Sharing Love And Food

Food and love should be shared freely. Gullah cook Emily Meggett know this as she doles out equal parts  of them in the heart of South Carolina's Low Country Her cooking and attitude get love back, It's no wonder that she and her dishes are well known and adored.

Regular contributor Kim Severson wrote about Ms. Meggett in today's New York Times Food section. The entire world will be knowing Ms Meggett in two weeks time when her cookbook,"Gullah Geechee Home Cooking:Recipes From the Matriarch of Edisto Island (Abrams Publishing) The 123 recipes centers on  the staples of the Gullah Geechee table: rice seafood and locally grown fresh vegetables.Ms/ Meggett gives reader the definitive chicken perloo and okra soup along with one pot dishes. Other dishes reflect her own creativity to feed a large family or countless friends. She created leftover meat casseroles and canned pork and beans over rice and smoked sausage. Her wildcat sauce is made with crisped salt pork,flour and sauteed scallions with a splash of coffee. Ms. Meggett also has made countless shrimp and grits lunches for the Charleston car dealership where she gets free tune ups.The cookbook has a mix of complex recipes such as making wine(!) from muscadine grapes and stuffing shad with parsley and rice and serving it with roe. This is a two day prep. Then there's easy ones like pancakes made with melted butter and corn syrup and making juice pops called thrills or bears with Tropical Punch or Kool Aid.

Ms. Severson includes two of Ms. Meggett's recipes. One is the Gullah favorite crab cakes and the other is the classic benne wafers. The crab cakes are  made with homemade toasted bread crumbs as the filler. There's also self rising flour too (although you can sub in a mix of flour and baking powder,Mace and onion give it that distinct flavor as they're whisked into a cream sauce that also features , flours eggs, white vinegar and milk. Lump crab meat is added to the sauce and mixed lightly. They're then divided into thick rounds and coated with the bread crumbs. They're fried in half a cup of vegetable oil and then drained. Of course the benne wafers could follow these. This classic Gullah cookie gets its name from the benne seeds used

 in the recipe. They're actually sesame seeds so you can use these as well.These are rich  cookies thanks to th the addition of half a cup of butter used. There's also the mix of brown and white sugar for more flavor and baking soda for lift.Eggs and vanilla are also in the mix too. These' are a lovely ending to any meal.

Emily Meggett carries on the Gullah tradition of making good food and sharing it with those she loves. Thanks to her new cookbook, now the world can also love her good food and share it with those they love. It is food from the heart.

Padma Lakshmi's Mission

From top  model to Top Chef Padma Lakshmi is known for her beauty as well as for her cooking. Yet she is also a fervent supporter of human right and women's rights along with being an ambassador for American Civil Liberties Union. her new show is about food but it's so much more.

Tejal Rao wrote about this remarkable person in yesterday's New York Times Food section. Ms. Lakshmi has a new food oriented series on Hulu, Taste The Nation. she is no stranger to TV, having been the host and executive producer on the wildly popular Top Chef. This show is different. There's no competition.  It's simply a show celebrating the food cultures of Indigenous peoples, immigrant communities and the descendants of the enslaved. Unlike the white male  food and travel hosts before her  Ms. Lakshmi is keenly aware she is a guest in the homes she visits. The food may be delicious but she doesn't fetishize the dishes she's served. It's not really taste the nation, a word play on CBS's long running Sunday morning show, it's more a way to dig into history and understand how specific communities as they live now.Not many food shows explore how the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 shaped restaurant culture.

Like other food and travel shows there are delicious foods to try. There is hot gumbo soothed down with okra, , fire grilled kebabs, beef simmered in a coconut rich curry and puffy corn tortillas wrapped around beans and scrambled eggs. Yet unlike those other food and travel shows there is a definite edge. Ms. Lakshmi stop in front of a shuttered Iranian travel agency noting how a travel ban has thrown people's lives into a disturbance. (this was done before the pandemic: between summer and fall 2019). when she eats  the Indigenous fry bread in Phoenix, her companion clarifies its' origins, from the genocide of the natives to their displacement on reservations. Another episode centers around the Gullah Geechee community of coastal Carolinas whose West African enslaved ancestors cultivated the rice fields and whose forced labor built the region's economy. Their food culture was hard won and now it's being threatened by climate change. Then there's the first episode which is takes place in El Paso. She's looking for the history of the burrito but also talks about how workers have to cross the border from Mexico for their jobs.

Taste The Nation is the food show that goes beyond food. It shows the reality of America's culinary history and the politics behind it. It is definitely a show to watch and digest.