching her mom in the kitchen while she turned their homegrown harvests into freestyle suppers, occasionally pitching in with the prep. As a teenager, she was making mac and cheese from scratch.
Much as she enjoyed the accolades she received for her kitchen accomplishments, she never saw cooking as her life’s calling. She studied communications and psychology at Oglethorpe and later St. Peter’s University in Jersey City near Manhattan, and for a while pursued a career as a social worker. But the stress of that work took a heavy physical and emotional toll.
While living in New Jersey, she began cooking her Lowcountry specialties for a boyfriend. He filmed her as she cooked and, unbeknownst to her, submitted one of the videos to the Cooking Channel website. She was chosen to cook alongside cooking star Bobby Deen for a new pilot based on healthier Southern fare. A film crew arrived at her house. Cooking and telling stories for the camera, she discovered, came naturally to her.
The pilot wasn’t picked up, but the producers vowed to stay in touch. In the meantime, she returned to Atlanta, got a job driving a catering truck, and eventually launched her own business, hosting New Gullah Supper Club pop-ups for large parties in Atlanta, Charleston, and cities in between.
Her social media presence flourished. The Food Network took notice and booked her for guest appearances on popular shows. In 2018, they gave her the green light to host her own. “Delicious Miss Brown” just wrapped up production of its seventh season, and plans are in the works for a product line based on her style.
“Sharing these recipes and speaking about my ancestries ties me to who I am and the land I came from,” she said. Putting their contributions to the American food story in the national spotlight, she added, is long overdue. “Gullah-Geechee cooking isn’t just having a moment. It’s here to stay.”
RECIPES
“Live by the land, live by the sea” is the underlying philosophy behind traditional Gullah-Geechee cooking, as illustrated by Kardea Brown’s recipes for Crab Rice and Snookums’s Okra Soup in her first cookbook, “The Way Home: A Celebration of Sea Islands Food and Family With Over 100 Recipes” (Amistad, $34.99). Those recipes are excerpted here, along with one of her more modern creations for cherry-studded muffins with a crunchy cornmeal and pecan streusel topping.
Crab Rice
Kardea Brown remembers her grandmother handpicking the claws of several bushels of blue crabs to make this weekday dish when blue crabs were in season. Nowadays with fresh crab claw meat readily available in most seafood markets, it’s a snap to make anytime. Brown advises making up batches of her simple signature seasoning blend given here to sprinkle on anything that needs a savory lift.
- 2 cups chicken stock
- 1 cup long-grain rice (such as Carolina Gold), rinsed to remove the starch
- 1/2 green bell pepper, cut into large pieces
- 1 stalk celery, cut into large pieces
- 1 large onion, cut into large pieces
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more if needed
- 1 tablespoon vegetable or canola oil
- 1 pound crab claw meat, picked for shells
- 2 generous pinches of Miss Brown’s House Seasoning (equal parts onion powder, garlic powder, sweet paprika, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper)
- 1 large tomato, diced (1 cup)
- Fresh parsley, roughly chopped, for garnish
- Bring the chicken stock to a boil in a medium saucepan. Add the rice. Cover, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the liquid is absorbed, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and fluff with a fork.
- While the rice cooks, pulse the bell pepper, celery, onion and garlic in a food processor until minced. Heat the butter and oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, until the butter melts. Add the minced vegetables. Saute until the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.
- Add the crabmeat and House Seasoning. Cook for 5 more minutes, or until the crabmeat has browned. Add additional butter if the vegetables become too dry and begin to brown too quickly. Stir in the cooked rice and tomato. Cover and simmer for 5 additional minutes, until the rice is fluffy. Uncover and sprinkle with parsley before serving. Serves 8 to 12.
Nutritional information
Per serving: Per serving, based on 8: 208 calories (percent of calories from fat, 26), 14 grams protein, 24 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 6 grams total fat (2 grams saturated), 64 milligrams cholesterol, 485 milligrams sodium.Recipes are excerpted from “The Way Home: A Celebration of Sea Islands Food and Family With Over 100 Recipes” by Kardea Brown and reprinted with permission from Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Copyright 2022.
Snookums’s Okra Soup
“Snookums” was the nickname given to Kardea Brown’s great-grandfather, who loved this simple, nourishing soup as much as she does. She also makes a version using homemade shrimp stock in place of the vegetable stock, with sauteed shrimp added at the end.
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups fresh or thawed frozen corn
- 2 cups thawed frozen lima beans
- 1 cup diced fresh Roma tomatoes
- 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
- 4 cups vegetable broth
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 1/2 cups sliced fresh or thawed frozen okra (if using fresh, slice into 1-inch pieces)
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 lemon
- Steamed rice for serving (optional)
- Heat a large gumbo pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the oil, onion, bell pepper and garlic and saute until the vegetables soften. Mix in the corn, lima beans and Roma tomatoes. Add the canned tomatoes, vegetable broth and a generous pinch of salt and pepper and stir. Turn down heat to simmer, covered, for about 20 minutes.
- In another saucepan over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Add the sliced okra and ginger, season with a little salt and pepper, and stir. Squeeze the half lemon over the okra (the lemon juice will help cut some of the slime). Saute, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 minutes. Turn off the heat.
- Once the broth mixture has simmered for 20 minutes, add the okra. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed. Cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes. Stir the soup then serve over rice (or enjoy it without rice). Serves 4 to 6.
Nutritional information
Per serving: Per serving (without rice), based on 4: 418 calories (percent of calories from fat, 29), 14 grams protein, 66 grams carbohydrates, 13 grams fiber, 14 grams total fat (5 grams saturated), 15 milligrams cholesterol, 848 milligrams sodium.
Black Cherry Muffins with Cornmeal Streusel
These moist, lightly sweet muffins are delectable hand-held coffee cakes scented with vanilla and orange, studded with whole cherries. Their crunchy streusel topping of pecans, cornmeal, and brown sugar pays homage to Kardea Brown’s Southern heritage.
- For the streusel topping:
- 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup cornmeal
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- For the muffins:
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup sour cream, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon grated orange peel
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour, divided
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 cups whole frozen pitted cherries, thawed
- Make the streusel topping: In a small bowl, combine the pecans, brown sugar, flour, cornmeal and butter. Set aside.
- Make the muffins: Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a standard muffin tin with cupcake liners.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat together the eggs and granulated sugar on high speed for 4 to 5 minutes, until pale in color. Add the sour cream, vegetable oil, orange peel, and vanilla. Beat on low speed until combined, about 30 seconds.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups of the flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients in 3 batches, mixing on low speed until each addition is incorporated. Avoid overmixing, as this will result in dense, undesirable muffins.
- In a small bowl, toss the cherries with the remaining 1 teaspoon of flour to coat. Use a spatula to gently fold the cherries into the batter just until combined. Using an ice cream scooper, scoop the batter equally into the muffin tin, filling each cup about three-quarters full. Evenly distribute the streusel topping on top of the batter.
- Bake until the muffin tops are slightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
- Let the muffins cool in the muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer onto a cooling rack until ready to enjoy. Makes 12 muffins.
Nutritional information
Per serving: Per muffin: 365 calories (percent of calories from fat, 43), 5 grams protein, 47 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 18 grams total fat (5 grams saturated), 48 milligrams cholesterol, 172 milligrams sodium.Read more stories like this by liking Atlanta Restaurant Scene on Facebook, following @ATLDiningNews on Twitter and @ajcdining on Instagram.
