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“Mimi, I want stuffing and
mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving this year,” blurted out my
eight year old granddaughter to her grandmother. “We don’t
do stuffing, we cook dressing,” my wife politely countered
as I did a double take.
While Thanksgiving and
Christmas are also about the intensely social elements of
football, family and friends there is, perhaps, nothing more
culture-specific than our food when talking about holiday
celebrations. And, more importantly, for the uninformed,
black culinary practices provide opportunities for cultural
learning experiences.
An increasingly
multicultural society where inter-cultural and
inter-generational holiday celebrations are taking place
heightens the opportunity for the unenlightened to commit an
embarrassing cultural faux pas while having fun at black
holiday gatherings.
In his blog post “How to
Survive Black Thanksgiving as a Non-Black Guest,” author
Michael W. Twitty offers a few lighthearted and satirical
suggestions to avoid making these potentially awkward
missteps. “We don’t call cornbread ‘stuffing,’…we call it
dressing,” echoing my wife. “Calling it ‘stuffing,’ is a
dead giveaway you don’t know the quality (of the food).
Throw that boxed stuff away,” he humorously quips.
Yet, on a more relevant note, holiday
merrymaking is not only an opportunity for members of
diverse cultural and generational experiences to socialize
and learn from each other, special days like Thanksgiving
and Christmas also provide space to exchange the negativity,
stress and strain of daily contemporary living for
gratitude. Coming together around food – especially to say
thanks - is something that all cultures value and what is,
conceivably, the best way to keep our lives and
relationships sane and fresh.
A Black Thanksgiving or Christmas Menu?
A great holiday menu from the black experience might
include Roasted Turkey with orange
glaze, light and fluffy Savory Cornbread Dressing, Wild
Rice, Oven Roasted Fresh Green Beans, Scalloped Potatoes, Classy Southern Sweet Potato Pie and Peach Iced Tea.
Meanwhile, for the novice or the culturally
unbriefed, just remember that technique, texture and taste
are KEY. Here is our recipe for classic cornbread “Dressing”
from the black culinary perspective. Bon Appetit!
Willetta’s Light and Fluffy Savory Corn Bread Dressing
For Corn Bread
Ingredients:
·
3 cups Aunt Jemima self-rising cornmeal
·
2 cups buttermilk
·
3 eggs
·
1 stick of butter
Preparation:
Mix the cornmeal, buttermilk and eggs together until the
batter is smooth. Melt the butter in a large skillet and
pour the butter into the batter. Mix well and then pour the
batter into the skillet. Bake at 400°F for 45 minutes or
until the cornbread is firm and brown.
For Sausage Dressing
Ingredients:
·
8 chicken thighs
·
1lb savory sage sausage
·
1 large onion (chopped)
·
1 large green bell pepper (chopped)
·
2 cups seasoned croutons
·
4 tbsp dried sage
·
2 bay leaves
·
4 eggs
·
1/3 cup olive oil
·
4 cups chicken stock
Preparation:
Season the chicken thighs with kosher salt, black pepper,
onion powder and paprika. Lightly coat a 4-quart Dutch oven
with olive oil and heat over a medium heat. Place
the seasoned chicken thighs in the Dutch oven
and lightly brown on both sides. Then, add 4 cups of chicken
stock, along with the bay leaves and simmer for one hour or
until the chicken is tender to make chicken stock. Remove
the chicken from the stock when tender and shred from the
bones disposing the skin. Set the chicken aside.
Crumble cornbread into the chicken stock. Add the croutons
and stir, allowing the dry ingredients to absorb the chicken
stock.
In a large skillet, add sausage, onions and bell pepper and
sauté over a medium heat until the sausage is thoroughly
cooked.
Combine the chicken, sausage, onion and bell pepper with the
cornbread chicken stock and crouton mixture in a 9x13 deep
casserole dish. Add olive oil and stir. Whisk the eggs in a
separate bowl, adding about 2 heaped tablespoons of dressing
mixture to temper the eggs. Then pour the eggs into the
dressing and season with sage to taste. The dressing should
have the consistency of the corn bread. You can adjust if
needed by adding water.
Bake at 350°F for approximately 1 hour.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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