Happy Spring all! We are excited to share with you all that this new season brings!
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A Taste of African Heritage Updates
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We have officially begun our partnership with the Washington Cancer Institute thanks to our long-time ATOAH Ambassador Mrs. Carrye Brown. The Institute is offering A Taste of African Heritage to cancer patients and previous cancer survivors as a healing resource. We are looking forward to seeing the positive impacts of the program.
At the end of last year, we entered into a collaboration with
The Georgia’s Farmers Market Association
. The Association’s mission is to “strengthen the farmers market infrastructure by shaping public policy, offering statewide representation, increasing whole food access and providing training and educational opportunities.” We are excited to be partnering with the Association to bring fresh food sources to communities. On April 22nd in Atlanta, we hosted ATOAH Train the Trainer (our live teacher training seminar) for a new cohort of ATOAH instructors.
We are also happy to share that ATOAH items are now in the Oldways Webstore! You can purchase our exclusive aprons with the beautiful ATOAH logo on them, as well as extra curriculum and student handbooks for large classes!
Visit our Webstore!
Photo: ATOAH instructor Ashley Moore and guest chef, former NFL player Amobi Okoye, teaching a class at Cavalcade's Community Center in Houston, TX.
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African Heritage & Health Study
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Cooking at Home is Healthier and More Affordable
If you want to spend less but eat healthier than start cooking at home more frequently! In the age of all things fast-paced people are cooking fewer of their meals at home. A recent Seattle study published in the
American Journal of Preventive Medicine examined the connections between the healthy eating index, food cost, and the frequency of cooking at home versus eating out. Not surprisingly, those who cooked at home scored higher on the Healthy Eating Index. That’s because when you cook at home, you can control the amount of unhealthy additives that you consume such as oils, salt, and sugar. Aside from its nutritional benefits, home cooking is also linked to lower food cost: the study found that people can save $57 a month on food by cooking at home 6 times a week. A Taste of African Heritage highly encourages cooking at home. By doing so you can now save your money for experiences that you will be able to enjoy with good health!
Read the full study here
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Chef Pascale Boucicaut
Pascale Boucicaut is a culinary artist and foodways historian of Haitian descent. She was born on the island of Jamaica and grew up inside kitchens in and around Boston, New York, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Pascale has been working with food since she first learned that there are secrets, histories, and stories that can only be told in the kitchen. Since then she has been busy resuscitating traditional cooking methods and ingredients, which are endangered or already obsolete, in order to promote the dynamic cultures, physical health, and spiritual wellbeing of our diverse communities around the world.
Currently, Pascale is working on Dishes of the Diaspora, a culinary archive project supported by the Leeway Foundation and on display at the Philadelphia Folklore Project. She produces this project in collaboration with photographer Adachi Pimentel. She is also the culinary artist and co-founder of Paloma, a monthly Caribbean-inspired supper club she started with folklorist Selina Morales. And she is working towards opening a new cafe in the Perelman Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of an expansive and collaborative exhibition, entitled Philadelphia Assembled. This fall, Pascale will take her research to the University of California at Berkeley, where she’ll begin her exploration of African Heritage foodways through the fields of folklore and archaeology.
Some of the menus items Pascale loves to serve include chiktay moru (Haitian salt cod salad with sweet and spicy peppers), jerk pork with yellow corn arepas, and coconut tres leches cake for dessert, to name just a few.
Find out more about Pascale and Dishes of the Diaspora here
Photo: by David Felix Sutcliffe
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Ras el hanout
is a beloved Northern African spice blend whose name in Arabic (“head of the shop”) describes the practice of using only the best spices available. There is no set recipe for the blend, and it can contain 12 or more spices, including familiar ones like cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and allspice, to some less familiar ones like ash berries, chufa, grains of paradise, and dried rosebud. The uses for this warm and slightly sweet spice blend are as versatile as the number of spices that compose it: try
ras el hanout
as a rub for lamb, chicken or fish; or use the spice blend to flavor stews. And if
ras el hanout’s
flavor isn’t magical enough for you already, Moroccans also consider it to be an aphrodisiac. If you can’t find the spice blend at your local store, try your hand at making your own. Here’s a recipe
to get you started, but feel free to experiment and customize the spice blend to suit your taste.
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“Our memories rose and settled with the pots and pans, around the kitchen bar,” writes Regina Bradley in the Southern Foodways Alliance Winter 2016 edition of “Gravy,” original stories from the South. In “Sop it Dry: How to Make Country Black Girl Magic,” Bradley, an English professor at Armstrong State University, paints a vivid portrait of growing up on the southside of Albany, Georgia on Hardup Road. Central to her childhood recollections is her time spent in the kitchen watching her grandmother make “jailhouse cornbread”—a dish whose sum is more than its few humble ingredients in that it “symbolized the strength to keep going.”
