Setting the Welcome Table.

Holiday cuisine and cookbooks by our favorite chefs ...

With the proliferation of cookbooks by black cooks, credit is finally being given where credit is due. While not always formally acknowledge as chefs, there is no question that African Americans brought good food to many a table.

Written records are sparse because it's hard to create a written record of what you've created when you're forbidden by law--as slaves were--to learn to read and write. But, bit by bit, it's been happening, thanks to people like Jessica B. Harris, Vertamae Grosvenor and, of course, Edna Lewis--still every bit as much a grand dame of American foods as Julia Child is of French foods.

An early chronicler of the cookbook-as-memoir, Lewis set the stage for enterprising food enthusiasts like Carol information, see "Good Eating by the Book") has never been out of print.

Ms. Lewis' cooking as well as her cookbooks drew praise from the legendary James Beard. She demonstrated the extent to which black cooks--along with black gardeners who grew foods for themselves and the "big house"--discovered "natural" foods on the plantations where they worked, a couple of centuries before Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck popularized them in California.

In her seminal works, The Edna Lewis Cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking and In Praise of Flavor, Ms. Lewis walked us through seasons of splendid meals. Some were prepared on the family farm where she grew up and some she developed during her years as a chef for Brooklyn's famed Gage & Tollner, then, later, at Nicholson Cafe in New York City.

Through her books, and subsequent cookbooks by others who have written about the African American culinary experience, we can simultaneously visualize where we've been in terms of food, and where we're going beyond the stereotypes.

Today, there are more cookbooks by black authors than ever before, but there are also more books by white authors who, in writing about the history of food, acknowledge the extent to which America's rich culinary traditions are indebted to black folks.

The fledgling Southern Foodways Symposium, affiliated with the Center for Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, brings together chefs, restaurateurs and food historians to examine the roots of regional foods. Ironically, Mississippi, in the heart of the deep South, is an ideal place to have such a gathering because Mississippi, the Carolinas, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia, were the beneficiaries of so much creative cooking by rarely acknowledged hands. Credit for recipes, once written, usually went to the person who wrote them, not the people who prepared the food.

In his book A Gracious Plenty, John T. Edge has collected hundreds of meals and memories from such notables as Edna Lewis, B.B. King, Shelby Foote and Albert Murray. Edge, the center's executive director, crisscrossed the South, seeking to document not just the origins, but the cross-fertilization of meals.

Marvin Woods, former executive chef at Cafe Beulah in New York City and at the critically acclaimed Savannah in Miami, reinterprets the food traditions of the Carolinas in The New Low-Country Cooking. For centuries Low-Country cooks have taken the diverse foods of Africa, France, Spain and the Caribbean and converted them into intriguing, enduring foods.

In this, his first cookbook, Woods shares historical information on how dishes and ingredients got their names, where they originated and the importance of Afro-American cooks in Southern life. At one time, the Low Country, which covers some 80 square miles between Charleston and Savannah, was the Fertile Crescent of the United States.

The Low Country was where slave ships docked with the regularity of a cruise ship line, disgorging the human cargo that survived the journey. These slaves brought with them native cooking traditions that combined with existing foods to yield an exciting culinary tradition that survives to this day.

In the 125 recipes in his new book, Woods, who lives in North Carolina, revisits this cooking culture, adding his own interpretation in recipes for Crab and Shrimp Pilau, Peach Tea Couscous, Sage and Cheese Biscuits and Carolina Crab Cakes with Dill Lemon.

Extending that cross-fertilization of culinary ideas, The Low-Country cook book was introduced at Aquavit, the popular West Side restaurant operated by executive chef Marcus Samuelsson, one of the hottest chefs in the U.S. and a friend of Woods. Samuelsson has been recognized as a rising star by the James Beard Foundation.

When you hear people talk about crawfish etouffe, bourbon-cured salmon, red rice, sweet potato creme brulee or praline bread pudding, the mind automatically goes to either the Low Country or New Orleans. Louisiana, also the beneficiary of African, Spanish, French and Acadian influences, gave the U.S. another authentic tradition that still defines Cajun and Creole cooking.

The Dooky Chase Cookbook, first published in 1990, has recently been re-released. Leah Chase, wife and co-owner of the restaurant that bears her husband's name, recalls the Creole foods that have drawn diners back to their New Orleans eatery again and again. During a presentation at the Southern Foodways Symposium last year she chuckled over how little some people understand that not all black people ate the same things in the South--that there is a difference between Cajun and Creole foods.

