Five celebrated Black chefs on the recipes that raised them | Environment

July 2024 · 18 minute read

Five celebrated Black chefs on the recipes that raised them

From spicy pumpkin soup to caramelized banana ice cream, these culinary artists share the family stories – and cooking instructions – for some of their tastiest creations

by Maria C Hunt

Composite: Guardian design. Photographs: Rita Harper, Clay Williams, Ariadne Woods, and Sheilby Macena.

Tue 28 February 2023 05.00 EST

I lost my father rather suddenly last year, a day before Thanksgiving. I’m far from over it, but I take comfort in his favorite foods: vanilla ice cream with salted cashews, proper barbecued ribs, pizza made from scratch or his messy cast-iron skillet burgers that surpass anything in a restaurant. 

For Black families, who often have much less material wealth, like real estate and bonds, to leave their offspring, the secrets behind a favorite recipe are elevated into an heirloom. And unlike stacks of cash or gleaming gold jewelry, there’s a living quality to a good family recipe. 

Going through the steps of measuring the ingredients, mixing them and adding fire is a simple ritual that conjures the person who first shared that dish. Those aromas and flavors bring them to life again. And they take you back to a time when you felt so safe, special and connected as you ate together. You smile, and that empty space is filled, if just for a moment. 

What tastes better than a meal seasoned with nostalgia? We asked five chefs to reflect and share a memory, and a dish that speaks to their past.

Pinky Cole

Founder of Slutty Vegan in Atlanta

Photographs by Ariadne Woods

My childhood was very special for so many reasons when I think about where I came from, St. Anne Parish in Jamaica. I didn’t grow up eating burgers and fries. My grandfather was a fisherman, so what we ate at home was sardines and rice and peas and baked beans, sautéed tuna fish and rice. My mother, I’chelle, is very holistic. I didn’t grow up eating candy and my mother was a strict vegetarian. 

One of the things that we ate a lot that brought my family together was curry chickpeas. We ate a lot of beans, a lot of legumes, and curry chickpeas with Irish potato, and green peppers and Blue Mountain curry and the pimento seeds and the country pepper or Scotch bonnet. Add the coconut milk with some salt and pepper and garlic powder and you got the best curry chickpeas. They served it over rice. We had rice and peas and curry almost every day of the week.

I ate a lot of savory foods growing up. When you eat Slutty Vegan, it’s a mix of sweet, spicy, salty, and tangy. That’s what the curry chickpeas did for me growing up. Ketchup made it sweet because you know Jamaicans put ketchup on everything. Everything I like to eat has all of those variables. I can make a mean curry chickpeas and I can do it really fast. That’s like my protein. It’s why I included a couple chickpea recipes in my book Eat Plants, B*tch.

RecipePinky’s curry chickpeas

Show Ingredients
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 cloves
  • 5 pimento berries (aka allspice)
  • 1 Scotch bonnet pepper, seeded and diced finely
  • 1 tbsp Jamaican curry powder (Blue Mountain is my favorite)
  • ¼ cup sweet onion, diced finely
  • 2 fresh garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tbsp fresh ginger root, grated
  • 2 tbsp scallion, chopped
  • 1 cup white potato, diced 
  • 2 cans of chickpeas (15oz), drained
  • ¼ cup + ½ cup vegetable broth, divided use
  • ½ cup tomato juice
  • ½ cup carrots, diced finely
  • 1¾ cup full fat coconut milk
  • 4 sprigs of fresh thyme
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 3 tbsp kosher salt
Preparation
  • In a two-quart pot on medium heat, add the oil, cloves, pimentos (allspice), Scotch bonnet, and curry powder. Toast for a minute until the curry powder turns  reddish-brown. 
  • Add the onion, garlic, ginger, and scallion to the pan and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes.
  • Stir in the potato and chickpeas. Stir continuously for 5 minutes. Add ¼ cup vegetable broth as needed if the mixture becomes dry. 
  • Add tomato juice, carrots, coconut milk, thyme, cumin, coriander, salt and remaining ½ cup vegetable broth. Reduce heat slightly, cover and simmer for 30 minutes until the liquid reduces and the potato and carrot soften. 
  • Using a spoon, crush some of the chickpeas and potatoes to thicken. Turn off the heat and enjoy over rice, fonio or quinoa.

