This past Wednesday, Zingerman’s Roadhouse was honored to host the 9th Annual African American Dinner. The event was a benefit for the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County. The AACHM was established in 1993 to research, collect, preserve and exhibit cultural and historical materials about the life and work of Black Americans in Washtenaw County.

The menu for the dinner was comprised of dishes that are part of the traditional African American food pantheon, and reflect the wide and varied origins of these foods. Ari described the origins of these staples, both from the new world, as well as Africa and Asia. For more about the foods served at the dinner, check out Ari’s description of the menu. 

Next, Ari turned over the mic to Dr. Willis Patterson University of Michigan Professor Emeritus of Voice. Dr Patterson is the founder of the Our Own Thing Chorale an Ann Arbor choral organization that has provided free voice lessons for promising Ann Arbor youth for over 30 years.  Dr. Patterson was also one of the subjects of the AACHM’s Living History Project in conjunction with the Ann Arbor District Library.

Dr. Patterson introduced Kiera Turner, who sung a traditional spiritual titled, “I Talked to God Last Night.” The spiritual, said Dr. Patterson, served as a fitting benediction before the meal.

Next, Joyce Hunter and Deborah Meadows, President and Vice-President of the AACHM respectively, talked about the history of the museum, it’s long search for a suitable permanent home, and the museum’s Living History Project and Tours of Underground Railroad sites in Washtenaw County.

After the speakers, dinner was served!

After a sumptuous feast of heart, traditional foods, we were treated to an array of desserts. Interestingly, the historic sweet potato pie recipe called for the filling to made with sliced, rather than mashed, sweet potatoes, in the same manner as an apple pie! We also tasted thick rice pudding, and a wonderful peach cobbler.

Like all good meals, it was a time for greeting old friends and meeting new people.

And, of course, for lots of photos to revisit the dinner later on.

Want to help the AACHM reach it’s goals? Every contribution helps!
Here are five ways you can help today!

See you next year for our 10-year anniversary!

A CONDENSED HISTORY OF
 AFRICAN AMERICAN LIFE IN WASHTENAW COUNTY

The 9th Annual African American Foodways Dinner is happening this coming Tuesday, January 14 at 7pm at Zingerman’s Roadhouse.

1. Free black Michigan settlers 
and the Underground Railroad

In 1827, Jacob and Berthena Aray arrived in Pittsfield Township with their 4 children, purchased 160 acres, and became one of the first free black families in Washtenaw County. The Arays were successful farmers. Their son Asher Aray became a brave Underground Railroad conductor who on one occasion hid 28 freedom-seekers for a day on his farm, then transported them safely by night to Detroit, the last stop before crossing the Detroit River to Canada. The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes, hidden places, determined citizens, and self-liberated people of color seeking freedom. Two essential routes to Detroit and ultimate safety in Canada crossed in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti.

2. Anti Slavery Actions

Prior to Michigan’s statehood the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society was established in Ann Arbor in 1836. Asher and James Aray were some of the very few local black Americans who were members. The Society actively recruited members and hoped to appeal to the moral values of citizens who were not sympathetic to the anti-slavery cause. One way of achieving this was publishing a national, weekly newspaper, The Signal of Liberty. From 1841-1848, Guy Beckley of Ann Arbor and Theodore Foster of Scio Township edited the paper in an upstairs office on Broadway St.

3. Spiritual

The first African American Church in Ann Arbor, The Union Church, located at 504 High Street, was organized around 1854. Their minister John Wesley Brooks, a former slave, won his freedom in the courts of New York before arriving in Washtenaw County about 1830. Shortly after the church was organized, the congregation split into what would become Bethel AME Church and Second Baptist Church. Rev. Brooks would become pastor at Bethel AME Church, eventually building its first permanent building on 4th Ave. Second Baptist would build its first building a few blocks away at 5th Ave and Beakes St.

4. Community

Formed in 1901 The Ann Arbor Women’s Federation was the oldest black Women’s society formed for charitable purposes. The Colored Welfare League was organized in 1931 for the purpose of buying and selling real estate, cultivating and developing land and operating a community house. They purchased a three-story building at 209 N. Fourth Ave. The Dunbar Community Center established in 1923 was one of the most important factors in the development of constructive leisure, social and job skill development and academic support.

