“It is tradition among the Gullah Geechee that when we need answers, we turn to the wisdom of the ancestors, the source,” writes Matthew Raiford in introducing readers to the cuisine that rose from descendants of slaves along the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.
Raiford’s great-great-great-grandfather, Jupiter Gilliard, was a slave who, after emancipation, turned some swampy land he purchased near Brunswick, Georgia into a thriving farm his offspring has kept flourishing ever since. That’s where Raiford grew up peeling shrimp for creole sauce and picking blackberries and muscadines for cobblers and jams.
After high school, he traveled the world while serving in the military, earned a diploma from the Culinary Institute of America, studied sustainable food systems in California, and cooked in restaurants, including one of his own, before returning to the family homestead for good. Nowadays he tends the fields of Gilliard Farms full time, while educating the public on the rich flavors and fraught history of his heritage.
“Bress ‘N’ Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer” (Countryman Press, $30) is Raiford’s loving ode to that legacy. Its title refers to the African Creole words meaning “bless and eat” spoken regularly by the elders depicted in faded snapshots on these pages.
In between photos of saltwater marshes and moss-draped oaks are recipes organized by their source: earth (grains and produce), water (seafood), fire (meats), wind (poultry), nectar (sweets), and spirits. The two I tried — Shrimp and Red Eye Gravy over buttermilk-enriched CheFarmer’s Grits — tasted rustic and real, and sent everyone at my table back for seconds. Others are decidedly more sophisticated. For Rose Petal Quail, he seasons split birds in pink Himalayan salt and simmers them in pinot grigio and a syrup of organic rose petals and prickly pears.
But first, he takes us back to the source, explaining how he created the dish in honor of his Nana, who tended her roses “as lovingly as she did all her children and grandkids.”
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