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Photos of Smithfield house and cabin courtesy of Terry Anderson and Terry Fisher. Photos of black-eyed peas, hoecakes, and biscuit block courtesy of Don Bixby.
Past Appearances
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Opening Day at Smithfield Plantation
March 31, 2007
"All who visited at the homesteads just described retained ever after a recollection of the perfectly cooked meats, bread, etc., seen upon the tables at both houses, there being at each place five or six negro cooks who had been taught by their mistresses the highest style of the culinary art. During the summer season several of these cooks were hired at the different watering-places, where they acquired great fame and made for themselves a considerable sum of money by selling recipes."--Letitia Burwell, describing the cooks and cuisine of the Preston plantations, A Girl's Life Before the War, pp. 107-108
In 1774, William Preston, a Scots-Irish immigrant, founded his second plantation, Smithfield, in what is now Blacksburg, Virginia. The site is now continually surrounded by the campus housed on the old Preston lands, Virginia Tech. Preston and his family were prominent, and went on to play a major role in Virginia history and Southern politics. It is now a historic site and children's museum. Preston imported eighteen enslaved men from the port of Anomabu, Ghana in 1759. Forced aboard the slave ship, True Blue, they were the founding generation of West Africans brought to toil on the plantations Preston founded on the frontier. At Smithfield, hemp was the major cash crop, followed by flax, wheat, corn, oats, rye, potatoes, and at a few points in the plantation's history, tobacco.
Two women are thought to be the main cooks at the big house in Smithfield. Flora and Sukey (pronounced Soo-key), are believed by historians to be the main cooks and house servants. Where the weaver's cabin--an actual slave cabin from another Montgomery County, Virginia site---now stands, there was once a summer kitchen where food was prepared when it was too hot. The winter kitchen was on a lower floor of the house, with the big house kitchen and herb garden outside. While many enslaved Africans and African Virginians worked on hemp and grain plantations, others worked in lead and coal mines, or were hired out for most of the year. Black life in Southwestern Virginia was very different from other areas of the state. Given harsh labor and fairly isolated from other communities it was certainly an existence made that much more bitter by the status of being enslaved.
While at Smithfield, I found out a lot about the crops and resources that would have been available to the enslaved community. Looking through contemporary research the plantation, and diary accounts from the turn of the century, I was able to come up with a listing of some of the foods the African American population might have incorporated into their diet. Walking around the property, my host--Don Bixby of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy--and I, collected tons of wild greens--cress, dandelion, sorrel, wild mustard, purslane, dock and the like, and wild onions. The mountains around Smithfield were once covered in American chestnut, which was a major part of the diet. Sugar maples, sassafras, locust, persimmon, and other useful trees were also part of the natural environment. Bass, flathead catfish and brook trout, crawfish, snapping turtles, mussels and frogs thrived in the rivers and streams. Deer, possum, beaver, squirrel, raccoon and rabbit were popular wild game.
Garden crops---from the records I looked at--may have included sweet potatoes, cushaw (sweet potato pumpkin), turnips, cucumbers, onions, lima beans, field peas, watermelons, tomatoes, snap beans, corn, cabbage, horseradish, Irish potatoes, and herbs. African staples such as okra, red peppers, and peanuts (there is a clay friendly variety that was developed in Southwestern Virginia), were other cultigens that probably migrated from the Tidewater to the mountains. Okra and red peppers remain staples in the Southern Appalachian diet. Every farm had apples--pippins and other varieties, and the orchard at Smithfield had peaches, pears, quince, apricot, walnuts, and pecans. Small fruits--gooseberries, strawberries, mulberries, and raspberries were also available. Livestock included cattle, sheep, chickens, turkeys, ducks and swine. Several foods and drinks are mentioned in the diaries and records---fried chicken, liver pudding, sausage, salt fish, apple brandy, whiskey, etc. Enslaved people at Smithfield raised sorghum cane to produce sorghum molasses, to this day, a necessary sweet of the Appalachian South.
In addition to interpreting for the day at Smithfield, I was hosted by the Harper-Peacock committee for a special luncheon talk on the foodways of enslaved African Virginians. Well-attended and lively, the discussion was a great opportunity to meet new people, including Dan Crawford, a historical interpreter of local reknown and Corolla Haas, a professor of wildlife ecology at Virginia Tech. During the talk to the collected disciplines of multicultural studies, I met Dr. Woodward Farrar, Dr. Anita Puckett, and Dr. Elizabeth Fine, chair of the department--distinguished guests who gave me lots of praise---a very humbling experience. Both presentations were eagerly received and went well.
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Pictured: Black-eyed peas and black-eyed Pea Cakes from Mary Randolph's Virginia Housewife, also known as akara, in Nigeria.
Hoecakes with sorghum syrup. Sorghum was grown at Smithfield and its juice was made into syrup.
Beaten biscuit block and iron biscuit beater. Using the heavy iron beater, young enslaved boys or girls would introduce air into biscuit dough to produce lighter, airy biscuits to be eaten along with chicken or ham.
Many thanks to Don and Pat Bixby, Terry Anderson and the Smithfield staff, Dr. Elizabeth Fine, Cindy Bertleson for bringing me to Blacksburg. Special thanks to Sue Kurtz of Hillel for a wonderful Shabbos.
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Cooking at Rose Hill
March 24, 2007
Rose Hill was a mixed-grain plantation located in Frederick, Maryland. The site has been continually inhabited since the 1740's when a German immigrant bought the site. Later it would be owned by the first governor of the state of Maryland, Thomas Johnson. It is now a historic site and children's museum. Rose Hill's history is bound up with the German, British and African American histories of Maryland. While visiting there I was preparing food in the same kitchen that the enslaved men and women who worked in the main house would have labored in day by day. In fact the room above the kitchen was where they kept quarters.
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I made a couple of dishes illustrative of the various influences that impacted the diets of enslaved people in the northern Piedmont of Maryland. My German-based slippery pot pie used white sweet potatoes and a hint of hot pepper. The kush and okra soup connected the site to Senegambia, and the cornbread to the Native Americans who lived in the area. The bacon and greens showed a synthesis of cuisines — Scots-Irish and West African. The audience shared stories with me about eating possum and catching catfish and carp; busting up black walnuts and apple butter making time. It was a great experience that brought home the organic nature of community and its links with native food customs.
Special thanks to Jennifer Roth and Waneta Gagne, Rose Hill and the Frederick Public Library.