- [Lucas] Hundreds of years ago,
the wealth of the American South built enormous mansions
and vast plantations of cotton, tobacco, and sugar.
That all came at a cost, of course.
A deeply felt human cost,
paid with thousands upon thousands of black lives.
Enslaved men, women, and children taken from Africa
and brought to America through the ports
of Savannah, Beaufort, and Charleston.
The enslaved persons brought their agricultural knowhow
with them.
And crops like rice, okra,
and yams thrived under their expertise.
We're here today with B.J. Dennis,
a Charleston-based chef and historian,
who's not only a great cook,
he's dedicated much of his professional life
to preserving the Lowcountry culinary traditions
of his ancestors, the Gullah or Geechee people
of the Sea Islands off the coast
of South Carolina and Georgia.
- B.J., thank you for bringing me here.
- I brought you to one of the hearts of Gullah culture.
- First of all, what does that mean?
I hear Gullah and Geechee.
Is that the same thing?
- Well you know, on the Sea Islands of Georgia,
they all say they're Geechee.
In South Carolina we say we Gullah,
but in the city of Charleston we say we Geechee.
It's all the same culture.
- Okay.
- The language, music, food,
the Africanisms that we held on to
that came from West Africa and the West Indies.
That's pretty much the heartbeat of Gullah culture.
They stayed on the Sea Islands
'cause the Sea Islands were very separated
from the mainland.
And through that, we held onto a lot of our Africanisms.
The ring shout, praise house, the food,
which you're getting ready to taste.
- Mm-hmm.
- And on Edisto Island, Mrs. Emily is probably the matriarch
of this island.
She's a living legend.
This 85-year-old woman who still cooks for 100-plus,
cooking on the island since her younger days.
For me, there's nothing better than sitting with my elders
'cause they have so much to share with me.
That's why I brought you here.
- Hello!
- I'm gonna wipe my feet before I come in the door.
- Yeah, how you doing?
- I'm here.
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you, too.
- Hi there, I'm Lucas.
It's nice to meet you.
- Same here.
- Thank you for having us, thank you for having me.
- Yes.
- I'm doing this,
she been doing this way before I was even a thought.
You're never gonna get anything more authentic than
what we're about to do right here, with her, so.
- Well, we're gonna do parsley rice.
You don't see that nowhere in the restaurant or,
we're gonna do red rice, broccoli, cauliflower,
carrot salad, stuffed whiting.
- Spring bass?
- Spottail bass.
- Spottail bass, yes.
It's spottail season, so they nice and...
- Yes, fresh.
- She's gonna lead us to where we need to be, so.
- Join the band.
- Put me to work.
Tell me what to do or tell me to get out of the way.
- I'll tell you what you can do.
- Great.
- Wash this here. - Absolutely.
- Okay B.J., you know what I want you to do for me?
- Yes, ma'am.
- I want you to cut me some parsley.
- [Lucas] Mrs. Emily, what are you making right now?
- [Emily] Parsley rice and red rice.
- [Lucas] You were born and raised on this island.
- [Emily] Right here on this island, mm-hmm.
- And five or six generations
of your family before you, yeah?
- [Emily] Yes, this is the most blessed place in the world,
'cause everybody that lives here,
they look out for each other.
Look right in that cabinet, you'll see a can
of tomato paste.
- [Lucas] Now I've heard people call you the queen
of this island.
- [Emily] Really?
- [Lucas] That's what some people say. (Emily laughing)
Why do you think they call you that?
- [Emily] I guess because I am the most caring person
for the island and I love to take care of people.
I've been doing that all my life
and I like to cook and feed people.
I worked in one spot for 46 winters
and had six children and never missed a day for work.
- Wow!
- Can you believe that?
I worked there as a little girl,
washing the dishes in the kitchen.
And then 20 years later, the cook died,
the housekeeper died, so then everything fell in my lap.
You know, every day I go I said,
"I'm not coming back tomorrow cause it's too much."
- Have you heard of red rice before?
The same family as jambalaya,
which also goes back to the lineage of jollof.
- Okay.
- They say the sign of a great cook in Charleston is
how your red rice comes out.
- [Lucas] What's tricky about it?
- [B.J.] That tomato-to-water ratio is key.
- [Emily] Don't ever put too much tomatoes,
'cause if you put too much tomatoes,
it comes out red, red, red.
- Too tomato-y?
If that's a word.
We are pretty much the descendants of folks who came
from the rice-growing areas of West Africa.
- Right.
