Feeding Memories: A Conversation with Writers who Write About Food

By

Rochelle Spencer

Tara Christina, Dera R. Williams, and Shannon Holbrook are not sure what an Afrofuturist cookbook looks like; however, they are sure of the intersection of food, memory, ancestry, and story. Still, knowing these talented women, their gifts for storytelling and their knowledge of food and their ability to create community wherever they go, I tried (the Italian Futurists created a cookbook–we Afrofuturists can cook too). But Tara Christina, Williams, and Holbrook show us how African Diaspora-inspired cooking preserves memory and vital connection. We see food representing survival, resilience, and the deliciousness of culture: who can forget the mysteriously burned biscuits in Toni Morrison or Octavia Butler’s vegetable gardens?  (Wouldn’t an Afrofuturist cookbook allow us to live the dream? No one’s feeling this, but it could work).

Tara Christina is a writer and educator with degrees in holistic nutrition and is the founder and CEO of Tara’s Teas, an artisanal line of organic, loose leaf tea blends; Williams’ work appears in several anthologies and you can find her food-related writing on her blog; Holbrook is a writer and wine and food consultant who has organized prominent food-writing events throughout the Bay Area. We interviewed Miller by phone and Williams by email; Holbrook has contributed a recipe that we’ve paired with an AfroSurreal story (still trying–that Afrofuturist cookbook is needed!).

Q:  What’s your relationship to food or food culture?

Dera: I am the daughter of a southern-bred woman with southern traditions in cooking. My mother cooked a lot of the same dishes she was raised on. Some of the dishes Mom made when I was younger included smothered pork chops and fried potatoes for Saturday breakfast. We had 

collard greens, creamed corn with fried chicken. We lived in an area that was rife with blackberries, They grew wild among the neighborhood on 24th Avenue in Oakland. The blackberry cobblers were the best. One of my favorites were the fried pies. They were small oval hand-sized fried fruit pies, usually apple, peaches, and apricot. They were served with dinner. I just learned two years ago, the official name for them was hand pies as evidenced on the PBS cooking show, Somewhere Southern. One of the Black chefs here in Oakland is now selling hand pies in one of her spaces. And then there are the tea cakes. I wrote about tea cakes in my blog: 

https://derarwilliams.com/2020/04/29/vanilla-memories/. 

Tara: I’ve always been into food. I have the African American side of my family and the White side of my family and I grew up eating a wide variety of foods from both. My upbringing was primarily with my Black family and we ate traditional southern foods. I was blessed to have amazing women in my family and I spent a great deal of time learning to cook by watching them. As a teenager, I had to cook for myself because my mother worked a lot. Growing up in San Francisco, I was also exposed to many different cultural foods, something I feel very grateful for. Now, I primarily cook for myself and my son, though I make him cook too.  

Q: So that’s probably made you more focused on nutrition?

Tara: When my son was about 18 months old, I began to study  nutrition due to some health challenges. I had a gluten allergy and when I cut gluten out, my entire life changed. I had to incorporate a few tricks to get my son to eat more healthy. I would make him these mini pancakes and put molasses so he could get irom… I entered into formal holistic nutrition studies and after graduating in 2010, I launched a nutrition practice. Because I had also studied herbalism off and on, in 2013 I launched my tea line as a compliment to my practice.

 I love food, but am not as restrictive as I was. I appreciate food and appreciate Black southern food, and also, what my grandmother cooked on the White side. I also learned to adapt different recipes by making them gluten free and using coconut sugar. I love to cook, it’s a huge part of my very being. When I’m in the kitchen,  I feel like I’m cooking with my Ancestors, many of the women who raised me. Everything I know, I know because I was in the kitchen with them.

Q: What food-related project(s) are you working on now?

Dera: I'm incorporating food into my two major projects. In my childhood story collection, I speak of the foods mentioned above, as well as the foods of my best friend's family whose parents are from New Orleans. I learned about Creole and Louisiana foods such as Gumbo and rice dishes. I'm finding that rice was universal throughout the south. 

Q: Food seems tied to location?

Dera: In my Great Migration novel, I have four women from four different states and their regional food traditions are incorporated. Smithfield ham from Virginia, Texas Barbeque, Louisiana Creole cuisine, my Arkansas grandmother’s chocolate pie and chess pies. 

Q: That’s a lot of writing and research.

Dera: I am also researching my sister writer Tara Christina’s project on Food memories. I am helping with research and gathering of stories of our ancestors. 

Q: So you see food as important to conversations about the Diaspora?

Dera: Food is definitely an important component of the African Diaspora. How we obtained our food, how we found a way out of no way to feed our families and improvised ingredients. Our food is the basis of many dishes. Rice, okra, yams, those are foods that Black people either cultivated or brought with them from the Motherland. Soul Food is an integral part of the American cuisine. In restaurants all over, our people are in the kitchen preparing the foods the public eats. Food is a part of Diasporic Africa. 

Tara: We want people to talk about food and traditions. I have an Instagram page based on food and memories, and a blog called Nourishing Memories. I love food and celebrating different traditions and want to share that with the world. There are so many similarities throughout the Diaspora, like how many dishes are based on Jollof rice… I’m now learning more about my Cape Verde heritage and I discovered many similarities to my Texas ancestors… It’s beautiful for us to get together and have these conversations. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love food.

Ginger Sparkler by Shannon Holbrook

Image of margarita drink, with lime via Creative Commons and Akke Monasso; Created: 30 September 2009 

Ingredients

2 tablespoons sugar

1 lemon, sliced into wedges

3 tablespoons candied ginger, cubed for garnish

1 bottle chilled sparkling wine

Ginger-Infused Simple Syrup:

Simmer water, 1/2 cup sugar and sliced ginger in a small saucepan for 10 minutes. Remove the saucepan from heat and stir in vodka. Chill for 2 hours or overnight. When ready to serve, strain to remove the ginger pieces. The Cocktail and Garnish: Spread the sugar into a thin layer on a plate. Coat the rim of the glass with the juice from the lemon wedge and immediately dredge in the plate of sugar.

Add a few pieces of candied ginger to each glass. Pour 1 tablespoon of the ginger-infused simple syrup over the ginger pieces and top with the sparkling wine until the glass is 2/3 full.

From “Fiction with Flava,” a presentation hosted by Litquake and Press Works on Paper