We've also enjoyed a recent Q&A between culinary historian Michael Twitty and Chef/Storyteller Shawanda Marie. Marie speaks about Creole culture, how it inspires her culinary outlook, and Hurricane Katrina’s impact on today’s New Orleans cuisine. She shares the secrets to making a perfect creamy pot of red beans and lets you know what NOT to put in your gumbo and po’ boy if you are looking for the true taste of New Orleans. Chef Shawanda also imparts important lessons her grandmother taught her about making food more pleasing to the eye. To find out more about Chef Shawanda, check her out at the New Orleans Creole Story Pot.
Any books, blogs, or articles that you'd like to share with us? We'd love for you to post on our Facebook page.
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African Heritage Dine-Around-Town
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Oldways knows that one of the easiest ways to dine out healthfully is to choose cultural restaurants that serve traditional world cuisines. Whether African, Caribbean, Indian, or Japanese, cultural restaurants offer the widest variety of vegetables, beans, whole grains, meats, and spices prepared in deliciously dynamic ways.
Every newsletter edition, we put the spotlight on three African heritage restaurants from our
Dine-Around-Town
list, describing the traditional features of their menus and perhaps inspiring you to try
making some of these cultural dishes at home. This season
we
are
featuring Global African Cuisine.
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Tap Tap
Restaurant
Miami, Florida
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South Beach's Tap Tap offers its patrons authentic Haitian cuisine, décor and music. Appetizer highlights include ATOAH favorite
Akra
, similar to
Akara
(black-eyed pea fritters), but made Haitian-style from
malanga
root and Soup
Joumou
(pumpkin soup)
. For an entrée, try
Lanbi Boukanen
(grilled conch),
Kribish Kreyol o Kokoye
(shrimp in coconut sauce),
or Pwason Gwosel
(whole fish in lime sauce with rice and plantains). End your meal with traditional pineapple rum cake or coconut
blancmange (flan/custard). Photo by Brenda Benoit .
Visit Tap Tap Restaurant's website
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Kelso Bistro Bar and
Restaurant
New York, New York
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In one of the only Panamanian restaurants in New York, choose from starters like
carimanolas
(cassava fritters) or
patacones
, also known as
tostones
(smashed, fried and salted green plantains). Afro-Caribbean Cowfoot Soup, known as
Sopa de Pata
with corn, yucca and dumplings, is a signature dish here. For entrées, we recommend the
Pescado Escabechado
(a pepper-sauce marinated fried fish prepared with peppers, carrots and onions) or the
Camarones Calipso
(shrimp marinated in a buttery tomato sauce with a hint of curry). If you have a sweet tooth, finish your meal with
helado
(ice cream) of the day! Photo by Jdvillalobos at Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.
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Global Village Cuisine
White River Junction, Vermont
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Global Village Cuisine ships gluten-free, allergen-friendly, flash-frozen meals to the continental U.S. Mel, from Memphis, and his Kenyan wife Damaris launched the company after working local food festivals and farmer’s markets. Global Village has four meal plans, two vegan and two meat, and all are gluten, nut, dairy, egg, soy and seafood-free. Choose from chickpea vegetable tajine, Ethiopian lentil combo, African no-nut stew (similar to ATOAH Mafe stew without peanut butter), Swahili curry chicken, and Moroccan lemon chicken. Photo by JeffreyW at Wikimedia Commons, CC by 2.0.
Visit Global Village Cuisine's website
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Oldways African Heritage Recipes
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The most powerful call to action to improve the health of African American families and communities is to get cooking! To help families put the
African Heritage Diet Pyramid
on their plate, here are three delicious, healthy recipes that take their cues from African roots.
Click on the title below to go to the Oldways recipe.
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Roasted Tzimmes with Ras El Hanout
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Tzimmes (Yiddish for “big fuss”) is a Passover staple traditionally made with sweet potatoes, carrots, and dried fruits and served as a stew with brisket. Try this vegetarian version in which we’ve roasted some of our favorite African heritage fruits and vegetables and added a bit of spice to the party in the form of ras el hanout. You’ll be perfectly satisfied eating this as a side dish, or as a main dish tossed with quinoa for protein.
Click here for the recipe
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Oldways Quinoa with Ginger and Carrots
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We think you’ll find the combination of ginger and whole grains in this quick and easy African heritage dish appealing. You can’t go wrong serving it warm or chilled!
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Dukkah is an Egyptian condiment consisting of nuts, dried herbs, and spices. You can enjoy it in a variety of ways, including as a dry dip for a piece of bread soaked in olive oil. It also makes a great seasoning for roasted vegetables or a crust on roasted meats such as lamb.
Click here for the recipe
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The work of the African Heritage and Health Program would not be possible without the generous support of the Walmart Foundation.
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Sade Anderson
Program Manger & African Diaspora Specialist
sade@oldwayspt.org
Johnisha Levi
Program Coordinator
johnisha@oldwayspt.org
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"Those who are at one regarding food are at one in life." ~Malawian Proverb
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