From the organization that brought us The Black Family Reunion cookbooks comes The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro, a fun, richly brewed collection of recipes, historical facts, photos, and personal anecdotes. First published in 1958 by the National Council of Negro Women, it includes contributions from members in thirty-six states plus the District of Columbia and offers exceptional insight into American history and the African-American community at the time of its publication. As John Hope Franklin (whose own family owns a copy of the book) points out, much of the cultural information in the cookbook has never been passed down to successive generations. Arranged according to the calendar year, the cookbook opens with a cake to be baked in celebration of both New Year's Day and the Emancipation Proclamation. Scattered among the recipes one finds excerpts from documents such as the Gettysburg Address and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Tributes to well-known figures like Harriet Tubman, Phillis Wheatley, and Booker T. Washington appear alongside brief bios and recipes in celebration of important but obscured figures. This delightful collection of delicious recipes helps us commemorate African-American history throughout the year.

Chapter One

RECIPES FOR JANUARY CELEBRATIONS

1 NEW YEARS, AND EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION DAY (1863)

EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION BREAKFAST CAKE

2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup butter

1 large egg

1/2 cup (more or less) milk

1 to 2 cups washed blueberries

1/4 cup honey

Grated rind of one orange

Grated rind of one lemon

       Cream sugar and butter, add egg and beat. Sift dry ingredients, add blueberries then add alternately with milk to the butter, egg and sugar mixture. Make a dough stiff enough to handle. Pat out to 1/2 inch thickness on a floured bread board. Cut with a biscuit cutter and arrange in greased pie pan in tilted fashion. Spread with honey and sprinkle with orange rind and lemon rind and bake for 15 or 20 minutes in a hot oven. Serve hot or cold. Serves 6.

(THE NEWARK COUNCIL)

NEW JERSEY

* * *

LUNCHEON IN DENVER -- WESTERN BEEF STEAK

1 lb. hamburger meat

4 lean strips bacon

1 bellpepper

3 small pimiento

a fine meat sauce

salt

pepper

paprika

    Chop peppers and pimientos into fine cuts. Add salt, pepper, paprika to taste and meat sauce. Combine these ingredients with hamburger meat and mix together well. Take mixed meat and divide into four portions about the size of a coffee cup. With palm of hand moon shape balls so one strip of bacon can go around without doubling up. Fasten bacon to ball with toothpick crud place in skillet with lots of shortening. Cook for fifteen to twenty minute duration.

(THE DENVER COUNCIL)

COLORADO

    The Emancipation Proclamation New Years' Day, 1863, is celebrated in all parts of the United States. The Council recipes assembled from the six geographical regions have been taken from the oldest files of Negro families.

SOUTHERN HOPPING JOHN

1 lb. (2 to 2-1/4) cups dried blackeye peas

2-1/2 quarts water

8 slices bacon, cut in small strips, or 4 ounces salt pork

1-1/2 cups chopped onion

2 buds garlic minced

1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

1 tablespoon mixed herbs

2 cups uncooked rice

chopped parsley

    Wash beans and soak in water overnight. Fry bacon over moderate heat until brown. Add onion and continue cooking until onion is tender. Add garlic, salt, pepper, hot sauce, herbs. In large pan combine soaked peas, water, bacon and onion mixture. Cover pan, bring to boil. Simmer until beans are tender, about an hour. Stir in rice and cook under low heat 30 to 40 minutes or until rice is tender and fluffy. Spoon into large serving dish, garnish with chopped parsley.

(COUNCIL REGIONS III AND IV)

(Compare this dish with "Plate National" celebrating Haiti's Independence Day, January 1, 1804.)

* * *

"*BAKED TURKEY -- `29th ILLINOIS'"

    Turkey hen makes the best eating. Wash the fowl thoroughly, dry inside out, rub inside with salt and grease all over with bacon drippings. Prepare dressing as follows: Hand mix about six cups crumbled corn bread and six cups of crumbs from old toasted light bread. Moisten with stock from boiled giblets until damp but not wet. Fry 3/4 cups (each) onions and celery and 1/2 cup green peppers and clove of garlic, cut fine, in cube of butter until soft but not done, pour over dressing. Add salt and pepper to taste and 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons sage or poultry seasoning (more if you like the taste). Stuff turkey. Bake left over dressing in separate pan. Start turkey in 450 degree oven until brown, but not blistered. Add two cups water and cover roaster. Lower oven and baste meat when half done with drippings from pan. When fowl is done, make gravy from giblet stock thickened with turkey grease and flour. Simmer turkey a few minutes in gravy and baste if desired.