    • Eating it makes me feel like I’m in Jamaica. It makes me feel like I’m growing up and being a kid in the house. Getting food like that reminds me of home. Food like that brings me a sort of nostalgia.

    Like, I’m busy running the world and being the CEO and I have multimillion-dollar businesses and I’m doing all these things in the world, but I just want a warm, hot meal that makes me feel like family. And when I have those kinds of meals, it reminds me of the simplicity of life.

    To have that feeling of home here now - and my mother lives with us - that is next level. It’s grounding. My children are vegan, so now they’re eating curry chickpeas. To see the cycle repeat itself: that feels really good.

    Chris Scott

    Founder of Butterfunk Biscuit in New York City

    Photographs by Clay Williams

    I grew up in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. It’s very country. It’s like a suburb of Philadelphia but way out, almost an hour drive west of Philly. It’s a four-stoplight town. One strip on one side was Dairy Queen and in 10 minutes you’re to the steel mill.

    We lived with my maternal grandmother, Pearl Browne. She was always home and worked in the garden and played old school gospel on the piano, which she played in church.

    Waking up on a Saturday or Sunday, we didn't really have much to do so you could kind of wake up slowly and the first thing you’d smell was her fried potatoes. It’s one of the first recipes in my book Homage. It’s the simplest thing, but it reminds me of her and no one can make it like her. It’s basically potatoes and caramelized onions cooked on the stove with lard or bacon fat from that coffee can sitting on top of the stove. Maybe she had some herbs she would throw in - that made it a special treat.

    What makes that stand out is the love that she had for us. And you know that she's downstairs, she has a full spread, this platter of those potatoes, toast and some eggs. She's happy, she's talking to you and filling you with her grandmotherly life experience, her knowledge or whatever it is she wanted to share that day. It’s that dish there that really makes it.

    RecipeNana Browne’s fried potatoes and onions

    Show Ingredients
    • 4 tbsp bacon fat, butter or olive oil
    • 2 tbsp unsalted butter
    • 2 russet potatoes (about 1lb) washed and sliced into ¼-inch rounds
    • ¼ tsp kosher salt
    • ¼ tsp freshly cracked black pepper
    • Chopped fresh herbs, such as thyme and rosemary
    • 1 Vidalia (sweet) onion, thinly sliced
    Preparation
  • In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt the bacon fat and butter. Arrange about half of the potatoes evenly over the surface of the pan. Try not to overlap them if you can help it, since it’s important to get a good crispy sear on the surfaces. Sprinkle the salt, pepper, and herbs, if using, over the top. Top with the sliced onion, then top the onion layer with the rest of the potatoes and cover with a lid. 
  • Once the bottom layer of potatoes is golden brown and has a nice sear, about 8 minutes, turn the layers over so the top layer of potatoes are on the bottom. It’s perfectly fine to flip it in bits; don't worry about executing one perfect flip. Once the bottom potatoes are golden brown, scoop portions onto serving plates and serve immediately.

    • Serves four. From Homage: Recipes and Stories from an Amish Soul Food Kitchen (Chronicle Books, 2022)

    What I remember most about it, as far as flavor is concerned, of course, it’s that smell, and the crispness of the potatoes, but also the salty ones that added the contrasts, and the carmelized onions in between. Every second or third bite was always special, you know? That's what I remember. It's more a feel-good meal than a tasty meal, although it was very tasty and delicious. 

    It taught me to always bring love to the table. Always cook with purpose. Now I make that for my loved ones because of how it made me feel. It’s like always paying respect, always remembering where you came from. It’s always so much deeper than the act of cooking.

