Gullah Food

The Africans brought to the Carolina colony used the similarities between culinary environments of the Lowcountry and the West Coast of Africa to create a food culture that has come to characterize the region where the Gullah people live.

Simply speaking, Gullah food is about ancestral ties and American living—adaptability, creativity, making do, livin’ ot da waddah and on the lan’. It is a culture within the culture, with its own history, heritage, and distinction. It is a food culture handed down through practice more so than with words. It lives among us in the restaurants, homes, kitchens, backyards, family reunions, church anniversaries, birthday parties and other celebrations that dot the grounds the Gullah call home.

The food is characterized by the ever-presence of rice and a distinct “taste” found wherever Gullah people are cooking. The recipes are simply frames; the artwork is created in the taste buds of the preparer. Try to obtain a recipe or cooking directions from Gullah cooks, and you will more than likely get the generic response, ah ‘on measur. They will tell you that they cook ‘cordin’ ta tase. This "taste" is passed down from generation to generation, but unlike other ingredients, it is an elusive quality guided by memory and taste buds, almost impossible to explain in words. It is an ingredient that must be experienced—tasted first, then duplicated each time Gullah food is prepared.

For years, the oceans, other bodies of water, and farming practices formed the backdrop while rice, seafood and vegetables (corn, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, collards, turnips, peanuts, okra, eggplant, beans and peas) brought the connection between both sides of the Atlantic full circle. Slave cooks simply adapted their African cooking traditions to American soil. Even today, cooking traditions remain somewhat consistent. One-pot dishes, deep frying, rice dishes, sea food, boiling and steaming, baking in ashes, basic and natural seasonings, and food types consistent with those received in the weekly rations on plantations (rice, grits, cornmeal, sweet potatoes, molasses, bacon, beans) are all characteristics of Gullah food.

Excerpted from The Ultimate Gullah Cookbook by Jesse Edward Gantt, Jr. and Veronica D.Gerald, with permission from the authors.