"People would come into the restaurant and want to know where the ham hocks and navy beans were, and I'd have to tell them that we were Creole, and although we ate beans and we ate greens, we ate them a different way," she said. "Once they had our white beans and collards with garlic and ham, or our mustard greens with pickled pork and potatoes, they said `Oh, so that's what you mean.'

"Then I'd tell them about our Chicken Clemenceau, stuffed mirltons, flounder stuffed with crabmeat or our chocolate crepes and orange pecan pancakes. They didn't know black people cooked and ate these foods for themselves. They'd think we only cooked it for others."

Mrs. Chase, like residents of the Low Country, grew up eating fish and seafood because it was plentiful and available. I remember once visiting the Penn Center in South Carolina and walking along the edge of a marsh with a woman who grew up just outside Beaufort. She told of just how plentiful food was. "I didn't know we were poor until I went away to school and saw that other girls didn't wear dresses and skirts made from flour sacks" she said. "To us, being poor meant not having enough to eat. But we dug for oysters or caught crawfish just outside my back door. My brothers would catch catfish. Rice grew all around us. We grew our vegetables. I never knew what it was like to be hungry. If a neighbor had a cow, we traded milk for rice or fish."

In A Taste of Heritage, co-authors Joe Randall and Toni Tipton-Martin take recipes past soul food to a mainstream presentation of meals that could grace any table anywhere, but with intermittent indications of African American origins--most notably the recipe for Chit'lin Pizza on a Cornmeal Crust. The book, in addition to its 100-plus recipes, acknowledges a growing community of black chefs capable of creating exquisite meals from any culture.

Perhaps through these cookbooks and these meals and a better understanding of the role we've played in the evolution of good foods, a new generation of young people will come to understand themselves in a broadened historical context. Who knows, maybe with this understanding will come an interest in joining the ranks of cooks who are now fully acknowledged as chefs.

Holiday Menu

If you'd like a break from the same old turkey or ham and traditional sides, try, this menu, selected from cookbooks by black chefs.

Appetizer
Maryland Crab Cakes
(A Taste of Heritage)

Soup
Clear Tomato Soup
(A Gracious Plenty)

Salad
Italian Salad
(The Dooky Chase Cookbook)

Entree
Old Fashioned Roast Turkey
(A Gracious Plenty)

Sides
Casserole of Sage
Flavored Pork Tenderloin
(A Taste of Country Cooking)

Baked Onions Stuffed with Oyster Dressing
(Ideas for Entertaining from the African-American Kitchen)

Sauteed Collard Greens
(Low-Country Cookbook)

White Potato and Cheese Casserole
(Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine)

Bread
Sweet Potato Biscuits
(The Welcome ?able)

Dessert
Scripture Cake
(Vertamae Cooks)

Maryland Crab Cakes

From: A Taste of Heritage

Makes 8 servings

1/2 stick of butter
1 small onion, minced
4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons Coleman's dry mustard
8 slices white bread, crusts trimmed, flattened, and finely diced
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons Old Bay seasoning
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
3 dashes Tabasco sauce
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
3 pounds jumbo lump crabmeat, picked over for cartilage
  and bits of shell
  Peanut oil
2 eggs beaten
1 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup fresh bread crumbs
8 lemon wedges

Maryland Crab Cakes ...

Melt the butter in a small saute pan and cook the onion until transparent. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the onion, egg yolks and mustard. Stir in the bread, cayenne, Old Bay seasoning, mayonnaise, parsley, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Gently fold in the crabmeat, being careful not to break up the lumps.

Form into 16 cakes, using about 1/3 cup for each cake. Heat the oil in a deep fryer to 350 [degrees] F.

In a small bowl, combine the beaten eggs and milk. Dip the crab cakes in flour. Using a slotted spoon, dip each one in the egg wash. Sprinkle with fresh breadcrumbs, coating well. Deep-fry until golden brown, about 5 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges and tartar sauce.

Chef's tip: For a lighter dish, dust the crab cakes with flour and saute in peanut oil or butter over medium high heat for 3-4 minutes on each side. You can also bake unbreaded crab cakes without the flour. Sprinkle lightly with melted butter and paprika and bake in a preheated 350 [degrees] F oven until brown on top, about 6-8 minutes.