- You know, Senegal is known for thiéboudienne
which is their national dish,
which a lot of folks say is the beginning
of the whole jollof rice.
- [Lucas] Okay.
- [B.J.] But it started in Senegal with thiéboudienne,
which is a Senegalese rice and fish dish.
Typically a red-tinted rice with tomato paste or
fresh tomatoes. We usually do red rice here with fried fish
and rice was pretty much what made this city rich.
Unfortunately, it became rich off the knowledge
and the culture of the West Africans.
So what we have right here, Creole rice from Trinidad,
Moruga Hill rice.
The Merikins are an ethnic group in Trinidad.
They are descendants of Gullah Geechee people
from the Lowcountry, particularly in Georgia,
and here in South Carolina.
And they're called Merikins because when they went
to Trinidad, people knew they're from the States.
And with them, they took this rice.
We thought that this may be related
to the West African glaberrima rice.
A lot of people think of rice with Asia.
Rice, also in West Africa, goes back seven,
eight thousand...
So this is Sea Island white rice, peas, and okra.
- You're gonna be amazed,
'cause we're gonna do magic now, right in front of your eye.
- [B.J.] She's gonna stuff it into this beautiful spottail,
fillet the bone, she's gonna sew it.
- [Emily] And bring me the rice.
Gonna need somebody to hold it for me.
- [Lucas] I'll hold it for you.
- [Emily] Okay.
- [Lucas] Like a little baby.
A little baby fish.
- Have you ever see this before?
- Never.
- [Emily] Press it in, you see.
- [Lucas] Press it in?
- [Emily] Yeah, press it in.
This is the real thing.
- [Lucas] This is it, get your hands in it!
- [Emily] That's right.
Doctor's gonna operate now.
Everything is so still.
- [Lucas] (laughing) It's like you're doing surgery!
Everyone has to be very quiet!
- [Emily] Now look right up there, on that sink.
You see an apple?
- [Lucas] Yes.
- [Emily] Wash that apple off and cut it in half for me.
- [Lucas] Okay.
- [Emily] Scoop that out.
- [Lucas] Scoop that out? Okay.
- Where you at?
Bring it here.
- There's a lot of stuff in here. (laughing)
- Man, I'm gonna fire you.
- I'm going as fast as I can!
- One apple - I know, I know.
- He takes 15 minutes.
- [Lucas] I just wanted it to be perfect for you.
- Pour me some juice right here.
Okay, okay, that's enough.
All right, pour that juice in there.
- [Lucas] What is it about the connection with food
that's so important with your culture
and with Mrs. Emily's culture?
- You know, it's a really direct connection back
to the motherland.
The rice, the okra, the eggplant,
the one-pot cooking, the slow cooking.
All these things are so synonymous
to how they eat in West Africa.
You know, a lot of these dishes you only saw at home,
you didn't really see them in the mainstream restaurants.
You know, Charleston in particular and the Sea Islands,
be it from working class, even in the,
quote-unquote, homes of the elite,
this was the cuisine that they would eat.
Charleston, at that time, was 70% free and enslaved people.
Their culture kinda was the heartbeat,
even though it was suppressed.
Through food.
- You know how a lot of people say,
well, it's food and don't try to mix in politics or history,
but the fact is, it's so connected.
And so how do you discuss Southern cuisine?
- I think, for me as a chef, I have an obligation
to talk about these stories.
I can't just cook this food or go back and look at the past,
look at old recipes, without knowing that some people,
they were house slaves.
Sometimes if you burnt something, that was a punishment.
They had to be great cooks.
I call it suppressed greatness.
- Mm-hmm.
- You had free people, too,
who owned restaurants and hotels in Charleston.
- Okay.
- During that time period, too.
And their stories are not talked about either.
Charleston and New Orleans, enslavement in these cities
were very different than a lot of other places
'cause you had the market where it was people of color
who sold the goods, sold the vegetables, you know?
And sometimes eventually be able to buy their own freedom.
This story is so complex
and food takes it in so many directions.
And like, for me, and this world now,
with all the social media and all this,
I've been blessed to get a lot of notoriety from that,
but there were people before me who've been doing this.
And if I don't use my platform to showcase those
who've been doing this work, then I'm at fault.
I wanna be around the elders,
I wanna hear them crack their teeth.
Crack their teeth is when they talk, I wanna hear them talk.
When they cracking their teeth, I wanna hear them talk.
- What do we need to do, as people in the food community,
to honor the past?
- Acknowledge the roots of what you're doing sometimes.
And it's not for everybody.
