Celebrating Juneteenth Through Food – Lab 067

We're back. Did you miss us?

I know I miss talking to you and the rest of our friends last week.

Yes, but last week's episode, all about the science of celebration, was the perfect setup for this week's episode. We're talking about celebrating June teenth.

That's right. Last week we talked about the temporal aspects and the food and different traditions that are all around celebrations, and so it's so important for us to consider the food around the celebration of Juneteenth.

My stomach is growling.

Oh wait, I think our legal team is saying we need to insert a disclaimer T T Yes, if you.

Are listening to this episode right now and you have not eaten, please go and grab a snack. You will get hungry. Please, this is your warning. Now, please go and grab snack. I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah and from Spotify.

This is Dope Labs.

Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes hardcore science, pop culture, and a healthy dosa friendship.

June teenth is right around the corner. It's coming up this Sunday.

Yes, and this week we're celebrating Juneteenth through food. Specifically, we're asking more about how people continue traditions and tell stories through food, and how people are innovating to create new takes on food and their celebrations and gatherings.

And of course we're going to talk about some amazing and delicious recipes that I am looking forward to trying myself.

Let's go ahead and get into the recitation.

But before we jump into Juneteenth foods, talk about the holiday itself. What do we know about juteenth.

We know it's the oldest celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.

Yes, on June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five, a Union general arrived at Galveston, Texas to tell enslaved African Americans that they were free and that the Civil War had ended. And this was two and a half years after President Lincoln had already issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and.

So Juneteenth, which was June nineteenth, quickly became an annual holiday where black people would gather, especially in Texas, with their families to pray and celebrate.

And it took the federal government more than one hundred years to catch up because Juneteenth only became a national holiday in twenty twenty one.

Was the government always late to the party.

We don't have enough time. In this episode.

Nineteen seventy nine, they were late for Black music, months late for Juneteenth. There are multiple dimensions of celebration, and we've talked about this in our Celebration episode, and one of them that we're focusing on today is food.

Food.

Food can be a way to learn history and to practice traditions and to connect with people. It's also kind of a way to mark the hope and renewal of a holiday.

Food is something that is universal all of us are eating, but the types of food you're eating and the way that you're eating the food can be unique to different cultures and communities and even just specific families. Black communities all over the country have different foods that they cook

Well, I think we want to consider all those things you just said and understand them about Juneteenth, So, like, what foods are important to Juneteenth and why like, what are the traditions behind them or what stories are they telling? I think I want to know how food helps us to celebrate Juneteenth specifically and connect us not only to one another, but to our ancestry. And when we consider the past and tradition, we always have to also look forward.

All right, let's jump into the dissection.

Our guest for today's lab is Nicole A. Taylor.

I'm a food writer and producer and the author of the first cookbook solely dedicated to Juneteenth foods, Watermelon and Redbirds, a cookbook for Juneteenth and Black celebrations.

Nicole is a food right and a master home cook. She brought her years of experience making food for her family and friends to Watermelon and Redbirds.

Nicole started writing the cookbook in twenty nineteen. She was living in New York City, and in her spare time, she'd work on the cookbook, typing notes in the subway, writing on the weekends. And in twenty twenty, that work took on additional meaning.

I was working on a story about Juneteenth for the New York Times, and that story morphed into so many different things because of the murder of George Floyd. And at that moment, that's when I knew that black people needed this book. They needed this cookbook, They needed joy, they.

Needed a guide, a road map.

Something tangible that was really a symbol of in sorrow, in sadness, we still celebrate, we still gather, We still want to put a smile on our face. We still want to sit and talk to our piets. And I knew, I knew it one hundred percent. And then now as we are safely returning back to gathering with family and friends, Hey, people want to cook, people want to be outside.

So, as Nicole said, one of the reasons she wrote this book was because she wanted to give people a culinary resource for the Juneteenth holiday.

I have been celebrating Juneteenth for more than ten years, and my apartment, my house has always been a place that people gather for Memorial Day, fourth of.

July, Homecoming weekend, you name it.

My place has always been the hub and the gathering spot for everyone, but particularly for black folks. And there's always a whole lot of food and a whole bunch of drinking. So I mean, why not put that in the cookbook and tell the stories behind it.

We can't talk about Juneteenth without talking about the cookout and barbecues when people gather together and spend time together to eat, eat.

And you know, we talk about this all the time, especially in the South. Cookout is the event. Barbecue is a type of meat at the cookout. But one thing I love about the cookout and for most summer celebrations, especially in my community, is that everybody eats.