Grandmother Crump's Clear Tomato Soup

From: A Gracious Plenty

Makes 4 servings

4 cups tomatoes
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped onion
4 whole cloves
A dash of salt
A dash of cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Lemon slices and parsley springs for garnish

Combine tomatoes, celery, onion and cloves in a saucepan. Cook, covered over low heat until the tomatoes are soft. Remove from the heat and add the salt, cayenne and vinegar. Pour the mixture through a sieve into a second saucepan, mashing the tomatoes against the sieve for juice. Serve hot with a lemon slice afloat in the center of each serving. Garnish with parsley.

Sauteed Collard Greens

From: The New Low-Country Cooking

Makes 6 servings

3 pounds collard greens
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 carrot, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme leaves, or
  1 teaspoon dried
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh sage leaves, or
  1 teaspoon dried
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves,
  /or/ 1 teaspoon dried rosemary leaves
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar or white wine vinegar
Tabasco or other hot pepper sauce to taste
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Cut the bottoms off the collard greens and place the leaves in a sink full of cold water. Swish them around and let the dirt fall to the bottom. Remove the greens from the water, drain and refill the sink, repeating the procedure until it drains clean. When the greens are thoroughly washed, use the point of a sharp knife to trim along both sides of the center vein on each leaf and remove it. Cut the leaves into 1-inch pieces (the easiest way to do this it to roll several leaves tightly and slice the roll; then cut each roll into pieces).

In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the carrot and onion and cook, stirring, until the vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Add the herbs and cook, stirring constantly, for 30 seconds to allow the flavors to blend. Add the greens, stir, cover and cook for 2 minutes. Add the stock, vinegar, Tabasco, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and reduce the heat to low. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes or longer if you like your greens to be softer.

Good Eating By the Book

A Gracious Plenty
by John T. Edge
Putnam, 1999, $24.00, ISBN 00-399-14536-6

A Taste Of Heritage
by Joe Randall and Toni Tipton-Martin
Macmillian, 1998, $27.50, ISBN 0-028-60382-6

A Taste Of Country Cooking
by Edna Lewis
HarperCollins, 1998, ISBN 0-880-01193-9

Dorinda's Taste of The Caribbean And A Taste of The Caribbean
by Dorinda Hafner
Ten Speed Press, 1996, $16.95, ISBN 0-898-15836-2

Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine
by Norma Jean and Carole Darden
Doubleday, 1994, $18.95, ISBN 0-385-47270-6

Sylvia's Family Soul Food Cookbook: From Hemingway South Carolina to
Harlem
by Sylvia Woods
Macmillan, 1998, $27.50, ISBN 0-028- 60382-6

B. Smith's Entertaining and Cooking for Friends
by Barbara Smith
Artisan, 1995, $18.95, ISBN 1-579-65161-5

The African Cookbook: Iron Pots And Wooden Spoons And The Welcome
Table
by Jessica B. Harris
Simon & Schuster, 1999, $12.00, ISBN 0-684-85326-4

The Dooky Chase Cookbook
by Leah Chase
Pelican, 1990, $21.00, ISBN 0-882-89661-X

The Healthy Soul Food Cookbook
by Wilbert Jones
Carol's Publishing Group, 1998, $12.95, ISBN 0-806-52028-0

The New Low-Country Cooking
by Marvin Woods
William Morrow, June 2000, $25.00, ISBN 0-688-17205-9

Automatic Y'all: Weaver D's Guide to the Soul
by Dexter Weaver with Patrick Allen
Hill Street Press, 1999, $17.50, ISBN 1-892-51427-3

Meals In A Minute
by Ainsley Harriott
Dorling Kindersley, 2000, $19.95, ISBN 0-789-46726-7

The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection
by Karen Hess
University of South Carolina Press, 1998 $18.95, ISBN 1-570-03208-4

Ellen Sweets, former food writer for the Dallas Morning News, is currently writing for Neiman Marcus' Chef's Catalog Online. She grew up in a family where dinner and conversation were the focal point of the evening. For as long as she can remember, she has enjoyed cooking and feeding others. She and a Jewish friend are working on a book about their 25-year friendship that has always revolved around food. Ellen highlights some important books that will infuse new flavors into your holiday menu.