Digging In: American Foodways Garden
Digging In: American Foodways Garden will happen Saturday, June 15 at 10 a.m. This program will have a special lecture by Dr. Kelly Fanto Deetz, the celebrated author of Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine. Tickets start at $30 and include a tour of the 19th-century foodways garden at The Hermitage, a vegetable from that garden and a recipe, courtesy of Edible Nashville.
Dr. Kelley Fanto Deetz is the Vice President of Collections and Public Engagement at Stratford Hall and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of African American Studies at U.C. Berkeley. She holds a BA in Africana Studies and History from The College of William & Mary and an MA and Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. Deetz is a public historian dedicated to researching the history of enslaved Africans and African Americans, elevating their stories, and amplifying the need for acknowledgement and reconciliation. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine, which later inspired a poem by Alice Walker. You can find her most recent work in Audible’s The Great Courses on the history of sugar, and her contribution to the cookbook California Soul, with celebrity and OWN tv star Chef Tanya Holland and author Alice Walker. Her work can be found in the Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, several podcasts, The Conversation, USA Today and in lectures on YouTube.
Dr. Deetz will be sharing her research that led to her book, Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine. In grocery store aisles and kitchens across the country, smiling images of “Aunt Jemima” and other historical and fictional black cooks can be found on various food products and in advertising. Although these images are sanitized and romanticized in American popular culture, they represent the untold stories of enslaved men and women who had a significant impact on the nation's culinary and hospitality traditions. This lecture draws from archaeological evidence, cookbooks, plantation records and folklore to present a nuanced study of the lives of enslaved plantation cooks from colonial times through emancipation and beyond. She reveals how these men and women were literally “bound to the fire'' as they lived and worked in the sweltering conditions of plantation house kitchens. These highly skilled cooks drew upon skills and ingredients brought with them from their African homelands to create complex, labor-intensive dishes such as oyster stew, gumbo, jambaya and fried fish. Deetz’s work helps restore these forgotten figures to their rightful place in American and Southern history.
Date: June 15, 2024 10:00 AM-11:00 AM
Location: Andrew Jackson's Hermitage | 4580 Rachel's Lane, Hermitage, TN 37076 | 615-889-2941
Admission:
Tickets start at $30 and include a tour of the 19th-century foodways garden at The Hermitage, a vegetable from that garden and a recipe, courtesy of Edible Nashville. To purchase tickets, please visit: https://my.thehermitage.com/16949/22285.
Event website: thehermitage.com
