Legendary Roots

Jessica B. Harris gets High on the Hog to examine the culinary reach of the African diaspora.

by Will Stone

[ interview ]

THEY CALL HER DOCTOR GRUB: Jessica B. Harris' new book, High on the Hog, takes a historical look at the food traditions that grew out of the African diaspora. She'll appear at the Free Library Feb. 1.

Kristy May

In the final chapter of High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America (Bloomsbury, Jan. 4), Jessica B. Harris looks at the culinary cosmos leavened by the narratives of the African diaspora. The Bryn Mawr alum, a tenured professor at Queens College who holds a Ph.D. from NYU, beckons the reader into a sacred, long-loved cookery where iron pots of gumbo and the aromas of praline and molasses speak to the centuries, continents and cultures traversed by African-Americans.

Harris, the author of 11 cookbooks, uses her latest to follow the foodways of the diaspora, from the West African vendors selling pepperpot on the streets of Philadelphia to the chuckwagon cooks in the Westward migration. Throughout, Harris traces the story of African-American chefs who found cooking as a means of expression and social mobility. Harris will read from High on the Hog at the Free Library Feb. 1.

City Paper: Why write this more historically based book instead of another cookbook?

Jessica B. Harris: I thought it was time to start the dialogue about the history of this food, and the history of its people as seen through the food. We live in a world of cookbooks — Lord knows, I've contributed 11 to that world — but this is just a deeper, perhaps more thoughtful, study of it.

CP: In High on the Hog, you go back to dishes that were popular in the 18th century, many of which we don't see in the same form anymore. Has this influenced how you cook?

JH: Actually, no. I cook the same way as always. There's food that I research and there's food that I eat every night for dinner. In some cases, I will cook traditional African-American dishes for celebrations or traditional dishes from the diaspora.

CP: Have we lost some of this traditional food in our culture?

JH: Not that much has been lost, actually. People eat okra, people eat sesame, people eat watermelon. All of these are ingredients that came from the African continent. Much of what we eat on a daily basis is food and foodstuff that comes from Africa. We just are largely unaware that they do. ... Did you have a cup of coffee this morning?

CP: Yes, several.

JH: In fact and indeed, coffee originated in the Ethiopian Highlands. That's what I mean. Most of us don't know that.

CP: Should knowing the history of this food, then, change our experience of eating or cooking?

JH: For people who want to know a bit more about what they eat, I think they will find themselves fascinated by the food of the diaspora and by some of the insights that come from these stories. If you're hungry, then you want dinner — you don't want an academic treatise. ... But if you're curious and want to adventure, there's much that can be found in the more traditional food of African-Americans.

CP: Were there any particularly surprising discoveries about the heritage of African-American cuisine that you came across when writing the book?

JH: The surprises were not necessarily the origins of African food as much as they were the deep connections between food and African entrepreneurship. In Philadelphia, for example, the history of caterers was something I didn't know much about and would still like to know more about.

CP: Why was Philadelphia such a place of opportunity for African-American chefs?

JH: It had to do with it being a place of freedom and a place with an active African-American community. ... As far as the caterers, we're talking about the 19th century and arguably in the early Federal period, as well. Philadelphia's African-American community brought together people like [Thomas Jefferson's chef James] Hemings and Hercules. [Ed. note: Hercules started off as a cook for George Washington and became known as an "accomplished master of the culinary arts."] So there developed a great tradition of caterers who were, for the most part, people of color — African-American men. They catered for the wealthy. At my talk, I will read an excerpt of Biddle's "Ode to Bogle." Nicholas Biddle was a prominent white Philadelphian in the 19th century.

CP: Who was Bogle?

JH: Bogle was the person who started the whole idea of the public waiter and began to move that tradition from what was known as a public waiter to a caterer.

CP: Do you have a sense of how this tradition of prominent African-American cooks may be evident in Philadelphia today?

JH: When I was [at Bryn Mawr], we always went somewhere for pepperpot. It was the restaurant Bookbinder's. ... My two friends, Will Woys Weaver and Fritz Blank, who used to be the chef-owner of Deux Cheminées, gave me the clue about pepperpot being a traditional Philadelphia dish — a dish that had once been served on the streets of Philadelphia, primarily by women of African descent, and occasionally adorned with fufu dumplings. In the book, there is an illustration of one of those popular pepperpot vendors. This was in the 19th century, but we can see that pepperpot has become a classic Philadelphia dish.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Jessica B. Harris, Tue., Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m., free, Free Library, Central Branch, 1901 Vine St., 215-567-4341, freelibrary.org.