(belching)
- Girl!
Dang, that was--
- Deep.
- That was documentary.
(laughing)
(playful music)
- Hello, I'm Hannah Hart
and welcome to Edible History.
The show where we revere the foods of yesteryear.
Today we're serving up a Southern staple
as we explore the history of jambalaya.
When I think of jambalaya,
I think of a savory rice and seafood dish
with a bit of a Creole kick.
But is that really how this dish got its start?
To get the scoop on jambalaya,
I'm talking with Michael Twitty,
author of the 2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year,
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through
African American Culinary History In The Old South.
Can you tell me a little bit about your background
as a culinary historian?
- Culinary history is the history of how we cook.
My job is to interpret the food ways
of free people of color and enslaved people
in the colonial and antebellum period.
I want people to see in living color
our tradition is ancient, our tradition is multi-cultural,
and I'm extremely proud that some of those recipes
have come down to each of us in our households.
- So today we're gonna be exploring
the history behind jambalaya.
- Yeah.
- Let me tell you everything I know.
Jambalaya, it's got rice in it,
a very Creole cuisine, maybe, it's Southern.
- Right.
- And that's it.
- All of those things are apt.
Jambalaya for me is very Creole, very Cajun.
I think of a really delicious, one-pot rice meal,
not quite wet, not quite dry.
Some people think that black food is very prevential,
rural, gray, a comfort food.
It's much more complicated than that
because it's also apart of a global phenomenon
we call the African Diaspora.
In the Caribbean, in Louisiana, in South Carolina,
in Brazil, in Haiti,
there are all these different rice dishes.
So they could be as simple as peas and rice.
Rice was not indigenous to the New World
and so rice, along with plantains and bananas,
are brought from the African continent
and where enslaved people are disembarked,
to work on plantations and on mines,
those become staple foods.
- And so how did jambalaya become popular
across the rest of America, not just the South?
- Through migration, the great migration was the largest
free-will migration of Americans in American history.
And that was African-Americans leaving the South
going other places.
- So of the jambalaya we're gonna be making today,
where does that recipe come from?
- It comes from a beautiful woman named Abby Fisher.
And Abby Fisher was illiterate
but she produced one of the first black cookbooks,
published by the Women's Cooperative.
So she was born in Orangeburg, South Carolina,
she spends some time in Mobile, Alabama,
which has a much more Creole heritage
and then she ends up in San Francisco.
Abby Fisher's jumberlie is probably from
her experience in Mobile.
- So how is this recipe different from
the jambalaya we think of today?
- This is more of a southern precursor to that dish
and it's also very emblematic
of those tomato based, rice, and protein dishes
that are symbolic of the link between
Africa, the Caribbean, Afro-Latin American,
and the American South.
Bringing together all those different cultures.
- Wow, so jambalaya is quite literally a melting pot.
- Literally, a melting pot.
- Literally, thank you for sharing this history with me.
Let's put this history in our mouths.
- Yeah!
- Yeah, let's cook.
- Let's cook.
(upbeat music)
- Today, Michael, our expert,
is actually joining me in our Edible History kitchen.
So today's recipe comes from Abby Fisher's cookbook.
- What Misses Fisher knows about Old Souther cooking.
- From the Year 1881.
So Michael, would you please read the first step?
- "Take one chicken and cut it up,
"separating every joint and adding it to one pint
"of cleanly washed rice."
♪ Da da ♪
- No, don't make the chicken--
- Girl.
- Don't play with your food, sorry.
(laughing)
(playful music)
Yep, come here little chicken
thank you for your service.
Oh God, okay, here we go.
- Perfect!
- Yeah,
yep, there.
- Oh, I love it!
- Okay, you can do this next part.
Oo, you're gonna break it in half?
- There we go.
- Oh, sweet mother of God.
Look at her go.
So then we go like that.
Get them bones.
I can see why people just twist it off.
- [Michael] Yeah.
- There we go.
Yes!
- There it is.
- Okay, so I'll take this piece and toss it in the pot.
Okay, so next is?
- The thigh.
- I've never see somebody disassemble a chicken
I realized in real life.
Now, I can cut, I can help.