* Mrs. Jewel House, the first president of the San Francisco Council, is a daughter of Sergeant James Sterling Derrick, who fought with the 29th United States Illinois Regiment. Her recipe for baking a turkey follows an old family tradition handed down by women of her household who held life long membership in the Women's Auxiliary Corps of Illinois.

PECAN TURKEY STUFFING

1 turkey liver

10 slices toasted bread

1/2 cup butter

2 tablespoons lard

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon thyme

6 hard cooked eggs

2 cups salted pecans, chopped

1 can mushrooms, chopped fine

1 cup sherry

1 large onion

6 stalks celery, cut fine

1 tablespoon parsley, chopped fine

    Boil the liver the day before the stuffing is made. Roll the toasted bread on a biscuit board, than sift through a colander into a large bowl. Acid butter, salt, black pepper, thyme, parsley and celery. Pour in a little boiling water and mix thoroughly by hand. Add the whites of the hard cooked eggs, riced, and the yolks rubbed smooth. Then add the salted pecans, mushrooms and sherry. Mix thoroughly. Put the onion, grated or finely minced, into a frying pan with the lard. When very hot, add the liver, chopped fine, crud fry until brown. Allow to cook and then mix thoroughly with the other ingredients. Stuff the turkey, having first rubbed it with a paste of butter, salt and black pepper, both inside and out.

(THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FASHION

AND ACCESSORY DESIGNERS)

* * *

MINCED CLAM STUFFING

2 cans minced clams

12 slices toasted brown bread

1 large onion

2 teaspoons worcestershire sauce

1/4 cup butter

salt

pepper

    Mix thoroughly clams with liquor, bread broken into small pieces, onion chopped fine, worcestershire, melted butter and dash of salt and pepper. Use for stuffing fish or fowl.

(COUNCIL REGION I)

    The National Association of Fashion and Accessory Designers, founded April 14, 1949, New York City, Mrs. Jeanetta Welch Brown, founder -- their posthumous Honorary patron -- Madame Elizabeth Keckley (1840-1900), modiste for Mrs. Jefferson Davis and Mrs. Abraham Lincoln, residing in the White House during the Lincoln Administration, author of "Behind the Scenes" or "Four Years in the White House".

NEW ENGLAND PLUM PUDDING

1 pound raisins

1 pound butter

1/2 pound of suet (chopped fine)

1/4 pound of flour

1 pound of currants

1/2 nutmeg, grated

5 eggs

1/2 pint brandy

1/2 pound stale bread crumbs

3/4 pounds brown sugar

grated rind of one lemon

    Beat the butter and sugar to a cream then add the egg well beaten. Add spices and beat in well. Add the fruit and mix in together thoroughly. Add brandy last and beat again. Make a sauce with sugar and butter after all ingredients are mixed well together, add brandy lost of all.

(THE HARTFORD COUNCIL)

CONNECTICUT

* * *

BANANA PIE SUPREME

6 tablespoons cake flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1-3/4 cups of milk

2 egg yolks, slightly beaten

1-1/4 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup whipped cream

3 bananas

1 baked nine inch pie shell

    Mix together flour and sugar in top of double boiler. Add milk and cook over hot water, stirring constantly until mixture thickens. Add beaten egg yolks, and return to double boiler. Cook two minutes longer, stirring constantly. Remove from fire, cool, add vanilla. Chill. Fold in whipped cream. Arrange cream filling and sliced bananas in layers in pie shell. Garnish with whipped cream and banana slices.

(THE PINE BLUFF COUNCIL)

ARKANSAS

* * *

CALIFORNIA--NEW YEAR--FRUIT PUNCH

    Put one quart, 14 oz. can pineapple juice in deep freeze, permitting it to freeze solid for two or three days before punch is to be used. On day of party combine 1 cup orange juice, 1/2 cup lemon juice and grated rind of one orange and one lemon. Boil one quart water with one cup sugar for five minutes to form a syrup. Let cool. Add to fruit juice. Place frozen cylinder of pineapple juice in large glass punch bowl. Add syrup fruit juice mixture, one quart thoroughly chilled gingerale and one pint charged water. Sprinkle top with finely chapped preserved ginger.

(COUNCIL REGION VI-VII)

Excerpted from The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro by SUE BAILEY THURMAN. Copyright © 2000 by The National Council of Negro Women. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.