High on the Hog_ A Culinary Journey From Africa to America - Jessica B. Harris [93]
Advertisers sought DeKnight’s endorsements for products; her columns, recipes, and photograph appeared in the magazine; she spoke at colleges and high schools both black and white, and did hundreds of cooking demonstrations around the country. She authored numerous pamphlets of cooking hints and recipes for such diverse Ebony clients as Carnation Evaporated Milk and the Golden State Insurance Company. Perhaps her most lasting legacy is her cookbook A Date with a Dish, published in 1948, which showcases some of the recipes that she had collected and created for Ebony. It is still in print in an updated version, The Ebony Cookbook, fixing the cooking of the mid-twentieth century for generations yet to come.
The careers of both Lena Richard and Freda DeKnight heralded a new age of African Americans in food, one in which blacks professionally trained in food preparation and the domestic sciences used developing media outlets like Ebony magazine and new technology like television to create national and international reputations and teach the world about the growing scope and diversity of African American food.
CHAPTER 9
WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED
Sit-ins, Soul Food, and Increasing Culinary Diversity
Atlanta, Georgia—
The capital of the New South had held little attraction for me. My first trip there was a humiliating quest for an errant boyfriend that ended with tears, a breakup, and a two-day hangover; it was my first trip to the South. The only good thing about that trip more than thirty-five years ago is that it allowed me to see “Sweet” Auburn Avenue before it became “gentrified.” Somehow, I knew enough to take time out from my fruitless mission to sample some of the legendary fried chicken at the old Paschal’s restaurant. Paschal’s is one of the restaurants where Martin Luther King and his disciples planned some of their Civil Rights strategy. Even in that bad time for me, as I sat in the restaurant, I wondered which booth Dr. King had occupied and what his favorite dishes had been. I was told that the fried chicken figured largely on the menu at those meetings.
It seems that every Southern city has a similar restaurant in the former black part of town. During the Civil Rights Movement, it was the place that became the hub where people from the movement met and planned their strategy. Birmingham has one, as do Memphis, Mobile, and Montgomery. New Orleans has Dooky Chase, and Atlanta has Paschal’s and also had Deacon’s, although it, like many others, did not survive. Back in the day, they all had similar finished-basement-type decor, with red vinyl booths and knotty-pine paneling on the walls. They also had homey waitresses who cajoled diners into eating more than was good for them and wore nylon uniforms that fitted tightly across ample bosoms, often with a highly starched handkerchief perched like a corsage on one side. The menus all harked back to the comfort food of the South: Pig was the preeminent meat, and the pungent aroma of chitterlings often perfumed the kitchen. Pigs’ feet were also offered, and great delight was taken in sucking the hot-sauce-dotted meat off the bones. Pork chops were cooked to a solid well-done and smothered with thick brown gravy. Side dishes included tender candied yams (yes, they were sweet potatoes), dripping with sugar and cinnamon in every bite. There were always greens—be they collards, turnips, or mustards or a mix of all three—handpicked over and freshly cooked. They were served with smoked pig or, in later years, a smoked turkey wing. Okra figured significantly on most menus, turning up in gumbo or served as stewed okra in a mix of tomato and onion or as Southern succotash with corn and tomatoes. For dessert, there was an array of the teeth-achingly sweet confections that had become hallmarks of African