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Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way: Smokin' Joe Butter Beans, Ol' 'Fuskie Fried Crab...
by Sallie Ann Robinson, Gregory Wrenn Smith, and Pat Conroy
Available from Amazon
$17.55
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Features
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press January 2, 2007
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0807827835
ISBN-13: 978-0807827833
Product Dimensions:
9.2 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
The Gullah people of the Sea Islands of South Carolina have preserved ways of life and speech from West African slave culture and plantation times. Robinson, a native of Daufuskie, one of the islands, writes that "most of our food came from the land-and water-around our tin-roofed home." This book honors a love of her childhood and her family, and that love is intertwined with food. Introducing most recipes are reminiscences of loading the wood stove, trips to the store, fishing for sheepshead, washing clothes on a washboard and cooking "long pots" (slow-cooked meals). Beautiful photos of island life and a relaxed attitude toward cooking ("these are recipes, not rules") make for accessible additions to anyone's Southern repertoire, with homespun dishes like Tada Salad, Sea Island Okra Gumbo and Fuskie Crab Patties. Sticky-Bush Blackberry Dumpling and Crackin' Conch and Rice are the kind of authentically regional recipes that are harder and harder to come by these days. Pot Full O' Coon and Fried Squirrel may not be the next trendy item on a Manhattan menu (Robinson admits she doesn't cook possum anymore), but these are the recipes that give the book its unique, almost anthropological intrigue. Given that many recipes begin with bacon or pork fat, this is not a cookbook meant for nouveau palates as much as it is for the preservation of a unique, fascinating culture. Wonderful to browse through and experiment with, this is an excellent volume for anyone interested in Southern and African-American culture and food.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Library Journal
"Robinson's stories come from another era . . . and her memoir provides a warm, touching account of a time gone by."
Reader Reviews
This book of recipes and remembrances by a woman, Sallie Ann Robinson, who grew up on South Carolina's Daufuskie Island is much more a work of social and culinary history than it is a work of culinary interest. The first thing which most impressed me about the book was how fascinating and charming it was to read about the author's life with her many siblings, parents, grandmother, and neighbors. The second thing, which impressed me, was how dull her recipes were from a strictly culinary point of view. An example of the monotony is the eleven salad recipes in the first chapter. The first recipe is a simple version of the Waldorf salad and the second salad is a simple cole slaw. The remaining nine recipes are simply variations on the same mayonnaise, pickle relish, celery, and sweet pepper salad combined with a protein and appropriate spices. The recipes for sweets and pastries are similarly very common versions of recipes we have all seen a dozen times over. This is not to say the recipes had no interest. As a case study of culinary anthropology, it is fascinating to compare this cuisine with the rustic Italian cuisine, which is heavily based on `the fifth quarter' of the pig plus cured pork products. The differences are even more interesting. In spite of a life based greatly on subsistence farming, fishing, hunting, and gathering, there is no mention of curing, preserving, or cheese making or any other activity which would come to elevate Italian food to it's high place in the world's cuisines. This is not to belittle this rural South Carolina cuisine, but to point out the genius behind food in Italy. The industry, pride, and ingenuity involved in the collection of raw foodstuffs on Daufuskie are truly amazing in light of the slim resources available. Fishing nets were made by hand. Wooden hoe, shovel, and rake handles were made and placed in their metal parts by hand. Tilling was done with a plough worthy of a museum of 17th century agriculture, drawn by a steer. All cultivation and harvesting was done by hand. Iron tools were all sharpened by hand. All this takes place against a backdrop of the local business, oyster canning, being destroyed by pollution from modern industry befouling the waters of the Savannah River. A second theme is how the natives of this backwater island succeeded in living by their wits in the enforced absence of decent education up until the success of the civil rights movement of the late 1960s. I was expecting a bit more from these recipes, especially after seeing the author demonstrate some of her recipes on Sara Moulton's Food Network show. But, I will give Ms. Moulton's producers full credit for filming segments on Daufuskie Island itself, showing up that the way of life on that island is the real hero of this book. I would buy it for it's effective evocation of this way of life and it's snapshot of an unvarnished poor rural subsistence living cuisine.
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Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way: Smokin' Joe Butter Beans, Ol' 'Fuskie Fried Crab...
by Sallie Ann Robinson, Gregory Wrenn Smith, and Pat Conroy
Available from Amazon
$17.55
|
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