5. Racial Environment and Politics

In 1931, the Torch Murder Case brought a lynch mob to the courthouse square in Ann Arbor. In 1957 The Human Relations Commission was created to obtain and insure equality of treatment for all citizens of Ann Arbor. The commission found dis- crimination was rampant in housing and employment and that non-white residents were trapped by street and racial boundaries. Records from the NAACP highlight the ongoing housing battle in Ann Arbor. The Fair Housing Ordinance initially voted down in 1961 eventually passed in 1964.

6. Military

In 1864, The 1st Michigan Colored Regiment becomes the 102nd United States Colored Troops when it joins the Civil War battle with Union troops. Approximately sixty-five of Washtenaw County’s finest joined. Some of these heroes are buried with their white comrades in Highland and Fairview Cemeteries.

7. Educational and Professional Pioneers

• Malinda Russell publishes A Domestic Cookbook in Paw Paw, MI, the first by an African American woman, 1866
• George Jewett, first African American football player at U of M, Northwestern, and Big Ten Conference, 1890
• Coleman Jewett, Ann Arbor Public School administrator, entrepreneur, and athlete. Jewett Street is named in honor of family
• Rosemarion Blake, first African American hired in city office in a non-custodial position
• John Burton, Mayor of Ypsilanti, 1967
• Albert Wheeler,
first and only black mayor of Ann Arbor, 1975
• Sy Murray, first black city manager of Ann Arbor
• Willis Patterson,
first African American professor at U of M School of Music
• Harry Mial, first African American principal for Ann Arbor Public Schools at Northside school
• Joetta Mial, first African American and female principal at Huron High School

8. Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs

• According to “A Study of the Negro in Ann Arbor, Michigan” by John Burgess [ca. 1931] there were 5 barbershops, 4 restaurants/catering shops, 2 pool rooms, 1 second hand furniture store, 1 antique shop, 1 shoe shine shop and 6 hairdressers/Beauty Shops.

• The Ann Arbor Foundry opened on N. Main St. Co-owned by Charles Baker, an African American, and Tom Cook, a Russian Jew. Very progressively they actively shared profits with their staff. The business and their partnership survived until 1972.

• Resident Gwendolyn Calvert Baker was chief of minority and children’s programs under the Jimmy Carter administration for the National Institute for Education, 1978 and the first African American female executive of the YWCA, 1984.

9. Education: Jones School

In 1931 there were 150 Black children enrolled in Ann Arbor Public Schools. 22 attended Ann Arbor High and 109 attended Jones Grade and Junior High schools. The closing of Jones School in  September 1965 was the first major act of the Ann Arbor Board of Education to reduce segregation in city schools. At the time, an advisory committee recommended that no school have a population that was more than 25% black. The closing of Jones School had the effect of reducing school segregation in the Ann Arbor Schools while it also broke a community system. In 1920 the University of Michigan Negro-Caucasian Club formed to improve race relations and had a few lunch counter sit-ins

10. Social and Recreation

Elks Pratt Lodge was chartered in 1922. It is the oldest lodge of its type chartered in the state of Michigan and one of the oldest in North America. Many of the men were Canadian whose ancestors were former slaves. The Elks Pratt Lodge introduced the French Dukes Precision Drill Team. They marched in President Nixon’s Inaugural Parade and were nationally known.

Thanks to Deborah Meadows, Joyce Hunter, and Bev Willis for helping us put this together!

Learn more about the African American Cultural and Historical Museum of Washtenaw County. See plans for their future permanent home at 1528 Pontiac Trail, book a spot on one of their upcoming Underground Railroad tours and make a donation to help preserve this important part of our community heritage!

A Fundraiser for the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County

The 9th Annual African American Foodways Dinner is happening this coming Tuesday, January 14 at 7pm at Zingerman’s Roadhouse. Here, Ari talks about the menu choices for the dinner, and their history within the African American cooking lexicon.

The Menu!

Cornbread Harriett Tubman

Cooks in slave kitchens prepared wheat bread and biscuits, but rarely ate much of them. Adrian Miller quotes former slave Anna Miller, “White flour, we don’ know what dat tastes like. Jus’ know what it looks like.” Cornbread was called “John Constant;” wheat bread was “Billy Seldom.” The recipe we’ll be preparing for the dinner comes from The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro, published in 1958 by the National Council of Negro Women. Vivian Carter, honorary president of the organization grew up knowing Ms. Tubman and was adamant that she loved this recipe. It’s made with fried salt pork that’s blended with fine yellow cornmeal, some white flour, a bit of baking powder and soda, sour milk, eggs, salt, and brown sugar.

