How to celebrate Juneteenth through food
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Joi Chevalier is founder and chief executive officer of Texas-based The Cook's Nook, a social-impact-minded business that partners with hospitals, schools and other institutions to provide nutritious meals. Photo: Chelsa King Photography
Juneteenth's food traditions are a way to bind generations in remembrance of trauma and celebration of emancipation.
Zoom in: Red has become a key color for Juneteenth meals to celebrate resilience — watermelon salad, red velvet cake and strawberry soda or hibiscus tea are common items at Juneteenth gatherings.
What they're saying: "The practice of eating red foods … may owe its existence to the enslaved Yoruba and Kongo brought to Texas in the 19th century," culinary historian Michael Twitty once observed in his Afroculinaria blog.
- "For both of these cultures the color red is the embodiment of spiritual power and transformation. Enslavement narratives from Texas recall an African ancestor being lured using red flannel cloth, and many of the charms and power objects used to manipulate invisible forces required a red handkerchief."
Reddish drinks also have their roots in the kola nut and hibiscus, used to purify or make fragrant water, and food historians have noted that enslaved people used red corn to make their own whiskey.
Axios talked with Joi Chevalier, who grew up in Houston and now lives in Austin, about the dishes she associates with the holiday.
- Chevalier, a chef, is the founder and chief executive officer of The Cook's Nook, a social-impact-minded business that partners with hospitals, schools and other institutions to provide nutritious meals.
How do you like to celebrate Juneteenth?
The holiday for me is not so much about commemorating the general order, but all the activities that happened after that — particularly finding and reuniting with family members. I am still trying to reach out to folks related to us — to find where those links were broken. The way you do that is make yourself visible.
How do you do that?
We'd have an outdoor barbecue, and you'd put something in the back of the newspaper to let people know. We met in parks — Black bodies in segregated parks — and we'd ask, if you're a family member or think you're a family member, meet us in the park.
What food do you associate with the holiday?
My grandmother made cold macaroni and cheese and potato salad, in an oversized picnic basket. I've wondered how that food might relate to shoebox meals.
During the Great Migration, with people on the road in the 1930s through 1960s, they were avoiding sundown towns. So they carried a box, like a shoebox, that would have food in it — cheese, pickles, an already boiled egg, food that could last you all day.
And now here we are in a park for five or six hours. We'd have fried chicken and that cold macaroni cheese and potato salad and beans — and pound cake — and an entire watermelon or peaches.
Go deeper: We went on a 24-hour tour of Black-owned restaurants in Houston. Watch on Instagram here