Lowcountry Legacy

The culture stems from the 18th century, when West Africans were brought to the United States and forced to work the rice, cotton, indigo and tobacco fields of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.

Due to the longtime agrarian lifestyle and insulation from outside urban influence, the Gullah maintained much of their African ways longer than many other African American communities. So, whenever you “nyam” (“eat”) Geechee food, you’re traveling more than two centuries back to those fields and ultimately, back to West Africa.

Geechee, Gullah and Sea Island Creole are names used interchangeably or combined to describe the descendants of enslaved West Africans living on the coastline and nearby islands of the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Some say that people often call this area “The Lowcountry.”

That’s exactly what Michael Platt, a 10 Under 20 Food Heroes honoree, recently experienced in Charleston, South Carolina. The 18-year-old baker, business owner and food justice advocate was born and raised in Bowie, Maryland, learning of his South Carolina roots through DNA testing. During Michael’s recent visit to Chucktown, he gained a deeper understanding of his Gullah Geechee heritage through conversations and collaborations with food historians, Gullah chefs and farmers.

Michael’s first stop included a meal with Adrian Miller, an American culinary historian and two-time James Beard Award winner, at the family-owned and -operated Gillie’s Seafood. They were served what can be called a Gullah sampler: fried pork chops, red rice, lima beans, she-crab soup and seafood purloo.

“Purloo can be made with a lot of different ingredients,” Gillie’s owner and executive chef, Sean Mendes, explained. “Ours has shrimp, okra, oysters, crawfish and blue-crab meat in a dirty rice. It’s like our version of jambalaya.”

The seafood purloo, the star of the show, was the first visit for Michael’s and Adrian’s forks. “Were you surprised that he said blue crab?” Adrian asked. “I was!” Michael exclaimed. “When I think of blue crab, I think of, like, Maryland.”

Michael isn’t alone in his surprise. While Maryland is known for its jumbo-sized blue Chesapeake Bay crawlers, the Lowcountry has its own blue-crab culture. In addition to eating them steamed, Maryland uses blue crab for its famous crabcakes and its tomato-based crab soup. “Frogmore stew,” as it was once called by the Gullah, is now more popularly known as Lowcountry boil, composed of well-seasoned blue crabs, shrimp, corn on the cob and sausage. The Gullah also use blue crabs to make handheld devil crabs cooked in the shell and the cream-based/sherry-spiked she-crab soup, which Sean named a Charleston original.

The teenage Food Hero’s new cookbook will feature crab recipes and southern meals that have fed his family across various geographies and generations. Michael’s grandparents joined the Great Migration of 6 million Black southerners who moved North and out West in the 1950s in search of physical safety and financial security but always called the South home. “[The new cookbook] will tell my history of being in Maryland … also my mother’s food history, the things that her mother ate growing up in Virginia but how that food kind of changed after she moved out and had her own family,” Michael shared, then added, “I also want to talk about how my mother’s adopted, and her biological mother, her family’s from South Carolina. I have a firsthand view on everything else, but specifically when it comes South Carolina, I don’t have a lot of information.”

Chef BJ Dennis

Before traveling to the Lowcountry to dig into his maternal roots, Michael started his research online. Among the keepers of the culture, Chef BJ Dennis caught Michael’s attention. The Charleston native, internationally known for cooking full-course meals over coals, agreed to give Michael a VIP backstage pass to the culinary world of his hometown, starting with one of his personal mentors, Chef Charlotte Jenkins.

“One thing that I discovered in my own kind of soul food journey,” Adrian recalled, “is how a lot of the stuff was passed on and how important that was because, by law and practice, enslaved people were kept illiterate, so they couldn’t write down cookbooks. I’m glad that you have found some elders who are willing to share their recipes because, like you said, the graveyard is full of these secrets.”

The Gullah exalt their elders, particularly the matriarchs when it comes to cooking — hence the collage of more than 50 framed grandmothers on Gillie’s Seafood’s sweet-potato-hued wall standing between the kitchen and the customers. So, it made sense that Chef BJ insisted that Michael sit a spell with one of the city’s longtime “beenyas.” “It seems like a pretty close-knit culture to me,” Michael accurately guessed. “I hope they’ll let me in.”