Hoppin’ John

Although we’re a few weeks into the month of January, Hoppin John is still THE dish that you want to be eating to ring in the New Year. Legend has it that the more black-eyed peas you can eat the more good luck you’ll have in the year to come. If you aren’t familiar with Hoppin’ John it’s a simple but classic dish of black-eyed peas, rice, and pork of some sort. Judith Carney writes that, “Although Hoppin’ John is a Southern dish, its contours are distinctly African, with two main ingredients and origins linked to the slave dwellings and plantation kitchens of the South. Hoppin’ John is traditionally prepared alongside plates of collard greens.”

“Crowder peas” is the formal family name of this bean, and black-eyed peas are the best-known member of the family. The actual tradition of Hoppin’ John seems to have started with red field peas actually, not black eyed peas. The latter were just more readily available. Fortunately for us, Glenn Roberts is growing old style Sea Island red peas, which are DELICIOUS! Given Hoppin’ John’s simplicity—field peas, pork and rice— there’s no way around the obvious; the better the beans the better the dish.

There are a number of standard explanations for the name Hoppin’ John. One is that it’s from the French pois pigeon (or “pigeon peas”). Another is that New Year’s and the serving of the dish come close on the heels of the feast of St. John the Evangelist. I’ve also heard it attributed to a children’s game about a one-legged (hence, hopping) slave named John. Adrian Miller cites a New York Amsterdam News article that said, “In Harlem and Chicago’s South Side, they say that “Eating peas is just for coins. Collars and other greens bring folding money. And pig, all part of the pig, will make you healthy, wealthy and sharp.” This meal has all three, so hopefully you’ll have a very successful 2014!

Collard Greens

Judith Carney writes that, “A signature ingredient of the food- ways of Africa and the diaspora is greens. Perhaps no other cooking traditions feature them so prominently. In West Africa there are more than one hundred fifty indigenous species of edible greens,” and greens were used to thicken soups (sesame, hibiscus and, of course, okra). There, they were generally cultivated, cooked, and sold at markets by women. That tradition continued in the American South—unlike field crops like corn, cotton or rice, greens were commonly grown in kitchen gardens from whence they could be easily added to the cook pot.

At the Roadhouse we cook large quantities of collard greens every week. We simmer them for hours with lots of applewood smoked bacon and pigs feet, and serve ‘em with a bottle of pepper vinegar on the side. Secret tip: ask for a bit of extra pot likker on the side. It’s the “broth” in the pot from the cooking of the greens. Three hundred years ago it was often given to slave children to give them much needed nutrients in less-than-ideal living conditions. Today it’s worth having some just because it tastes so good.

Carolina Gold Rice

Both rice and rice-growing techniques came to South Carolina from West Africa. It was one of the biggest “contributions” (if a forced expropriation of knowledge and skill can be called a “contribution”) of enslaved Africans to Southern agriculture, financial success and foodways. At the Roadhouse, we serve Carolina Gold rice from Glenn Roberts and Anson Mills. It is THE varietal that would have been grown by en-slaved Africans, and then African American sharecroppers in South Carolina in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It got its name from the golden hue 
of the ripe rice stalks in the fields and it’s a romantic image, but there was
nothing romantic about the work that enslaved Africans did to make the rice a reality. Rice growing and hand-harvesting is extremely difficult work under the best of conditions, and they were working in anything but good conditions. Carolina Gold rice was so highly esteemed it was shipped to the royal courts of Europe. Rice growing dominated South Carolina agriculture and eating. Everything about this rice is exceptional—its history, its modern day revival after 75 years of being out of production, the way it’s being grown and processed by Glenn and the crew at Anson Mills, and, most importantly, the way it tastes.

Candied Yams

The name “yam” is actually of African origin. It’s a large tuber that’s remains one of the main starches eaten in West Africa to this day. Yam growing was carried by enslaved Africans to South America, but the tubers never took in North America. Although botanically the two have nothing in common, the name was misapplied to the American sweet potato. What we know here as sweet potatoes probably originated in Peru. Europeans encountered them there and brought them back to Europe. There, as Adrian Miller explains, “the sweet potatoes were not the food of the masses by any means; in fact they were considered such a rare and expensive delicacy that only royalty and the wealthy could afford to eat them.” They were often prepared as the English did another orange vegetable, the carrot, by “candying” them with sugar. Sweet potatoes were critical for survival in cold winter months. Adrian Miller writes that, “Many slaves and share-croppers talked about constructing and maintaining sweet potato ‘banks.’” And he quotes Natalie Joffe’s study of African American food habits in the 1940s in which she explains that sweet potatoes “are regarded by tenants as exactly similar to the urban worker’s store of wages’ except that the potatoes are surer.” With all of that history of their integral role in the poor person’s southern kitchen, it’s no surprise that “yams” or sweet potatoes have stayed a featured dish in the African American culinary repertoire.