    Nina Compton

    Chef and owner of Compère Lapin and Bywater American Bistro in New Orleans

    Photographs by Rita Harper

    When I was a little girl, I vividly remember my mum, Janice, making spicy pumpkin and coconut soup. The aroma of this soup gives me such amazing memories, and it takes me back home every time I smell ginger and lemongrass. 

    My family used lemongrass in a lot of dishes, and star anise, too. My mum would let me help her pick the ingredients from the garden and be her assistant when she was making the soup. I watched her make fresh coconut milk from freshly grated coconuts we get on the island. She would add lots of ginger, Scotch peppers, lemongrass all from the garden. 

    My father, Sir John George Melvin Compton, was the first prime minister of St Lucia, but he was also a farmer who grew coconuts and bananas and a lot of herbs. Our neighbor grew the best pumpkin, so we were lucky to have this incredible soup with beautiful layers made from ingredients all within arm’s reach.

    RecipeSpicy pumpkin and coconut soup

    Show For the soup
    • 1½ onions, julienned
    • ½ oz piece of ginger, sliced thinly
    • ½ habanero, seeded and chopped finely
    • 1½ -inch piece of lemongrass, smashed 
    • 1 quart of pumpkin, peeled and cut into 1inch chunks
    • 2½  quarts prepared shellfish or seafood stock
    • 2 (13.5oz) cans of full-fat coconut milk
    • Salt to taste
    For the escabeche vegetables
    • 2 medium oranges, zested first, then juiced
    • 2 limes, zested and juiced
    • 2 lemons, zested and juiced
    • 1 tbsp sherry vinegar
    • ½ bulb fennel, thinly sliced (save the fennel fronds for garnish)
    • 1 shallot, peeled and thinly sliced
    • 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided use
    For the escabeche fish
    • 1oz. fresh grouper, sliced thinly
    • 1oz. lobster meat
    • 1oz. shrimp, deveined and halved down the vein (double up on shrimp if not using lobster)
    • Mixed orange, lemon and lime zest
    • ¼ cup extra  virgin olive oil (for marinade)
    For the escabeche fish
    • 3oz butternut squash, cut into half-inch cubes
    • Salt and pepper to taste
    • 1 sprig of fresh thyme, leaves removed
    • 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
    • 2 sprigs fresh basil
    • 2 sprigs fresh mint
    • 2 sprigs fresh cilantro
    Preparation
  • To make the soup, in a large pot, sweat the onions, ginger, habanero and lemongrass over low-medium heat. Add the pumpkin and continue sweating until soft. Cover with shellfish stock and add coconut milk and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove lemongrass and puree soup in a blender until it’s smooth. Season to taste with salt. Set aside.
  • For the escabeche vegetables, be sure to zest the citrus before juicing, and save the zest.  Fine-strain the citrus juice into a medium non-reactive mixing bowl, making sure there are no seeds. Add the sherry vinegar to the citrus juice. Place a tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan and sauté the fennel and shallots until tender on high heat, deglazing the pan with the vinegar and citrus juice mixture. Set aside. 
  • Make the escabeche fish by adding the grouper slices, lobster (if using) and shrimp in the reserved citrus zest and ¼ cup olive oil or enough to cover the seafood to a non-reactive mixing bowl. Marinate in the refrigerator for one hour. 
  • For the garnish, season the butternut squash with salt, thyme leaves and extra virgin olive oil. In a medium saucepan, sauté the seasoned squash on medium heat until golden brown, about five minutes. Cool and reserve.
  • Just before serving the soup, sauté the marinated grouper in the remaining tablespoon of olive oil until lightly cooked. Reheat the coconut pumpkin soup as needed. 
  • Divide the grouper and marinated shellfish between four to six large soup bowls. Add about a half cup marinated vegetables to each bowl, along with eight pieces of sautéed butternut squash. Pour equal amounts of warm soup into each bowl. Garnish with the fennel fronds and torn fresh basil, mint and cilantro.