A short drive down an unpaved road, followed by a right turn onto Chef Charlotte’s two-acre property lined with Spanish moss-draped oaks, and it’s clear that the home belongs to a longtime Gullah chef. Telltale signs include indigo-blue bottle trees, an antique cast-iron bench with matching chairs, a raised garden bed of herbs traditionally used for recipes and remedies, and the legendary Gullah Cuisine food truck parked out back.

Chef Charlotte welcomed Michael into her home and kitchen with a degree of warmth that hinted at her full-house upbringing. Raised under the same roof at the same time as eight siblings and seven cousins, Chef Charlotte is no stranger to making room and sharing space. Michael, having started baking with his grandmother back home in Maryland, fell right into place. With Chef Charlotte and Michael both beginning their cooking journeys at such young ages, their meeting was the perfect pairing.

“Let me tell you how I started,” Chef Charlotte began. “My mother had a sister, and she’d taken ill. And so, my mother said to my dad, ‘I’m going to have to go take care of her.’ He said, ‘Well, who’s going to cook?’ I was standing there and listening to the conversation, and I said, ‘Well, I’ll cook.’ My first meal I made was liver, onions and rice. According to my brother, that gravy was great. He told my mother, ‘You don’t have to rush back because Little Charlotte cooked, and that gravy was as good as yours.’ And that made me feel so proud. I’ve been cooking ever since.”

Michael’s upbringing mirrors the deep respect and honor for elders and ancestors cherished by the Gullah community. Like the Gullah, Michael grew up surrounded by stories of family heritage and traditions. His childhood was filled with tales of sharecropping, farming, and hogs raised in Virginia, recounted by the elders of his family. He learned the art of cooking by standing “at the elbow” of his mother and grandmother in the kitchen, just as Chef Charlotte did. Michael’s grandmother, much like Chef Charlotte, epitomizes the matriarchal role in the kitchen, being one of 11 children and having cooked her first meal at the tender age of six while her mother tended to a new birth. The legacy of passing down culinary wisdom and the importance of family gatherings around food are evident in both Michael’s upbringing and in the Gullah culture.

In between teaching Michael how to cut and sauté the carrots, onion, bell pepper, sausages and shrimp for her famous Gullah rice, Chef Charlotte reminisced on Lowcountry living before the highways, resorts and golf courses.

According to my brother, that gravy was great. He told my mother, ‘You don’t have to rush back because Little Charlotte cooked, and that gravy was as good as yours.’ And that made me feel so proud. I’ve been cooking ever since.
Chef Charlotte

“They used to plant rice in this little area. My dad would plant cotton, but this other group would plant the rice, and I remember my mom bringing it home. We had to take the husks off, and that was so hard. You had like a big pan. And then you have to shake it and sometimes you could blow it and the husk comes off. But that particular rice was hard to cook. I mean, you had to have skilled cooking. But it had a good flavor, had like a sweetish taste.”

Prior to his trip to Charleston, Michael had already researched the Gullah culture and learned about the significance of rice in it. He’d also been struck by the revelation that his grandmother hadn’t tasted rice until college. She explained to Michael that, due to Virginia’s dry soil, rice wasn’t grown there when she was going up; they cultivated sweet potatoes instead. This insight shed light on his family’s culinary traditions, deeply ingrained with the flavors of sweet potatoes. This realization further sparked his curiosity about the pivotal role of rice in South Carolina and the Gullah culture. Connecting Chef Charlotte’s early rice experiences with what he’d learned during his own research around the history of the staple ingredient in the Low Country, lit a fire in Michael’s belly.

Chef BJ, who’d stopped in a few minutes prior, picked right up on the rice lessons.

“It’s huge here locally, on many levels. The Lowcountry was known for rice culture,” Chef BJ explained. “That rice was groomed by our ancestors, who were enslaved, with their knowledge of growing rice, particularly Carolina Gold Rice, that made not only this state, but this country. It was the economic engine in this country. We’re trying to bring that back into the community. A lot of people got away from working the land, so we’re trying to return to the roots.”

Speaking of returning to the roots, Michael mentioned his upcoming book and how he wants to not only tell his personal story but to “tell the full story.” Having published her own cookbook in 2010, Chef Charlotte shared her experiences as an author and some advice on making his book a good one. And, as Michael had done, it starts with visiting the region to fully experience the food and culture. “You’ll do good,” said Chef Charlotte. “But you’re going to have to do some research. You got BJ, and you got me to answer questions.”