That is very true, but it feels different when it comes to black people. With Like, when I show up for a black event, I have no worries. I usually know the food is going to be good, but if it's a non black event, I might need to have a snack before I get there.

No shade, but we must be a fad because we're celebrating Juneteenth. We're going to talk about the experience of the cookout, whether it's on June Teeth or any other day and consider everything that's happening. Yes, there's the food, but there are a lot of other sensory things you're going to experience that don't necessarily have to do with food but are really specific to black events.

For one, you roll up and everybody is dressed to the nines.

You can smell the perfume from your auntie where her bright red lipstick on, your aunt has his gatas on, and the music is blasting. You already know what music is going to be played at least one time, Frankie Bevering, Lee and Maze before I let go.

I know if you go to t T's cookout, they gonna playing Asap Rocky.

You know, it's just like sometimes you just gotta hear I love that, and that's my problem.

Oh gosh, y'all know I don't listen to that kind of music.

So we all have these experience as a cookout. And then there's the food. So let's start off with the sides. Nicole said. One of the things you can almost always find is potato salad.

When you move around to the dining table or to the table where all the food is set up, you see the potato salad and a universal question people ask us who the potato salad?

And I just.

Feel like those sensory things and those questions you don't oftentimes find them in non black barbecues there or non black baby showers or a block party. There are some cultural nuances that I feel like you can always find them.

You can always find them when there's celebration happening.

There's always something with the potato salad. But let's dive into what we consider to be special about Juneteenth foods.

Nicole walkers through some of her favorites in her book Watermelon and Redbirds. The book has an entire chapter dedicated to the most important drink of juneteen celebrations, the red drink.

I dedicated an entire chapter to the official slash unofficial drink of the Juneteenth Party.

And that's the red drink that is essential, the red drink.

Oh, the global the African diaspora, black people all over the world, we get the red drink.

It's important to highlight that red drink has a place beyond Juneteenth. Yes, on June teenth, but it's Juneteenth, and okay. It comes from a tradition of making tea out of hibiscus flowers, and Hibiscus is a plant that grows in tropical and subtropical regions. Nicole said that more and more farmers in the American South are growing it as well.

Black cultures all around the world have different versions of the red drink, and Nicole has a cheat sheet in her book about what this drink is called in different places.

This hibiscus tea minus the sweetener is known as beesop in Senegal, where it's the national drink, and in Africa it's called cardad, and the Caribbean is called sirel, not to be confused with the green herb. And in Mexico Aqua de Jamaica, and at Black American gatherings, and in pop culture it's called red drink. It's a ritual. It is a thirst quencher. Traditionally, if we go back, you know, decades, it would be hibiscus right in West Africa, you see steep hibiscus pods or tea in the Caribbean.

As it slave African people arrived in the Americas, that tradition continued, but it took on other forms like strawberries.

Creating strawberry lemonade for celebrations. It became a soda, a red pop. So that tradition of steeped hibiscus flower where you can find.

All over the world, where not only.

Black people but brown people too through the transatlantic slave trade, that blood, that redness, that fearlessness staying in us.

And so even now you see the red drink.

It may not be in the traditional form, but it's definitely on the table, and it may be spiked with Hennessy, or.

It may be spiked with tequila.

But you will see the red drink in some form at most, if not all black.

So it's so amazing how some of these traditions can last so long. They change, but their root stays the same.

Right, And when you say red drink, everybody knows what you're talking about. That's amazing.

And my friend Zakia, if you have not had the pleasure of attending one of her cookouts, she has her own very special red drink that she always has to whip out. If I'm coming, this is what I am looking forward to. And we call it Wattley water.

Yes, so for adults it might be a drink but a little alcohol. For kids it can be juice. But as Nicole said, it is still a product of your history. I did not know anything about the red drink.

Did you guys?

Look into your Spotify app right now, and there should be a pole and we want to know which red drinks have you heard of? Thinking about how traditions can change but can still hold a really deep significant that's kind of liberating because it gives you room to experiment and innovate in the kitchen. And that's something that Cold focused on in her book, taking those classics that people love and then making something new and delicious for me.

And this cookbook, I decided I would put some very classic things in the book, but maybe.

Do it a little bit different.

For example, I have this juicy, glorious chicken burger with white cheddar, and it's not that dry burger is like real nice and moist.

And why did I do that?

I have so many people who come to my gatherings and they're like, I'm not eating red meat.

So I got them. I got them.

