America I AM Pass It Down Cookbook by Jeff Henderson Read Free Book Online

the most offensive of the holdovers is the black chef that still graces boxes of Cream of Wheat. His name is Rastus, a long-accepted pejorative for a particular type of dumb minstrel character. Yet even while the character is branded with an insulting name, he wears a chef’s coat and hat and, in fact, was drawn using a photo portrait of Frank White, a Barbados-born, African American master chef who worked in Chicago.
    This bizarre juxtaposition of authority and scorn is just one of the reasons why Ms. Tipton-Martin created the Jemima Code, an online project documenting her research into black images in advertising. She reminds us that each of these characters might easily represent the memories of our parents or grandparents, who at one time might have worked as cooks in the kitchens of prominent hotels or restaurants, as waiters on trains, or domestics in prominent homes or even in the White House.
    Fast forward to today, when all three characters have undergone a redesign: Aunt Jemima is owned by Quaker Oats and went from mammy to hyper-stylized in the 1990s, losing her robust figure, jolly facial features, and now sporting free-flowing, seemingly relaxed hair. Rastus still beckons you with his welcoming smile, offering steamy hot cereal to comfort a child’s tummy. While his style is almost unchanged, his chef jacket appears structured with a more stylish ascot rather than floppy bow tie. Uncle Ben, still without a surname, has stepped into the 21st century. No longer fully viewed by his subservient cultural identity, he’s been promoted to chairman in the board room. In a New York Times article discussing the updated Uncle Ben, actual chairman Vincent Howell, president of the food division of the Masterfoods, USA unit of Mars, said he found the new and improved Uncle Ben to be a powerful image of an African American in a figure of prominence and authority—especially as an African American himself. Unfortunately, Uncle Ben’s style makers failed to erase his royal blue jacket and crisp white shirt and dowdy bow tie—cultural expressions still linking him to his past as a waiter or Pullman porter.
    What’s puzzling is why American culture remains attached to outmoded icons to represent some of its most popular food brands. When they were originally introduced, they were a gentler depiction of an accepted “truth” of African American culture. Yet as each year passes, such icons must not remain cast as invisible men and women. In the 21st century they should be recognized as polarizing symbols that reinforce a culture unwilling to part with certain “benign” stereotypes. Hidden in the boxes of bland cereal, sweet pancake mix, and fluffy rice is a history, not just of scorn, but of a far greater injury: authority given lightly with one hand and snatched back with the other.

Dr. Carver’s Sweet Potato Biscuits
    Tuskegee, Alabama
    MAKES 12 BISCUITS
    This truly delicious recipe for sweet potato biscuits appeared in How the Farmer Can Save His Sweet Potatoes and Ways of Preparing Them for the Table by Dr. George Washington Carver (Reprinted by Texas AfriLife Extension Service, Bulletin No. 38 (First edition) November 1922) .
    2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar (if desired)
2 scant tablespoons melted butter or lard
2 cups milk
2 eggs, well beaten
1 cup boiled and finely mashed sweet potatoes
    Mix together all the dry ingredients and stir into the milk, beaten eggs, and potato.
    If too soft, add more flour, sufficient to make a soft dough.
    Roll out lightly; cut with a biscuit cutter; bake in a quick oven until golden brown.

Dwight Jones’ Cream Biscuits
    St. Louis, Missouri
    MAKES 12 BISCUITS
    Dwight Jones is an engineer, chef, barbecue pit master, hunter, and fisherman—and a skilled pastry chef. His cream biscuits are a luxurious take on traditional baking powder biscuits. And while you can substitute buttermilk or even plain milk for the cream, the White Lily flour, he