Author Kelley Deetz will speak Feb. 27 at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture about her book, "Bound to the Fire." (Photo courtesy Kelley Deetz)
Food archaeologist and author Dr. Kelley Deetz documents American history, specifically African American history, through its vittles. In her book, "Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine,” she traces the preparation of everyday dishes back to enslaved people in 18th- and 19th-century plantation home kitchens, highlighting how they introduced ingredients from their African homelands and employed cooking methods that have stuck to the nation's ribs.
The former chef and current director of programming at Stratford Hall museum in Westmoreland County will visit the Virginia Museum of History & Culture on Feb. 27 at 6 p.m. for “Bound to the Fire,” a discussion and presentation highlighting the stories of enslaved cooks and their place in culinary history. "People are buying it to read about food, and they end up learning a lot about slavery," she says. "It’s all tethered together. You can’t have the romance of this food without the pain and reality of slavery.”
Richmond magazine: What inspired you to write "Bound to the Fire"?
Kelley Deetz: I felt like the stories of the enslaved cooks hadn't been told and that there was a misunderstanding of who these men and women were, and those misunderstandings come through marketing [of characters] like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben and racist memorabilia that has exaggerated with grotesque depictions of African American cooks and workers. It sparked a curiosity in me and a want to tell their actual story. And through my work as a chef, archaeologist and scholar of African American history, I felt like I was able to tell their story with integrity.
RM: What was the experience like exploring the origin of these foods?
Deetz: I started looking at the history of things like gumbo and jambalaya and sort of tracing them back to the African homeland. But then I spent a lot of time looking at old recipe books — or receipt books, as they were called in the 18th and 19th century — which were written by the white plantation mistress of the house, and I could trace the incorporation of African ingredients and African recipes [into the mainstream] over the years. In the 18th century, you have a lot of European-inspired dishes being written down, and as time goes on in the 19th century, you see dishes like okra stew and gumbo and jambalaya being made in plantation homes — what we'd call now "full food," everything from fried chicken to gumbo to fried catfish to things like yams, which are African in origin.
RM: How did your former role as a chef influence your research?
Deetz: It helped me unpack what a day would be like for these cooks. When I read the menus of the dishes that were served in plantation homes and realized that you would have three to five courses to these meals with several dishes in each course, I know the labor involved. I brought my personal knowledge of what it actually takes to cook the food along with what the food is and how it changed over time. All of that helps me describe these stories.
RM: Can you give me an example of a food introduced to America by enslaved people that we still eat today?
Deetz: How about rice? Rice was a food grown for thousands of years in West Africa. It was brought by ship to places like the Carolinas, Georgia, the Sea Islands, and the planters needed people who knew how to raise the rice, grow it, plant it and also cook it. Jambalaya is one dish, for instance, which is made from rice and spices and is loud flavored, and you add a mixture of meat, like sausage or shellfish, and that's like a direct descendant of jollof rice, which comes from the Gambia region of West Africa.
RM: What will you be discussing during your event in Richmond?
Deetz: I’ll be speaking about how these cooks haven't been acknowledged for creating American cuisine, and I'll make the case that their lives and legacy are far more complex and important to America than they've been given credit for.
Deetz's lecture on "Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine” will be held at Virginia Museum of History & Culture on Feb. 27 at 6 p.m. Admission is free for VMHC members, $10 for nonmembers.