I feel like Nicole has taking us to a Juneteenth party. We've had all different kinds of red drink. She's described an amazing burger. It's time for dessert, Yes, I am ready.

And since it's June, Nicole takes us right into ice cream.

What is the summer time without ice cream?

Particularly a nectarine roasted nectarine Sunday with caramel sauce and a honey vanilla ice cream.

I share that in my book.

So if you want to wow people with ice cream or a raspberry popsicle, you can do that.

Depending on where you are in the country, there might be a Juneteenth festival or parade. But Nicole said that if you don't want to do that and you would rather stay home, you can bring the party to you to your house.

I've included a whole chapter dedicated to what I call Americana festival food, like the funnel cake, the golden crispy fonnel cake. Not trying to toot my own horn, but my fonnel cake batter is totally not super sweet. I got my batter just right, sprinkled with powdered sugar, and in this cookbook, I give readers two options for toppings, mango and of course it's a very classic apple topping.

Let me tell you something, funnel cake is important to me. That is something that it is very important. I will stop at a fair that I have no intentions on attending for the funnel cake. Wow. It was a fair down the street and I was like, I'm sure they have fun okake.

I smell a funnel cake.

O cake in the turkey legs. Shoot, I will get a funnel cake in a turkey leg and it's time well spent.

Wow. See for me, it's the ice cream. I remember growing up and my grandma making ice cream in this like brown ice cream maker thing, the one you got the crank on the side. Yeah, it was like a special occasion thing. Put the ice in the salt, the ice in the salt. There you go.

Hm.

Now queensin art is making my ice cream and sometimes briars.

Well, let's take a break and when we get back we'll hear more from Nicole A. Taylor about juneteen foods and the place of food in this celebration.

We're back.

We've been talking to Nicole A. Taylor, cookbook author and master cook about June teen foods, their history, how they connect people and cultures in their place in the juneteen celebration.

We've talked about cookouts, potato, salad, red drink, all of it. Okay, ice cream, funnel cakes. You're gonna have to take an antacic at the end of this episode. But more importantly, we've been thinking about how food connects communities and also ties into our personal memories. We wanted to step back and look at foods in Black culture, food that is central and shared.

One is watermelon. This is a fruit from the African continent and it's the cousin of the cucumber and pumpkin, among other vegetables. For Nicole, watermelon brings up deep memories of her childhood.

That fruit is so much a part of my summertime.

I remember going in the grocery store when I was a young girl, and you would see the big brown tubs with the watermelon stack really really high, and I would be begging to grab the watermelon and put it in a buggy. And then we would check out, and I would get in the car and literally I would listen to the watermelon go back and forth on the floorboard of the car. And then you would get home and all day is like when are you gonna cut the watermelon? And my aunts and my mom they didn't

That story, to me is just pure joy.

It is the story of so many Black people in the American South, so many Black people who live in Oakland, black people who live in Chicago. It's a pretty much universal story about a fruit that really goes all the way back.

To the continent to where we're from.

There's so many other fruits and vegetables that connect Black people around the world.

I love that and it brings up my own memories too, and it's just really amazing. I think about how food is tethering people and communities, like we don't know each other, we're having a similar experience. It's wild.

Another food that black community share is sweet potatoes.

And I'm not talking about yams, but for real deal sweet potatoes, as Jessica Harris told us, and how on hogs yam is this hairy, very fibrous vegetables. But sweet potatoes is such a part of the African American really the black table, and that's a vegetable A lot of times we don't think about as being a universal thing no matter where you are, from Brazil to West Africa to South Georgia.

And this is why conversation about food is so much more than just food. When I reflect on growing up, I don't know that I really thought about the African diaspora. It wasn't that I didn't know these things to be true. It's just I wasn't exposed to different folks from the diaspora as a kid, right, and so everybody I knew

It's the stories behind it, right, It's the story like the newspaper we just talked about, and frying the fish on Friday and even putting to catch the grease you would put newspaper down. So what I think about it is I listen and I laugh. Sometimes I like sit back and go, oh my gosh, it's someone quote taking our food. But I know that beyond the.

Food, there is a bigger story.

It is attached to a person, it is attached to oftentimes, you know, unpaid labor. It is attached to migration, It is attached to our grandmothers, our mothers, or even our sisters or ourselves.

So I know that you can't.

Gentrify a cultural food because that means you're taking our stories, and our stories are in us. And I think, like with my cookbook and so many other black cook books on the market, what we're doing is telling the story, reminding people. You may be in love with collar greens or sweet potatoes, maybe in vogue now, but here's the story behind that dish or that food.

