Unlock the Hidden Gems of Global Cooking Cuisine
On Monday, February 3, five esteemed Black chefs joined forces to unveil a tale of ingredients that have journeyed to the United States via the African Diaspora. The Follow Your Roots event was curated by 2024 F&W Best New Chef Camari Mick, who gathered a team of culinary experts — including 2020 F&W Best New Chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph, part of Emmer & Rye Hospitality in Austin; Charlie Mitchell, head chef at Saga; Akwasi Brenya-Mensa, chef and creator of the London-based Pan-African concept Tatale; and Brittney “Chef Stikxz” Williams — at The Musket Room in New York City to honor Black History Month.
Numerous ingredients have influenced African culinary traditions, accompanying Black families and home cooks from Africa to the Caribbean islands and the American South. Dr. Jessica B. Harris, a culinary historian and author of High on the Hog, delved into the background of these ingredients — and the Black chefs who have elevated them in American cuisine — in a 2020 feature for Food & Wine titled “The Original Innovators.”
“African Americans have made significant contributions to every facet of the nation’s food industry — cultivating it, trading it, serving it, and crafting beverages to complement it,” she wrote. “This is a 400-year legacy that is now beginning to be fully comprehended, explored, and shared in the 21st century. It’s about time.”
Dr. Harris personally selected seven key ingredients showcased at the Follow Your Roots dinner: okra, salt codfish, sweet potato, black-eyed peas, pork, sugarcane, and sorrel. Each dish presented at the event was accompanied by a narrative from the chef who prepared it, detailing how that particular ingredient had influenced their personal journey and culinary career. A booklet provided by Dr. Harris to guests further elaborated on the significance of each ingredient throughout the African diaspora.
The participating chefs at the Follow Your Roots dinner. From left to right: Akwasi Brenya-Mensa, Charlie Mitchell, Camari Mick, Tavel Bristol-Joseph, and Brittney “Chef Stikxz” Williams
“Together, we are weaving threads through the gaps in our history,” Mick expressed in the booklet’s preface. “Once fragmented but never truly severed.”
Continue reading to explore the innovative ways in which these chefs brought this rich history to life on the plate.
Okra
While the precise origins of okra remain a mystery, its lineage can be traced back to Egypt, where wild okra was discovered along the upper Nile, according to Harris. Today, this versatile ingredient is commonly fried or incorporated into dishes like gumbo, where it acts as a natural thickening agent. Chef Akwasi Brenya-Mensa, the mind behind the London-based Pan-African concept Tatale, featured okra in a Ghanaian-inspired okra soup at the
Once considered a meager fare for sustaining the enslaved and sailors holding them captive, this ingredient embarked on a diaspora across the globe. It can be found in various forms around the world – from croquettes in France to fritters in Puerto Rico, and as a key component in Jamaica’s national dish, ackee and saltfish. In 2020, F&W Best New Chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph, a partner at Emmer & Rye Hospitality in Austin, prepared salt codfish with a medley of ingredients including onions, garlic, tomato, green onions, and cilantro, served on top of johnny cakes. Sharing his childhood memories from Guyana, Bristol-Joseph recalls his grandmother’s cornmeal flatbread, known as johnny cakes, often enjoyed with eggs for breakfast.
According to food scholar Dr. Scott Alves Barton, yams were a common staple on Middle Passage ships, with sweet potatoes later becoming a substitute once in the New World. This collaboration dish among five chefs, including chef and TV host Sophia Roe, featured fried sweet potato gnudi with a spicy sweet potato purée, peanut salsa macha, and brown beech mushrooms.
Similarly, black-eyed peas made their way from Africa to the United States, serving as a vital food source for those who were enslaved. Chef Charlie Mitchell of Saga in New York City prepared a cassoulet with black-eyed peas, collard greens, ham hock, oxtail, and foie gras, blending classic French influences with traditional flavors.
Pork, introduced to the Americas by Christopher Columbus, has found a home in New World cuisine. Jamaican Chef Stikxz honored her cultural roots with an authentic jerk pork rack, smoked over pimento wood and served with calabaza squash purée and a fennel salad dressed in a vinaigrette featuring callaloo – a Caribbean leafy vegetable grown by her father.
Sugarcane, another gift from Columbus’s voyages, played a transformative role in agriculture and cuisine. It became a vital ingredient across various cultures, symbolizing the interconnectedness of culinary traditions around the world.
“The Caribbean and various parts of South and North America have been deeply influenced not only by the sugarcane industry but also by the labor-intensive cultivation practices that brought about race-based chattel slavery,” shared Harris. Alongside sugarcane, rum emerged, distilled from sugarcane molasses. Initially a Caribbean creation, rum has now become a beloved spirit worldwide. Mick delighted guests with a pre-dessert sugarcane rum float, reminiscent of the 1950s American soda shops, yet tainted by the exclusion of Black individuals due to Jim Crow laws in certain states. Mick skillfully poured a house-made sugarcane tonic over rum ice cream, crafted with Ten to One dark rum. Camari Mick’s sorrel île flottante and Tavel Bristol-Joseph’s Johnny Cakes with salt cod fish were also showcased at this event. Sorrel, a dessert made from Jamaican hibiscus flower, took the spotlight in Mick’s final dish, symbolizing a cultural journey from Ghana to the Caribbean, where her Jamaican heritage resides. While sorrel is traditionally enjoyed in teas, Mick ingeniously incorporated it into a semifreddo. Mick’s sorrel semifreddo, inspired by île flottante, an enduring recipe from Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved chef, James Hemings, featured layers of sorrel semifreddo and nutmeg meringue, served over coconut anglaise infused with thyme oil. Mick emphasized the importance of thyme in Jamaican cuisine, highlighting its versatile presence in various dishes, including cereal and breakfast smoothies, to truly bring the flavors of Jamaica to life on the plate.”