Quoting her cookbook, also named “Gullah Cuisine,” Charlotte “… grew up Gullah at a time when the Old Ways were giving way to the New Ways. [She’s] of the generation that bridged those two worlds.” As Chef BJ pointed out, it’s an honor to sit with and learn from matriarchs like Ms. Charlotte … those who remember the old ways.

“We have access these days to so much on social media, but everybody don’t have access to this,” Chef BJ highlighted, referring to the opportunity to learn from Chef Charlotte. “Access to this is something that should be treasured, because not everybody gets the opportunity to be at the table. And so, this is important. This is very important. Truthfully, it’s an honor.”

Ending one full day and preparing for the next, Chef BJ gave Michael a brief heads up on what to expect at what’s known as “dayclean.”

“Tomorrow you’re going to see a lot more legacy. We gon’ touch the ground tomorrow. We gon’ cook over the fires. I like to call it ancestral cooking, over live fire, over the coals. And you gon’ be on a legacy farm that goes back four or five generations of Gullah ancestors. So, we’ve got a lot more traditions to carry on. I hope you’re ready.”

Access to this is something that should be treasured, because not everybody gets the opportunity to be at the table. And so, this is important. This is very important. Truthfully, it’s an honor.
Chef BJ

There’s an old saying that Africans pass time while Westerners measure it. Ever aware of the minute and hour, it seems we never have enough time, leaving us forever rushing and seeking the latest model of convenience. But as Gullah griot Sara Daise said best, “The South is a portal.” It’s an invitation to the ways of our West African ancestors — to slowing down, coming together, surrounding ourselves with Mama Earth, and serving her most fresh and local ingredients. That’s what Chef BJ’s style of cooking is all about.

In the middle of Joseph Fields’ 48-acre farm on John’s Island, South Carolina, Chef BJ started preparing dinner when most were having breakfast. Preparation involved building a couple fires — one to solder down into coals and ash for the homemade barbeque grill, the other to heat the cast-iron pots. The grill has to be swept, the fires maintained and the coals carried from the barrel to the underside of the grill with a shovel. By no stretch of the imagination is it easy work; calling it a labor of love is an understatement.

Michael joined Chef BJ to chop onions and okra, season a slab of ribs, mix the from-scratch cornbread batter and prep the peas. Then, while Chef BJ put finishing touches on dinner, Michael joined Joseph Fields between rows of vitamin K, beta-carotene, calcium and iron to swap stories on how they were raised. Though Michael grew up no stranger to snow, he comes from a family of farmers. His grandmother grew up in a sharecropping family as well as having their own farm with string beans, snap peas, peanuts, cotton, hogs and more.

“I feel like farming and agriculture have been a huge part of my family, probably the biggest thing about my family …. That’s how we got to where we are. My grandmother is probably the first person to not farm for work since, you know, her parents.”

The final dinner was a full-circle moment, gathering together Michael; his brother Gabriel; their parents, Danita and Demaryo; Adrian Miller; Chef Charlotte Jenkins; Chef BJ Dennis; and Joseph and Helen Fields. Beneath an indigo-blue sky, string lights and almost bare pecan trees, they made jokes and reflected on the past couple of days before being served a meal whose main ingredients were all grown in South Carolina. The sweet and spicy spareribs from a local farm; the Jimmy Red cornbread made from heirloom corn and the creamy Sea Island white rice peas were purchased from Anson Mills; the authentic, aromatic Carolina Gold rice was from Rollen’s Raw Grains; and the organic peppers and okra were harvested from Chef BJ’s personal garden.

“I feel like this is African American food,” Michael recounted. “Yeah, we have fried chicken and other stuff, but there’s this food that people kind of ignore, but it’s still such a big part of our culture and everyone’s experience and history, regardless of what they’re eating.” In response to his two days of cooking with two legendary Gullah chefs, Michael shared, “This has been an amazing trip, just to come here and learn about something that I honestly had no idea about. But it’s still a part of me.”

There’s a Southern saying that if we eat together and talk about life and laugh, a sacred connection is made. That’s what happened over the course of two days. Michael left Charleston with more family and plenty of local, fresh fodder to seed his ongoing studies, cook with, write about and advocate for.

Lowcountry Legacy

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