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Set them aside. Remove the onions from the marinade with a slotted spoon. Heat the remaining tablespoon of oil in a deep skillet, add the onions, and sauté them over medium heat until they are tender and translucent. Add the remaining marinade to the skillet and cook until the liquid is heated through. Add the chicken pieces and the water and stir to mix well. Lower the heat and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes, or until the chicken pieces are cooked through. Serve hot over white rice.

—The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent

Rice Gruel

This is simply rice that is boiled until it breaks down into a porridge, much like the rice porridges that were served aboard slave ships. This one is made considerably tastier by the addition of sugar and cinnamon. In some parts of the world, rice gruel is served as a meal for the ill or as a breakfast food with additions that make it either sweet or savory.

Serves 2 to 4

3 cups water

1 cup rice

2 teaspoons brown sugar or to taste

In a large saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the rice and cook it, covered, for 30 to 45 minutes, or until the rice has become soupy. You may need to add more water. Serve in a bowl topped with the brown sugar.

Grits

Grits are one of the Southern uses of corn that settlers adopted from the Native peoples.

Serves 4

4 cups water

2 tablespoons butter

Salt to taste

1 cup whole-grain grits

Place the water, butter, and salt in a pot and bring it to a boil. Gradually add the grits, return it to a boil, then reduce it to a simmer. Cook the grits, stirring occasionally so they don’t stick or form a skin, until they are creamy and done to your liking. It takes about 25 minutes, but many people like to cook them much longer. If you do, you may have to add more water.

Summer Southern Succotash

Various types of succotash were eaten by tribes on the eastern seaboard. They were later adopted and adapted by African Americans to include such ingredients as okra, tomatoes, and even black-eyed peas. This summertime succotash uses okra, corn, and tomatoes.

Serves 6 to 8

6 large, ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped

2 cups fresh corn kernels

1 pound fresh okra, topped and tailed, and cut into ½-inch rounds

1 habanero chili, pricked (optional)

1½ cups water

Place all the ingredients in a medium saucepan and add 1½ cups of water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat, cover, and cook for 15 minutes, until the ingredients are well mixed and cooked through. Remove the chili when the dish has the desired spiciness. Serve hot.

Snow Eggs

There are few extant recipes from early African Americans. This one is attributed to James, cook at Monticello, and thought to be by James Hemings.

Separate 5 eggs and beat the whites until you can turn the vessel bottom upward without their leaving it. Gradually add 1 tablespoon of powdered sugar and ½ teaspoon of any desired flavoring. (Jefferson used orange flower or rose water.)

Put 2 cups of milk into a saucepan, add 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar, flavoring and bring slowly to a boil. Drop the first mixture into the milk and poach until well set. Lay them on a wire drainer to drain.

Beat the yolk of 1 egg until thick, stir gradually into the milk. Add a pinch of salt. As soon as the custard thickens pour through a sieve. Put your whites in a serving dish and pour the custard over them. A little wine stirred in is a great improvement.

—Thomas Jefferson’s Cook Book

Gumbs—A West India Dish

Okra entered the diet of the general population early on, as indicated by this recipe for stewed okra (here spelled “ocra”) from the 1824 edition of a popular cookbook.

Gather young pods of ocra, wash them clean, and put them in a pan with a little water, salt and pepper, stew them till tender, and serve them with melted butter. They are very nutricious [sic] and easy of digestion.

—Virginia House-wife

Gumbo

Peel two quarts of ripe tomatoes, mix them with two quarts of young pods of ochre, and chop them small; put them in a stew pan, without any water;