- Oh, you can do that, okay.
- Yeah!
- All right then.
- This little wing.
- Yeah boo.
- Teach me how to do the wing.
- [Michael] Kind of like at this little joint right here.
- [Hannah] Mm-hmm.
- [Michael] Gonna make it loose first.
- [Hannah] Make it loose, okay.
- Cut where there's a little bit freedom.
- Oh, okay.
Oh, I found it, I found the joint.
- [Michael] You found it?
- [Hannah] Found it.
- Yep. - Yep.
Oh God. (chuckling)
- [Michael] Where it's nice and soft.
- Yep, oh, there we go.
And...
- Look!
- Plop!
- [Michael] So we're gonna add the rice,
cool, we've added the rice.
- Step one is done, we've got our chicken,
we've got our rice, now it's time for us
to go and clean everything
before we come back for step number two.
Our next step reads,
"Take about a half dozen large tomatoes,
"scalding them well, and taking the skins off with a knife."
Michael, what does that mean?
- So it basically means, we're going to use boiling water.
- Mm-hmm.
- To de-skin the tomatoes.
And the first thing we're gonna do actually
to help the process,
so doing like a nice, deep X.
And then, what I'd like you to do,
is core the tomato.
Wa!
- Wow!
How'd you get it?
- [Michael] Turn, turn.
- Turn, turn, turn, turn, turn,
oh, hey, we got it!
Sha-boom, hmm.
- So we got to get these in there.
- Great.
Using this?
- [Michael] Yep.
- [Hannah] Very safe.
- [Michael] We can do more, we can do two or three first.
- [Hannah] Do three?
- [Michael] Mm-hmm.
- [Hannah] Okay, here we go, bling.
- We're gonna let those do their little dance,
little water dance.
(humming a little ditty)
And we're gonna just let them go for about 45 seconds or so.
- Okay, now.
- Take them out one at a time.
- Oh, sorry.
- Madam!
(laughing)
- [Hannah] Place them in the ice bath?
- Yes.
Now, we gotta go these guys.
- [Hannah] Okay.
- [Michael] Okay.
- Do you want one of these now?
- So let me, give me one so I can test it.
Oh, this is perfect.
Black magic.
- Oh wow, okay, now, will you walk me through
what just happened?
- Yes.
So, I just pealed the tomato from the bottom,
looks like a love apple, doesn't it?
- Oh, it does.
- You know, there is a thing called love apples.
- Love apple.
- So, at the bottom.
- [Hannah] Peal, oh wow!
This comes off beautifully!
- [Michael] Mm-hmm.
- I've never done this to a tomato!
I've always thought that stewed tomatoes
just exclusively come from cans.
(dramatic riff)
- [Michael] Gentle, gentle, gentle.
- There we go, beautiful.
So now that we've gotten our tomatoes pealed.
- [Michael] Yep.
- It's time to slice them.
- Yep, just like this.
And we wanna do in half.
- In half, okay, so we just toss them in there.
- [Michael] Yep.
- I've got another one, how about this,
I'll peal and you cut.
- [Michael] Yes, ma'am.
- [Hannah] Sir, for you.
- [Michael] Yep, there you go.
- Thank you, thank you.
I find pealing things to be so oddly satisfying.
Like if I was in a kitchen,
I would want this to be my sous chef job.
- You like smashing garlic or pealing garlic?
- I do a little (mouth clicking)
and then I peal it off.
What about you?
- Ever do the jar thing, where you go shake shake,
like you're churning butter?
- Oh?
- It never worked for me.
- [Hannah] Yeah.
- Wanted to just smash it
and just throw the peels away.
- [Hannah] Boom, just peel off the rest.
- It holds no appeal for me.
♪ It's true love ♪
- One thing we're gonna do
to flip the script just a tiny bit
is we're gonna put a little bit of our salt
on top of the tomatoes first
because we want to draw out the moister.
- Even though Abby Fisher says to do it last?
Aunt Abby is watching you right now.
- [Michael] I know.
- [Hannah] And she is shaking her head
and she's thinking, child, I told you
(laughing)
at the end.
(playful music)
All right tomatoes are done,
what's our next step?