    • Yields 8 main-course servings

    My whole family cooked, and the kitchen was the most social part of our house. It would usually be my grandmother Phyllis, my mother, my aunt and my three sisters in the kitchen. My mum was a baker. My dad loved to cook, too, and he would make juices with a bunch of citrus, bananas, breadfruit and passionfruit.  Sometimes he’d make a big pot of stew with pumpkin, peppers, beef and chicken. His secret ingredient was peanut butter, to give it a creamy richness. 

    I use coconut milk to add weight to this spicy soup. It’s still one of my favorite dishes today and I often put it on the menu as a special or do different variations with seafood, cauliflower and other fresh ingredients.

    Devin Mc David

    Consulting pastry chef in San Francisco

    Photograph: Courtesy Devin Mc David.

    I grew up in north-eastern Trinidad, in Sangre Grande. It was pretty much another city in Trinidad. I have two brothers and I’m the middle child. I was a very picky eater and I never really ate meat and would always eat around everything.

    My mother, Lenor, likes to cook a lot so we were exposed to a lot of different flavors. She was very experimental, but she made sure that whatever she was preparing was nutritious, it was hearty and we wanted to eat more. It made us more open to trying new foods and new things. 

    My mom used to make us ice-cream every Sunday. Basically every single weekend, my cousins would come over. We had the old-school ice cream churner and we would put ice in and then we would be making ice-cream.

    We had a porch outside and we would set up the ice-cream churn, which was a machine, but it’s all manual. My mother would have us all set up and get ready. We’d go get ice, she put salt around and we all took turns cranking the machine. This is what we all wanted, so we all took turns to make sure the ice-cream was done. We have more of a custard base, an egg custard. Most of the time we flavored it with whatever was in the area, so guava, passionfruit, mango and coconut. My mom would either buy cones from an ice-cream shop a few blocks away that made their own ice cream cones, or we got out little cups chilling in the fridge and everybody got a scoop of ice cream. That was our Sunday afternoon reward for being good and doing our homework on time.

    RecipeCaramelized banana ice cream

    Show For the caramelized bananas
    • 12oz organic granulated sugar
    • 1¾ oz hot water
    • 5 oz dark rum (unspiced)
    • 1 vanilla bean pod
    • Pinch kosher salt
    • 17.5oz or 4½ ripe bananas with brown spots, chopped into chunks
    For the ice cream
    • 10-½ oz (1 cup) heavy cream
    • 1lb, 5oz (2-½ cups) whole milk
    • 10½ oz organic granulated sugar
    • 3oz vanilla extract
    • 2oz kosher salt
    • 6 to 8oz caramelized bananas
    Preparation
  • For the caramelized bananas, place the sugar in a dry saucepan over medium flame and stir to make a dry caramel that’s a medium golden color. Deglaze the pan with the hot water and rum, allowing the caramel to dissolve, then add the vanilla pod and salt.
  • Turn heat to low and add chopped bananas. Cook the mixture slowly, and occasionally stir gently to allow the bananas to caramelize. Be careful not to let bananas boil, or they will break down without being caramelized. As the bananas are cooking, prepare an ice bath by filling a large bowl with ice and a little water, and then nest a smaller bowl inside. Remove bananas from the heat and place the caramelized bananas into the ice bath, mixing occasionally to help them cool. Reserve in the refrigerator until the ice-cream custard is frozen.
  • To make the ice-cream base, get your commercial ice-cream maker chilled and ready. Set aside. Prepare an ice bath in the kitchen sink. 
  • Combine the heavy cream, milk, sugar, vanilla extract, and salt in a large stockpot over medium flame, measuring temperature with a candy thermometer. Once the mixture reaches 180F (80C), pull it off the heat and transfer the pot to the ice bath in the kitchen sink. Once the mixture is cool to touch, transfer to your ice-cream maker, and chill until frozen but pliable. As you transfer your ice cream into a storage container, fold in 6 to 8oz of the caramelized banana mixture.

    • Store in the freezer for up to two weeks. The bananas can also be heated to make a warm ice-cream topping.

    Yield: 2lb, 10oz.