Wh Nicole talked about here. The connection between stories and food made me think about how holiday experiences are so tightly interwoven with food.

And we've been talking about how Juneteenth and how food and Black culture are so intertwined, But how does all of these things fit together. Nicole has thought about this a lot, and I'm sure it was a heavy load on her as the first person to write a book dedicated to June tenth foods. She said, cookbooks have a permanence to them, and she wanted to create a permanent resource for folks to have in their kitchens.

It's forever. You can't erase it. If it's online, it's like, oh wait, that website is down.

Or when your grandmother write downs her recipe and you pass it.

From person to person, or you keep that spiral bound.

Community cookbook or church cookbook, you hold on to the memories. And so for black cookbook authors, particularly for myself, documenting Juneteenth and Black celebrations is more more than just me telling my stories.

It's something to pass down to my son.

Nicole shared with us some of her own food experiences that she wants to pass on to her son and the future generations in her family.

I think it's waffles, waffles. I want him to master making a beautiful walk. I want him to own a very nice waffle maker, and I want him to remember how on Saturdays, even if it was a holiday or it was a regular.

Saturdays, that I'm in waffles. That is something that is everlasting. Is simple.

He can pass that on to his next door neighbors, kids, uncles, nieces, nephews. Yeah, I want him to know the feeling of his mother making him a waffle.

When Nicole wants to do showing her son how to make waffles, making them for him, having him pass that on, that shows how sharing food and traditions is just as important as the actual food.

It makes me think about like, yes, you enjoy like your grandma's cooking or your auntie who makes really bomb sweet potato pies, but what you may enjoy even more than that is the experience of being there with that person when it's time to break bread or watching them cook, you know, like seeing how they do things.

Yeah.

I actually just had a conversation about this with my uncle because he was asking me if I knew how to make like Joe Off rice and all these things. I was like, m no, not yet. He was like, all these years and you know know how to make it. I was like, part of the experience for me is sitting in the family room and my mom is cutting up onions, blending it up, the sound of the rice pouring into the pot and everything, and then starting to smell it as just her scooping it out and making

I think that's so important. I can think about things that I have learned, and then I put my own spin on them, so even though they were passed down to me, maybe I'm changing them in a way. And this is something that Nicole talked about because in her cookbook there's a lot of innovation. Some of the foods are classics, but there are also some creative spins on the classics, and it feels like there should be some room for that.

When I was researching this cookbook and more so not even the recipes. Talking to people about juneteen, the folks who are from Texas, from Galveston, or from other parts of the country who've been celebrating Juneteenth twenty and thirty years, I asked them that question, what's an essential Juneteenth food. I got a lot of answers Marguerita Hannah. She lives in Atlanta, born and raised in Galveston. After talking to her, she gave me permission to be as creative as possible

Few times a year.

I wanted to make sure in this book that you get the essentials, but you also get something that's that's different, that are showstoppers. Juneteen is a celebration, So at the same time that there are staples, classics, traditions, it's also about what the holiday means to you and how you want to feel, and that can be reflected in the food you make, share and enjoy.

So at the same time that we carry on these traditions, we see foods evolving over time, and some of that may have to do with being more aware about what's nutritional, what's healthy. We can reflect back to Lab forty eight, where we learned that your protein is only supposed to be about the size of a fist, and basically half your plate is supposed to be vegetables, and maybe that

I think we understand at the root of everything what our traditional foods are. Having a big pot of collar greens with pork fat to season it is a very traditional way of how we do greens.

But I'm happy to say my mom gets it.

Like when she sees me taking collar greens up and cutting them into really fine strips and putting olive wool in.

Garlic, She's like, oh, okay, you're doing it the same way and it tasts good. What else you got in there?

You see how she did that? Moving from a more traditional collar greens, it's something that is a little lighter with olive oil. In the cookbook, the Cole pushes the envelope even further.

Make a pesto out of all of these leaf and greens and put it into grains, maybe even a traditionally African grain like fonyo.

It's still connected.

I think we And when I say we, I think that Black Americans are very much in tune with what our traditional foods are and we are at the point we're cool with playing around with them or you know, putting our own spin to them.

Of course, some people might need to try new take some more traditional foods before they're on board, and the cole says, that's okay. The most important thing is keeping the stories alive. As you innovate with those foods, somebody's.

Gonna be like, what you just bring to the cookout? What did you just bring the Sunday dinner?

You did not?

Just put this in fill in the blank, and we're okay with it. And then we're okay with being the butt of the joke.