- "Then cut in small pieces, two large pieces of sweet ham
"and add to the rest, seasoning high with pepper and salt."
- So, is this our sweat ham?
- Nope! - What?
- It is lamb bacon.
(foreign language)
Well, first of all, the pork eating quotient among us
is not high between you and me.
But also, let's not forget that
this dish starts off in a part of West Africa where
people don't even really eat pork.
But people improvised all the time.
- So how are we gonna cut this?
- So we're gonna do like chunks.
And I want you to go like this.
- Like dice!
- Yep, dice in darts.
This is lamb bacon.
- So there really is no proper meat
or this is the way to, quote en quote, do it.
- Right.
- This is more like, yeah, put in the protein that you have
and season accordingly.
- Exactly.
- Let me see, so this is lamb bacon, I've never had it.
How much flavoring does this bring?
- A lot.
- Oh my God.
- So what are you getting from that?
- I love the flavor of the fat itself.
- And a little barbecue-ness.
- It kinda is, it's exactly like that.
All right, so we add these in.
You know, I have to say, I really love
the attitude towards cooking that encourages improvisation.
- That's one of the most problematic words in food
is authenticity because that changes
from hour to hour, second to second, day to day.
- That's why we put the salt in first.
And our last step, cook it for 25 minutes.
- Okay, one little problem.
- Yeah?
- You gotta stir that.
- Stir it?
- To incorporate.
- Oh, okay.
- The chicken's at the bottom, gently my girl.
- You know, I really kind of forgot
we even had chicken in here, not gonna lie.
(laughing)
- [Michael] Go ahead and mix it together.
- Okay.
- [Michael] Cool, this looks kind of incorporated.
- All right, so now our pot is done.
- Yep.
- Let's cover it and cook it for 25 minutes.
- Cool, I will do the covering,
you'll do the heating.
- Okay.
So, I'm gonna go out on a lamb here...
- Oh-oh!
- And say we'll be right back.
- Okay.
(expectant music)
- Okay, would you call it
really making something out of mutton?
(chuckling)
- I'm gonna let you do that one.
- Thank you.
Anyway, it's been 25 minutes, our food should be done.
Michael, will you do the honors?
- Sure.
- [Together] Oo!
(gasping)
- Yum, wow!
It is, for putting no water in, I mean,
look at that, boil and bubble.
- I'm so shocked.
- Oh my God, this smells so good.
How's this look to you, Michael?
I mean, it looks good to me.
- It's colorful.
- [Hannah] It's colorful.
- [Michael] Got a little sound.
- [Hannah] It's got a good sound?
- [Michael] Bubbling away.
- It talks, it speaks to you.
- A little, it speaks to me.
- It's got a little good look
but really it comes down to how it tastes.
Let's give it a taste.
- Okay.
(exuberant music)
- So, here we go, our 1881 recipe for jambalay.
- Okay. - Okay.
Mm, mm.
I don't really matter to me what I think,
I think it's delicious.
Michael, what do you think?
- It's like smokey, and flavorful,
the chicken is really tender.
And the salt and the hot pepper and the fresh tomato,
got a lot of layers to it.
- You know, there's no paprika,
there's no garlic, there's no onion,
there's none of these like flavor agents
we usually use.
I'm not gonna lie, I think it's one of the best things
we've ever had on this show.
- For real, for real.
- Better than the lasagna?
- Yeah, a lot better than our lasagna.
Our lasagna had cinnamon in it.
- Bless your Hannah heart.
- Thank you.
- Who do you think would win in a cook off,
you or Abby Fisher?
(gasping)
Heard it here first.
Thanks everybody for watching this video.
Thank you to Michael for being here.
- Thank you.
- If you wanna find more of Michael,
go and check out his book The Cooking Gene,
or follow him on anywhere online @thecookinggene.
Jam-buh-by-a, jam-buh-bly-a.
(laughing)
Misses Fisher's jumberlie was one of the tastiest recipes
we've featured on Edible History.
She was able to get so much flavor
out of a few, simple ingredients and a lot of ingenuity.
This recipe shows why jambalaya has stood the test of time,
and to this day, remains a staple of Southern cooking.