Historical Recipe Analysis
Image from Cooking in the Old Creole Days Cookbook by Celestine Eustis
Modern capitalism's effects on Creole cooking traditions and the current wave of racist sentiments in media have spilt over into the traditions of creole cooking and brands that have historically affiliated with the Creole image. Take, for example, Quaker Oats and their pancake syrup brand Aunt Jemima. This brand is easily recognizable in the modern capitalist world - and on any breakfast table. The brand's name and logo denote the symbolism of historical slavery in the American south. The image and ideals behind the emergence of Mammy's served the political, social, and economic interests of mainstream white America. The caricature and subsequent adaptations have been used throughout capitalist history to show that African American women were considered slaves.
Cooking in Old Creole Days, a 1904 cookbook by Celestine Eustis with an introduction by S. Weir Mitchell, has sought to preserve the traditional meals prepared by proud Creole Aunties and Mammies. Mitchell expresses his affections for the southern cook in his introduction as he describes the "marvellous skill of the Southern cook." Mitchell's introduction sheds light on the racial differences between a white female homemaker and an African American homemaker. He states that "as a race, we – colonial Americans – are certainly not gifted with culinary talent, nor have I ever heard of an attempt to patent a recipe or new salad." The introduction goes on to state Mitchell's observations of the Creole Aunty homemaker and her merriment about her duties. "She was usually a fat woman of middle age, with a gay bandana kerchief about her head- proud of her art, somewhat despotic and usually known as Aunty." The collection of recipes in the book are listed in both English and French, as the traditional Creole people in America south were mainly of French descent. There are also seven illustrations throughout the cookbook depicting African American Creoles. In addition to these illustrations, there are also seven hymns accompanying the illustrations that in Mitchell's introduction account for the many Creole songs that would be sung during homemaking duties. This cookbook was published to preserve the traditional Creole cuisine and recognize the hard labour executed mainly by African American slaves in the American south.
The recipe I chose was one for Jumballya. The recipe was the most informative recipe for Jumballya in the cookbook and was one of three within the cookbook. The recipe is detailed enough that I was able to complete it without questioning the steps. Unlike the modern recipes we commonly see, this recipe and the entire cookbook are written as paragraphs and not as lists. This characteristic makes referring back to the recipe difficult as it is not as simple to refer to a place in a section to refer to a line of a list. All of the recipe ingredients were easily accessible to find in the modern grocery stores, and I did not have to make substitutions. The ingredients listed for the specific recipe are as follows:
A good-sized chicken, cut as if for fried chicken
Half a pound of ham, sliced into 1-inch pieces
A spoonful of lard
A spoonful of onions, cut fine
Three large tomatoes, sliced, or two spoonfuls of canned tomatoes
A little parsley
Two and a half cups of water
1 cup of well-washed rice
One teaspoon of butter
The cooking instructions were easy to follow and even provided a trick to prevent the rice from burning to the bottom of the frying pan. In total, the dish took me about 45 minutes to complete. I was extremely surprised by the dish's flavour; it was hearty and comforting, like modern Jambalaya, although it missed all of the flavourings from spices and aromatics apparent in modern Jambalaya. Before adding in copious amounts of Creole seasoning, I brought some to my Baba (Grandmother to try as she cannot handle spice, and to her delight, she enjoyed the dish and asked for the recipe.
Although it only took me 45 minutes to complete, this recipe would have taken a homemaker in the 19th century a lot longer to make. I had the luxury of going to my local Sobeys and purchasing a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken and a pre-cooked chunk of ham. The homemakers that created this recipe would have had to either buy a dead chicken from a local butcher or go to the family's farmyard to kill their own live chicken. The same would have been done for ham. The skill of having to catch a live chicken or pig to kill it then and butcher the carcass appropriately to get as much viable meat as possible from the animal is extremely time-consuming and requires immense skill. As modern innovation and the swift shift to extreme consumerism, a recipe that would have taken a highly-skilled homemaker upwards of 10-12 hours to complete, took an unskilled elementary home cook 45 minutes to complete. Although my dish turned out favourable, and I could achieve success in completion, this dish would not have been remotely close to what the original recipe would have looked or tasted like. The consumer evolution of the food industry has morphed the simple ingredients listed above from homegrown items to GMO and additive enhanced things that are less flavourful than the homegrown ingredients of the 19th century.
The dish would have been served to the Aunty's or Mammy's owner and their family. The ingredients of the dish would have been readily accessible to the homemaker. Still, the protein ingredients of the dish would be too costly for a family that did not have a considerable amount of wealth to procure. A slave owner and his family would have had the means to either kill their animals for meat or purchase the desired meat from a local butcher. The Jambalaya that I popular in modern times would have been a recipe that the Aunty or Mammy would have fed to her own family. It would have been easier for her to procure cheaper protein options like shrimp, sausage and even wild chicken. The Creole spices that make modern Jambalaya so distinguishable would have also come from a slave's recipe that she would have fed her family. The spices would have added flavour to the dull and flavourless ingredients that she would have been able to find with her own resources.
As the Cooking in Old Creole Days cookbook was published to remember and recognize the meals that the enslaved Aunty's and Mammy's provided for their slave owners and their families, the cookbook highlights the recipes that were served to the affluent, white, American families residing in the American Creole south and not the recipes enjoyed by the homemakers and their families. The modern depiction of the Creole enslaved Aunty or Uncle is used to sell Aunt Jemima Syrup, Uncle Ben's Rice and Cream of Wheat porridge. The Cooking in Old Creole Days cookbook was inherently used to exploit the recipes stolen from the homemakers by the slave owner's wife and used to sell the nostalgia of a meal cooked by a slave to the then modern housewives of the American south in the early 20th century.
- Celeste
Recipe: Cooking in the Old Creole Days
