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1:23

I am a person who has been

1:26

enthralled by Frida Denaert

1:28

my entire life. She's always been

1:41

in my life in the form of a cookbook. And

1:44

then when I discovered how badly black

1:48

culture was treated in

1:51

magazines, newspapers, early cookbooks,

1:54

and how our recipes were co-opted in

1:56

so many ways. For Me,

1:58

she was an empowerment. To

2:00

right to about food. This

2:03

is veteran food writer gonna battle Pierce

2:05

talking about the woman who she says

2:07

is one. Of the most important

2:10

figures in American Canary history Frida,

2:12

the Nights are Waiting Harm Economist

2:14

is Mrs of the Night of

2:16

Ebony Magazine or popular articles on

2:19

food on home furnishings. On her

2:21

book a Date with a Dish

2:23

have one international honor. Free

2:26

to deny, it was the first food

2:28

editor at Ebony Magazine that when the

2:30

iconic publication was first getting started. In

2:33

the mid nineteen forties, I grew up.

2:35

Seeing it on the coffee

2:38

table everywhere every black person

2:40

because it was the first

2:42

correct representation of a culture

2:45

that have been so severely

2:47

misrepresented before. Freed.

2:49

Us National Recipe column a Date

2:51

with the Desk helped to revolutionize

2:54

Black Canary coverage in post. World

2:56

War Two. America. See. Published

2:58

thousands of recipes and articles during

3:01

her career, but I'm like the

3:03

same. His contemporaries Julia Child and

3:05

James. Beard. Freedom. Wrote

3:07

just one cookbook, In

3:11

an instant, messenger. A Beat

3:13

would get the Bill was first

3:15

published in nineteen. Forty Eight, and

3:17

it's considered to be the first

3:19

major cookbook by a Black American.

3:21

Author in the United States. It's

3:24

over four hundred and fifty pages

3:26

long, filled with hundreds. Of recipes

3:28

from scrambled eggs to Philemon

3:31

yawn. Pineapple, Duck and

3:33

Crab jambalaya. There were recipes

3:35

that you did not find

3:37

and other. Have club books

3:39

that was totally the way

3:42

my grandmother, our grandmothers, the

3:44

generations before us. Clubs: There

3:47

was some potato salad and in

3:49

their words combos with tomato. Because

3:52

there was that challenge of do

3:54

gumbo really have tomatoes and then

3:56

of course one that I love

3:58

the most. Okay, Frida

4:01

absolutely loved fruitcake. Donna

4:04

says that a date with a dish is

4:06

so much more than a cookbook or a

4:08

magazine column. In her

4:10

search for recipes, Frida traveled

4:12

to homes all over the

4:15

country, collecting stories and dishes

4:17

from black chefs and home

4:19

cooks from Louisiana to California.

4:22

Every single story is remarkable.

4:24

And it's like having a

4:27

family member because these are

4:29

people who represented the

4:32

aunts and uncles and grandparents and

4:34

cousins that all of us in

4:37

the black middle class knew and

4:39

grew up with, whose voices had been

4:41

silenced. Before Frida the

4:43

Night, publications that centered black cuisine

4:45

were overwhelmingly written by white writers

4:48

for white audiences, often

4:50

using harmful caricatures like Uncle

4:52

Ben or Aunt Jemima. So

4:55

Frida wasn't just changing the culinary conversation.

4:58

She was speaking an entirely different

5:00

language. These are recipes

5:03

that came from black families,

5:05

black family cooks, proud black

5:07

middle class that were

5:09

all over the country that were never

5:11

shown in quote,

5:13

mainstream media, that was never

5:16

available in other magazines or

5:18

newspapers or even early

5:20

television. These recipes weren't written

5:22

for white people to say, oh, I'm

5:25

gonna try some of that chicken. These

5:27

were recipes written by us,

5:30

for us. Everything

5:33

we eat has a story to tell. Welcome

5:39

to If This Food Could Talk, a

5:41

history show for everyone who eats.

5:43

I'm Claudia Hanna. Today

5:46

on the show, we are telling the story

5:48

of culinary trailblazer Frida the Night. With

5:50

Donna's help, we'll discover how Frida's work

5:53

helped to change the culinary narrative

5:55

for an entire generation of

5:57

black chefs and home cooks. We'll

5:59

follow. her journey from Topeka, Kansas, all

6:02

the way to the largest black publishing

6:04

company in the United States. And

6:07

we'll hear some of the voices in recipes

6:09

she championed along the way. I'll

6:12

also try my hand at cooking one of

6:14

Frida's recipes, barbecued spare

6:16

ribs. All that coming right

6:18

up. Hey,

6:25

everybody, it's Claudia. I

6:28

love cooking, entertaining, and teaching

6:30

people how to cook. The

6:32

one thing I've learned over the years is

6:34

that cooking can be so much fun. But

6:37

you know what's not fun? Going

6:39

to the grocery store, shopping

6:41

vegetables, preparing the proteins, it

6:44

all takes time. And that is not the

6:46

fun part of food. The fun part is

6:49

eating, sharing, and connecting.

