West African origins of Lowcountry cuisine
When West Africans were shipped to the Americas, especially the South, they brought many ingredients, crops and techniques that are still eaten and used to this day as reflected in the Lowcountry’s Gullah Geechee culture and cuisine. Traditions and techniques were passed down through generations to keep their roots alive, despite an ocean and several centuries of oppression keeping them away from home.
“When I talk about food of [the Lowcountry], I always, always have to give a nod to the influences that have come from Africa,” said Kevin Mitchell, a historian and scholar of historical foodways of the American South. He also is a celebrated chef and instructor at Trident Technical College’s culinary program.
Through the centuries, early African American culture has evolved into Gullah Geechee, an integral part of Lowcountry and Southern cooking that strongly influenced American tastes.
“Gullah cuisine is the Queen Mother of Lowcountry food,” said chef Benjamin “BJ” Dennis of Bluffton, S.C., a personal chef and caterer who specializes in Gullah Geechee cuisine. “You can’t have a Lowcountry period without Gullah culture.”
And these traditions brought to the Americas centuries ago are still seen throughout modern day West Africa, according to chef Bintou N’Daw, owner of African cuisine Bintü’s Atelier opening soon on Line Street in Charleston. N’Daw is a Senegalese native who moved to the United States 10 years ago and to Charleston two years ago.
“To me, Black food [in America] was soul food,” she said. “And then until I discovered the Gullah Geechee and Black food are really the roots of African food. They used not only the same method, but they kept that same method alive.”
African ingredients
The ingredients that have withstood time in the Lowcountry are a large part of the region’s culinary culture, and something seen in many dishes across menus and throughout the country.
“We always talk about how Native American influence is corn, cornbread, things like that,” Mitchell said. “[But] the ingredients [from Africa] have had a huge impact on how we eat and what we eat in this area.”
Ingredients like watermelon, benne seeds, black-eyed peas, okra and rice are some of the biggest imports slaves brought to the Americas, according to Dennis.
“I just think about the impact of enslaved people growing food here in this country, whether it was things that were brought with them on that travel to America,” he added. “Africans and African Americans have always had a huge impact on farming because they actually grow the food that we eat.”
Thanks to similar climates and coastal regions, enslaved Africans were able to bring with them native African produce and crops, and had the advantage of doing so by tending the land of the Lowcountry.
According to David Shields, a professor at the University of South Carolina and specialist in Southern cuisine history, other foods from West Africa that came to the Lowcountry have since left and became part of other regional cuisine cultures.
“There’s an eggplant, originally called a guinea squash,” Shields said. “It was a red eggplant that was once grown throughout the South and now survives basically in Brazil. It looks like a tomato, but it’s actually an eggplant, and a little on the bitter side.”
The last known Southern strain of this, according to Shields, was at a seed house in Louisiana that burned down over a decade ago.
Passed down traditions
It wasn’t just ingredients that were brought to the Americas, either. Cooking techniques in Gullah Geechee culture have remained close to ancestral roots of West Africa.
“Traditional [Gullah Geechee] red rice is exactly how we cook it in West Africa,” N’Daw said. “We’ll cook whatever vegetables, onions, then we add tomato paste and cook it for a long time, and then we add rice and whatever else we want.”
For someone like chef Darren Campbell, author of Charleston’s Gullah Recipes and owner of spice brand Palmetto Blend, those techniques were passed down through the generations.
“It’s the same kind of techniques that we used back in the day,” Campbell said. “The same techniques that [my great grandmother] used, my grandmother used and my mother used and my mother passed to me. Those were the same techniques that my great grandmother, her parents also used, and it passed down from generation to generation.”
One of the dishes Campbell specializes in — and adores making — is red rice, he said. It’s a dish that connected him to his grandmother and his Charleston roots when he moved away to Atlanta.
“It was always my favorite growing up,” he said. “But I never knew how to make it. So, I called my grandmother and I had some trouble at first, but after I figured out the perfect recipe, it became one of my favorite dishes to cook.”
Adapting to the Lowcountry
While some of the traditions and ingredients have been passed down, there also have been many adaptations through the centuries to accommodate what’s available in the area.
N’Daw said that while the weather in the Lowcountry is very similar to West Africa, enslaved Africans still had to make some adjustments to meals. For example, in the Lowcountry, greens usually consist of collards, but West African cuisine would use more exotic greens like cassava leaves.
“We had a lot of ways of cooking that are exactly the same as back home,” N’Daw said. “So when Africans were enslaved, they just started cooking for the people they were enslaved to and bringing a different way of cooking. So it becomes a little bit incorporated in American food from the South.”
Their transfer to America also added different proteins to their diets.
“Most of West Africa is Muslim, so pork is not popular in Africa,” N’Daw said. “It’s something that you won’t find in many places. We eat a lot of goats, a lot of lambs and a lot of fish. And we don’t fry much stuff, either.”
But when in America, hogs and chickens were introduced into the diet of enslaved Africans, according to Mitchell.
“We know that prior to coming here, most of the African diet was more plant-based,” Mitchell added. “Of course, when they were brought here they were introduced to meat, specifically pork. If you’re talking specifically about soul food, or even Southern food, you know, you’re always going to talk about pork, but if you’re talking about the Lowcountry, then you’re always going to talk about seafood, specifically catfish.”
Gullah candies
Gullah candies are desserts that many people don’t know about but have been passed down through generations, according to Charleston area baker Christina Miller. Miller owns Bert & T’s Desserts, a pop-up which specializes in Gullah desserts and pastries from recipes passed down from her grandmothers.
Miller said the African American women who sell flowers out of sweetgrass baskets downtown were also known as “Candy Ladies.” One of the candies sold were groundnut cakes, using an African runner peanut, a small peanut from Africa. The peanuts were crushed and cooked with molasses to form a hard candy. Another was called coconut cake or “monkey meat.”
“It’s the same deal as the groundnut cake,” Miller said. “But instead of peanuts, it was crushed coconut mixed in with the molasses to create a hard candy.”
Other candies and snacks included a benne brittle, made in the same manner as the former two candies, and candies with black walnuts.
At an event earlier this year in Gadsdenboro Park in Charleston, Bert & T’s sold the lesser-known Gullah candies and found much excitement from patrons, Miller said.
“It was really exciting to see folks know what it is,” she said. “One guy was like, ‘Oh my God, my grandmother used to make this!’ And it was just really cool to have people be like, ‘I haven’t seen this in forever’ and things like that.”
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