Mac ‘n’ Cheese

Obviously there was nothing 
like it in West Africa, as there was
 neither wheat nor cheese to be
had. But Adrian Miller is adamant 
that it’s a classic of African American 
cookery. As he explains: “Over two centuries, macaroni and cheese became ‘mac ‘n’ cheese,’ a soul food favorite, because African American cooks have been called on to make the dish in wealthy and poverty stricken kitchens alike. For soul food cooks, mac ‘n’ cheese had multiple identities as rich people’s food, a special occasion food, a convenient comfort food, a meal-stretcher, and a poverty food.”

Macaroni and cheese in the South originally would have been eaten only by the European elite. Jefferson is generally credited with bringing the dish back from Europe. He was ambassador to France from 1784 to 1789, and also spent time in Italy. He was major devotee of good food and fine cooking. He sent his slave James Hemmings (Sally’s brother) to be trained in the best kitchens of Paris. He also brought back a pasta-making machine and Parmesan cheese. In the U.S. the tradition was solidified as more Italians came over in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Adrian theorizes that the large Italian community in New Orleans exposed the even larger black community to the dish, and its popularity spread from there. In the end, Adrian writes, “African Americans chose this foreign, European food and elevated its status within the black community. Today mac ‘n’ cheese can be considered a ‘black thing’ because African Americans adopted the dish so success- fully that its ethnic origins were completely forgotten.”

Read part 1 of the menu!

A Fundraiser for the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County

The 9th Annual African American Foodways Dinner is happening this coming Tuesday, January 14 at 7pm at Zingerman’s Roadhouse. Here, Ari talks about the menu choices for the dinner, and their history within the African American cooking lexicon.

In making the menu for our 9th annual African American Foodways dinner, a fundraiser for the African American Cultural & Historical Museum of Washtenaw County, we’re serving some classics of African American cooking. While every family will of course have their twists on tradition, this list is a pretty solid collection of well-known and much loved dishes. As Deborah Meadows, one of the women whose hard work has made the museum a reality, said when we reviewed it together, “The menu is a feast! Yum!”

Below are brief descriptions of the dishes along with a bit of history and how they came to be such a big part of African American eating. Much of the historical information came from Adrian Miller’s highly recommended book, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine. If you enjoy the meal at the Museum fundraiser, you’ll probably want to join us again April. Adrian will be joining us for a special dinner based on his book. We’re excited to have him back—he’s already been a huge hit at two of our nine African American dinners—one on the theme of African Americans in the White House (which coincidentally took place right around President Obama’s first inauguration) and the other on this same theme of Soul Food.

The Menu!

Fried Chicken

No one seems 100% sure how fried chicken came to hold such an honored place on the African American table, but it pretty clearly has for well over a hundred years now. Chickens probably came to Africa from Asia in about 1000AD. Birds had long been prominent in West African religious lore and local elites took to them quickly. Chickens were often thought to be holy and came to be used for religious sacrifice.

As with so many foods, it was a dish that was used by whites to stereotype African Americans. But the reality is that southern whites seem to have eaten it with great regularity as well. In his research, Adrian Miller discovered that fried chicken was first written up as a recipe in Hannah Glasse’s 1747 book, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. Glasse features a recipe for fried chicken that would likely have won praise in the homes of well-to-do white plantation owners. Seventy or so years later, in 1824, Mary Randolph’s now classic book, The Virginia Housewife, published an iconic recipe in which the chicken is fried in lard and butter, adding a bit of smoked pork to the fat for additional flavor (as Adrian says, she “doubled down on pork”). A third version, “Maryland-style” fried chicken, became quite popular along the Chesapeake. It was first battered, and then shallow-fat-fried and was typically served with gravy, waffles or corn fritters. Adrian writes that the famous “chicken and waffles” probably had its roots in the early 19th century where fried chicken and some sort of quick bread were quite commonly paired and called a “Virginia breakfast.”