    We did that for most of my childhood. It was always a happy place. Growing up, we lived comfortably. We were happy kids and our parents took care of us. Not a care in the world. 

    Things that I had when I was younger, flavors that are very tropical, definitely influenced the direction I go as a pastry chef. I’ve done a mandarin creamsicle that’s one of my favorite things because it always brought me back to my childhood. It’s very nostalgic. It gives you a little selfish satisfaction to know how to relate to a guest without using words. 

    Tanya Holland

    Founder of Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland, California

    Photographs by Sheilby Macena

    An apple is such a modest, inexpensive and accessible fruit, and those are the values I grew up with as well. How I cook and what I love about cooking is making food accessible. 

    Apples always make me think of my paternal grandmother, Flora Holland. She was like the 13th of 14 kids and she had five kids herself. My dad was the oldest. I always remember her being so energetic and always making sure people had a little something to eat. 

    She loved making fried apples, as she called them. She’d take apple slices and sauté them in a skillet. We would have them for breakfast, lunch or even dinner as a condiment and sometimes in lieu of dessert. If we had a pork chop, we had some of that on the side. Or with cabbage. If we had eggs and grits and ham in the morning, there would be some apples to round it out. 

    She was from a small town outside Roanoke, Virginia, on rural farmland, and they also had a house with fruit trees and chickens and a garden.

    RecipeGravenstein apple hand pies

    Show For the pie dough
    • 2¼ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
    • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into cubes and chilled
    • 1 tsp salt
    • 4 to 7 tbsp ice water
    For the filling
    • 2 Gravenstein apples (about 1 pound), peeled, cored and ¼-inch diced
    • ¼ tsp ground allspice
    • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
    • 2 tbsp granulated sugar
    • ½ tsp salt
    • 1 tbsp tapioca starch
    • ⅓ cup apple butter
    • 1 egg, lightly beaten
    For the glaze
    • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
    • 2 tbsp apple cider
    Preparation
  • Combine the flour, butter and salt in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles small peas. Add four tablespoons of the ice water and pulse just until the dough holds together when pressed between your fingers. If necessary, add more ice water, one tablespoon at a time. Be careful not to overprocess. 
  • Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured surface and press lightly to form a disk. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to overnight.
  • Preheat the oven to 350F (175C).  Line a sheet pan with a silicone mat or parchment paper.  Toss together the apples, allspice, cinnamon, sugar, salt and tapioca starch. 
  • On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into an 18in circle, an eighth of an inch thick. Cut into 12 four-inch circles. Gather and re-roll the scraps to get four more circles, for a total of 16. Spread one teaspoon of the apple butter in the center of eight of the dough circles, leaving a half-inch border.  Place a quarter cup of the filling on top of the apple butter. Brush the edge of the dough with the egg and top with a plain dough circle. Using a fork, seal the edges of the dough of each pie. Cut three slits into the top of each pie and place the pies on the prepared sheet pan. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Brush the pies with remaining egg and bake until golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. 
  • To make the glaze, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and apple cider in a small bowl until the sugar is dissolved. Drizzle the glaze on to the hand pies and let cool.

    • Yield: 8 hand pies.

    From California Soul: Recipes from a Culinary Journey West (Ten Speed Press, $26).

    I just associate cooked apple flavor with her and that’s one of the reasons I created the apple cider syrup on waffles at Brown Sugar Kitchen. 

    I was often in the kitchen and very curious about what they were making. 

    She would cook them in a little leftover bacon fat, or butter, maybe, with some cinnamon and a little sugar. There was no waste. My grandmother was very frugal and resourceful and nurturing. It’s not like she had it easy. But she knew how to make a lot out of nothing, and make it taste delicious.

    ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaJ2eq7azu82mnKesX6O0brXNrZyrmZOptrexjmtna2tfm7Kje5FxZp%2Bhppp6pLHLnpmrmaSasW6uy5qapGWTnbKnv4yopWasmJp6s7HCoqeeq12ptaLAjKuYoquVmXq1tMSm