And then they taste it and I was like, oh, this is good. Can you bring this again? So I think that's how we've evolved.

We understand that one food, one dish, one fruit, one vegetable can have many legs, and we're fine with it as long as again back to the stories, that we keep the stories intact around the fruit of vegetables. That's the most important thing.

Of course, Juneteenth only happens once a year, but you can make meals special every day. I don't know if I have the energy to do it every day, but the cole says it doesn't have to be hot.

That's right. We asked Nicole what she recommended for people who might not be that confident in the kitchen.

In Watermelon and Redbirds, I have a chapter titled every Day June tea, every Day June teeth, And one of the dishes in that chapter is pretzel pounded chicken.

Yeah, it's amazing.

It is a chicken breast or thigh pounded very thin and breaded with pretzels bread crumbs. Before you bread it, you dip it in fish sauce. That's the secret. That's the secret sauce, that's the secret ingredient.

And a little egg and it's essentially as nitzel.

Right, But it's so gorgeous and it looks so fancy when you have a beautiful plate and you can put a.

Bed of a arugula or whatever lettuce you like on the bottom.

And if it's the summertime, or if it's not the summertime and you want to get some beautiful little tomatoes and put on top. Wow, it looks like something you would order in a restaurant. I feel like it's the perfect weak night meal that doesn't take that long.

And you can make two of them. If you're really.

Hunger, you can eat one, but you can just cut the other one up the next day and have it for lunch, put it in a sandwich or put it in a salad, and you cook them with gas punattended.

I love thinking about history through food.

Right, So exploring foods that bring us together on Junet shows that we can form a really strong connection, a connection people share across different countries, cultures, and different environments, you know, like the red drink, but also foods that are really specific to.

Like my state.

So I grew up in Maryland, So for us, at every cookout, you have to have bushels of crabs, and that is just a part of the experience.

Yeah, food carries forward traditions in ways that nurture us and others, so friends and family, and it's kind of a living tradition. Even though it's rooted in the past, it's dynamic and constantly.

I think one thing that we've heard multiple times from Nicoll is that it's also important to recognize where foods and recipes come from.

And to respect that.

I love this episode because you know, no matter if you're getting together safely with extended family or you're staying at home and doing something small and intimate, there are a lot of really great food traditions that you can do to celebrate Juneteenth or making some new traditions for your family to celebrate not just June teenth, but any Holladay.

Yes, that was so beautifully said t Tee. And it makes me think about some of our traditions and some of the things that we share together, and so I think we should put some of that stuff on our website, some of our own recipes to share some of our celebration with other folks.

What do you think.

I think that's a great idea, and we would love to get some recipes from all of you. Send it, we will make it. I love getting a recipe. My friends of kids always send them to me and I absolutely make them. So send us your recipes and send it to us on Instagram or Twitter, or you can call and tell us your recipe and we will let you know how it goes. Our one thing for this week is Watermelon and Redbirds, a cookbook for Juneteenth and Black celebrations by Nicole A. Taylor. You have to go

That's it for this lab. If you're feeling hungry like me, I want to hear about it. If you have a recipe idea, email it to us at contact at Dope labpodcast dot com. Call us at two zero two five six seven seven zero two eight and tell us what you thought about this lab, or give us an idea for a different lab you think we should do this semester. Remember, we'd like hearing from you. That's two zero two by six seven zero two eight.

And don't forget that there is so much more to dig into on our website. There'll be a cheat cheap for today's lab, additional links and resources in the show notes. Plus you can sign up for our newsletter check it out at Dope labspodcast dot com. Special thanks to today's guest expert, Nicole A.

Taylor.

You can find and follow her on Twitter at food Culturists and you can find all of her delicious recipes in her cookbook Watermelon and Redbirds available everywhere, and you can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs podcast. TT's on Twitter and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho.

And you can find Zakia at z said So. Dope Labs is a Spotify original production from Mega Owned Media Group. Our producers are Jenny Rattlet, mass Lydia Smith and Izzy Ross of Wave Runner Studios. Our associate producer from Mega Ownmedia is Brianna Garrett. Editing in sound design by Rob Smerciak.

Mixing by Hannes Brown.

Original music composed and produced by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sue. Viewer from Spotify, Executive producer Corinne Gilliard and creative producer Miguel Contreras.

Special thanks to Shirley Ramos, Jess Brison, Jasmine Afifi, Camu, Elolia, Till crack Key and Brian Marquis. Executive producers from Mega Oh Media Group All r us T t Show, Dia and Zakiah Wattley