At the Zingerman’s Roadhouse we use chickens from Amish farmers about half an hour west of here in Homer, MI and prepare them in a style that Chef Alex and crew have adapted from the very famous Gus’ Fried Chicken just outside of Memphis. Seasoned with a good bit of black and red pepper and then dipped in buttermilk batter before frying. Over the years it’s become our biggest selling menu item at the Roadhouse.

Fried Catfish

In Soul Food, Adrian Miller shows that West Africans have been big fish eaters since medieval times. Enslaved Africans would likely have embraced catfish as one of the foods that still seemed familiar. In the American South, fish provided a low-cost way to feed slaves. West Africans have long had a very positive attitude towards 
fish. Not shockingly, we have a few West African customers who order catfish religiously at the Roadhouse, and catfish
has become one of our most popular dishes. The fish come from 
Yazoo City, Mississippi (in the ‘60s farmers in the Delta started switching
from cotton to catfish). Aquaculture made catfish available year round, adding to its popularity. Here at the Roadhouse we roll each fish in the organic yellow cornmeal we get from Anson Mills down in South Carolina — a blend of four different heirloom corn varietals (two dating to the 17th century and two more to the 18th), and then deep fry it ‘til it turns golden brown. Served with white grits from Anson Mills (a different heirloom corn varietal, this one from the 19th century) and collard greens. Fish and grits, if you’ve never tried it, is a terrific combination! A guest from South Carolina told me at the Roadhouse last night that it “the best catfish I’ve ever had. And I’ve had a lot of catfish!”

Pork Barbecue

We’ve been making Eastern North Carolina-style barbecue at the Roadhouse since we opened in 2003. We were trained by our mentor, African American pit master, Mr. Ed Mitchell of Raleigh, North Carolina. “Culturally,” Mr. Mitchell told me a while back, “barbecue was started by black folks. During the era of slavery, they made barbecue for white people, and then they were given the innards and undesirable cuts. That’s why they got used to cooking all those cuts.” As you might have guessed from the fact that we chose to model our barbecue after Mr. Mitchell’s (after tasting a lot of other versions), his is very, very good. “My point,” he added, “is that it was a necessity for them to survive.”

For Roadhouse barbecue we use free-running, antibiotic-free, heirloom breed hogs (which have far more fat, and much more flavor than the commercial hogs most folks are using). We smoke them on the pit (that Mr. Mitchell helped us build) over oak logs for a good 14 or 15 hours. We pull the tender meat from the bones, give it a coarse chop and then dress it with a traditional Eastern Carolina vinegar sauce. For the latter, we use the very excellent two-year-old, barrel-aged organic cider vinegar that we get from Pierre Gingras up in Quebec which we then season with a touch of Muscovado brown sugar, sea salt and Telicherry black pepper. I think it’s got it all. Flavor, texture, history, a good story, a great finish. Smoky warm pork, dressed in that tangy cider vinegar sauce.

Grits

Corn has been eaten in West Africa since 
the 16th century when it was introduced by 
the Portuguese. In the Americas, whites and
 enslaved Africans would have learned how
 to grow, cure, and cook corn from Native
 Americans. African Americans probably 
ate much more of it. European whites
 preferred wheat and left cornmeal, grits,
 mush, and cornbread for their slaves. Grits
 have long been a staple of African American 
cooking. Adrian Miller quotes a South Carolina planter: “The subsistence of slaves consists, from March until August, of corn ground into grits, or meal, made into what is call hominy or baked into cornbread.”

Adrian quotes an abolitionist periodical from 1839, which says that, “the corn furnished to the slaves at the south, is almost invariably the white gourd seed corn.” And, as it happens, what we’ve served since day one at the Roadhouse is exactly that — white grits from a gourd seed variety from Anson Mills, where Glenn Roberts and crew craft some of the best old-school dried corn grown and milled anywhere in the country. They work only with heirloom seed varieties (much lower yield, much bigger flavor); all are grown organically and field-ripened to develop their full flavor; all are cold stone-milled (chilled below 32°F so that they never go above 40°F during the milling); and have their germ (i.e., the natural oil) left in which adds great flavor, but makes the milled corn a perishable product. Grits like this are what African Americans in the South before the years of the Great Migration would have likely referred to as “fresh grits” or “country grits.” They’re enormously flavorful—the difference between these and what one cooks from the supermarket varieties is night and day.

Read part 2 of the menu!