Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way by Sallie Ann Robinson

I originally just called what I did 'downhome cooking.' Gullah wasn't in my vocabulary. It was hard when I started writing books, (because) I do not cook and measure at all, that's not how I was taught, I would estimate. She would change it up, crab over rice or crab stew, it was never the same. What did you get from your mother, in terms of your skills or philosophy in the kitchen?Įverybody thought she made the greatest gumbo, but she did not cook the same thing every week. My grandfather would say, 'Only a poor mole has one hole.' He meant that if you don't get off your butt and do something, you'll end up with just one hole or option. And then I went into nursing, and that led to my first book. I started cooking and I would have folks come over and eat. In my 20s, I decided that I wanted to be my own boss. My first job was washing dishes at a hotel in Hilton Head, then I asked them if I could cook. Plenty of girls got pregnant and quit school. I became a mother when I was 16, but I made sure I graduated.

Then you go to the city and buy store-bought food. One of the things I didn't know before that was we had such organic food on the island. When you eat with other people, you compare it to your family's food. What did you do after that?Īfter eighth grade, you had to go to the mainland and live with a family member or pay someone to keep you. The school on the island went up to eighth grade.

We didn't grow up with toys or things that were distracting, we had chores that taught us to be strong and independent. I grew up in an old house with a tin roof and shutters, very drafty. We didn't think it was strange because it's all we ever knew. We farmed, we hunted, we went to the ocean for all our seafood. What was different about growing up on the island? Petersburg - her famous shrimp and potato salad, Daufuskie deviled crab, crab rice and, of course, collards.

We caught up with her by phone to discuss cooking, Lowcountry culture and what she'll be making in St.

15 at a private reception called Collards After Dark and then doing a cooking demonstration in the Legacy Gardens of the Dr. Petersburg for the Tampa Bay Collard Greens Festival, presenting on Feb. The author of Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way and Cooking the Gullah Way, Morning, Noon, and Night, Robinson will be in St. SEE MORE PHOTOS: Sallie Ann Robinson shows us her home on Daufuskie Island. She has built a career on writing books that chronicle Gullah recipes and dialect, folklore and her own family history. She has spent much of her adult life on Hilton Head Island, S.C., and in Savannah, Ga., but the island of her childhood looms large.

Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way by Sallie Ann Robinson