You know, and I have to admit that I have a passion
for culture and history,
especially knowing my history and my roots.
And I happen to be a cook.
If I can say one thing,
just know what you're cooking sometimes.
I mean, like you won't believe
how many chefs think gumbo comes from France.
And when gumbo is an African word for okra.
You know, sometimes we gotta stop and study.
Sometimes it's more than just cooking, you know,
'cause the food tells a story.
- [Lucas] Mrs. Emily is a one-woman wrecking crew, here.
What are we making now?
- [Emily] Icing for the rum cake.
- [Lucas] Mm, brown sugar.
- [Emily] That's right.
I need some butter.
- [Lucas] Okay.
(beater whirring)
Can I grind the walnuts?
- [Emily] Yes, you can.
Now you have never tasted anything like this.
You'll think you're dying and going to heaven.
Put it on.
Does that look good?
- We are so lucky and fortunate to be here
with this amazing spread of food prepared by Mrs. Emily.
Thank you.
- You're quite welcome.
- Could you just tell us what we've got here?
- You've got stuffed spottail bass with parsley rice,
you got red rice, brown rice, you got vegetable salad,
and a lemon cake.
- And then what is in these mysterious jars?
- [Emily] Some homemade muscadine wine.
- And this looks so good, I think we should eat it.
- Let's say the blessing.
- Lord, make us thankful for this food that we're about
to receive, to nourish our body, but not our soul.
Make us mindful of those
that are less fortunate than we are.
Thank you for family and friends.
These and all other blessings I'm asking in your son,
Jesus' name, Amen.
- [All] Amen.
- Thank you.
- [Lucas] Thank you so much.
- [Emily] You gotta take a little of each.
- [Lucas] Thank you.
I've love to talk a little bit about food traditions,
here, on the island, preserving those traditions.
- I don't know if these young folks is
gonna carry on this tradition,
because see, the parents don't cook this kind of food
and the kids substitute.
When I was coming up,
whatever our parents put on that table,
if you didn't eat, you go to bed hungry.
- How does it make you feel when you see younger people,
like B.J., wanting to prepare these kinds of foods
and keep these things alive?
- Good, makes you feel good,
because you know what?
Somebody have to carry on,
but ain't everybody gonna do that.
- [Lucas] Tell us a little bit about some
of the significance, culturally,
of some of the dishes that we're eating.
- [B.J.] We can start with this red rice.
I mean, red rice and jambalaya are very similar.
This rice, right here, came from the Lowcountry
and went to Trinidad in the 1800s.
And then this dish, you know, to me, is a special.
So you're getting the, kinda, full gamut.
- I mean, what's interesting is having
so much going on in one dish.
- [B.J.] And it's indicative of the culture.
Slow cooking, one-pot meals,
everything you need is in one pot.
- Our grandparents taught us to love and to share.
And, you know, love is such a powerful word.
Big and powerful, but some of the black don't know it,
some of the white don't know it.
They don't know what that word means, to say love.
But if they just can pick up the share and turn it down
for a new world and a new time,
it will be a beautiful world to live in.
Because you know one thing?
You will learn how to share, you will learn how to care,
and to love other people.
- I think food is maybe that one common denominator
that can bring every body to the table.
I'm seeing it, I mean, I'm seeing people my age and younger
who say, wait a minute,
let's embrace our culture and our roots.
And I'm fortunate to still be able to live in the culture
and be able to go and sit with somebody like Mrs. Emily,
sit with my grandmother, who's 91,
and just have a conversation.
I don't know how much longer I'll be able
to hear those voices.
And then soon, it's gonna be me at that spot, you know?
If I'm blessed enough to get to that point.
And I wanna be able to give the things that I've been told
to that next generation.
- B.J., we're here on the porch rocking chairs
with the legend (Emily laughing)
of the islands, Mrs. Emily.
What does being here do for you?
- It gives me a peace of mind.
I'm at ease.
Every other thing that I got going on, you know,
trying to get this gig and do this,
that all goes away.
- The meal that you prepared for us was...
- Love it.
- Was so delicious.
- Yeah, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
- The red rice, that stuffed, beautiful stuffed fish,
the parsley rice, there was a lot of rice.
- Mm-hmm, that's the tradition for the island, is rice.
- Absolute honor, thank you for making this happen.
Thank you, Mrs. Emily, for allowing me to visit you
and to help you make this beautiful meal,
even though I almost messed it up.
It was amazing to learn from you, seriously,
it was incredible to watch you work
and this has been a real pleasure.
- It was a pleasure having you all.