6:52

So it is holiday season, and I would

6:54

love to share with you my secret to

6:57

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6:59

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7:01

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7:03

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7:06

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7:10

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7:31

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7:58

That's ITSfree. I

8:02

just placed my order. Happy holidays

8:04

everybody. I hope it is delicious and

8:06

stress free. The

8:10

holidays start here at Kroger with a

8:12

variety of options to celebrate traditions old

8:14

and new. You could do

8:17

a classic herb roasted turkey or spice it up

8:19

and make turkey tacos. Serve up

8:21

a go-to shrimp cocktail or use simple

8:23

truth wild caught shrimp for your first

8:25

Cajun risotto. Like creamy mac

8:28

and cheese or a spinach artichoke fondue

8:30

from our selection of Murray's cheese. No

8:32

matter how you shop Kroger has all

8:34

the freshest ingredients to embrace all

8:36

your holiday traditions. Kroger fresh for

8:39

everyone. Today

8:43

we're speaking with food writer

8:45

Donna Battle-Pierce about her culinary

8:47

hero Frida DeKnight, the first

8:49

food editor at Ebony Magazine.

8:52

In recent years Donna has been writing a

8:54

book all about Frida and her work. But

8:57

Frida has been a part of Donna's life for as

8:59

long as she can remember. It

9:01

was Frida who inspired Donna to pursue a

9:04

career in food writing almost 30 years

9:06

ago. And it's Frida's recipes

9:08

that she hands down to her grand nieces

9:10

and nephews. When

9:13

our producer, Cariette Herman spoke to Donna

9:15

from her home in Santa Monica, it

9:18

was very clear. Frida

9:20

isn't just a research subject. She's

9:22

family. I

9:24

have collected a lifetime of cookbooks and

9:27

a lifetime of black history. So

9:30

I am surrounded by bookshelves

9:33

and people who inspire me. I

9:36

have a family tree that's very important to

9:38

me. I have a photograph of

9:41

my father, my mother, and

9:43

then I have a picture of Frida.

9:46

I feel Frida's presence in my

9:48

office, in my kitchen, in my

9:50

life all of the time. Before

9:54

Donna spoke to us about Frida's column and

9:56

cookbook, she wanted us to understand the void

9:58

that Frida was filling in. the culture.

10:01

Avoid that Donna felt herself growing up

10:03

in the early 50s. Just a few

10:05

years after a date with a dish,

10:07

the cookbook was published. Some

10:10

of her earliest memories are helping her

10:12

family in the kitchen, making Frida's recipes.

10:14

My grandmothers did not have collections of

10:17

cookbooks. They had Frida, both of them.

10:19

Donna comes from a long line of talented

10:22

home cooks, and she learned

10:24

many of Frida's dishes by heart,

10:26

along with family recipes like pound

10:28

cake, oyster loaves, and jambalaya. These

10:31

meals were a proud part of Donna's

10:33

heritage, but as early as middle

10:36

school, she began to realize that her

10:38

white friends disapproved of the food at

10:40

her table. For

10:43

my 13th birthday, my

10:46

mother made gumbo, our

10:48

family recipe, creole so I'll call

10:50

it. I was

10:53

able to invite from my integrated school

10:55

about six or seven of

10:58

my friends. Two of

11:00

the girls turned to me and said, oh,

11:02

this gumbo has spice in it. You know,

11:04

real ladies don't eat spicy food.

11:08

That was such a negative

11:11

comment to me culturally, as

11:13

if my family were not made of real

11:16

ladies. But

11:19

these were white girls. They

11:21

were sincerely saying something that

11:24

they had been told from their

11:27

grandmothers and relatives and

11:29

from television and

11:31

from books and from so

11:34

much that was slanted. And

11:36

they believed it. I

11:39

was a little 13-year-old girl, and that

11:41

stuck with me all of my life.

11:45

It's painful memories like these that make

11:47

Frida such an important figure in Donna's

11:50

life. At a time when

11:52

there were so few Black voices in

11:54

the culinary conversation, Frida

11:56

recognized the contributions of people just like

11:58

Donna and her family. And

12:01

she put them in the pages of a

12:03

magazine for everyone to see. I

12:06

think it's important, very important,

12:08

for white people to understand

12:11

what the environment was that

12:13

people like my siblings and

12:15

myself grew up in, or

12:17

people like my parents raised

12:19

children in. There was blatant

12:21

racism everywhere.

12:26

People had been taught not to

12:28

see black people as

12:31

intelligent in having had grandparents

12:33

that went to college or great

12:35

grandparents. And so for

12:37

us, we as young black people,

12:40

we knew the intelligent, beautiful, wonderful

12:42

people that were out in our world

12:45

and the wonderful letters and the

12:47

photographs and the family reunions and the

12:49

dinner patties. And white people,

12:51

they saw what was revealed to

12:53

them for a purpose. And

12:56

that was for keeping segregation going.

13:09

In the early days, most of what Donna knew

13:11

about Frida came from her grandparents, who

13:13

would not allow any other cookbook on their kitchen

13:15

shelves. But as she got

13:18

older and cracked open the pages for herself,

13:20

a picture of Frida's work began to emerge,

13:23

one that would influence the course of her life. Do

13:26

you happen to have the book in front of you

13:29

by any chance? Sure.

13:31

I had written some down that were

13:33

important to me. That's

13:35

my producer, Carrie Add, speaking with Donna,

13:38

who's weaving through her grandmother's copy

13:40

of the original 1948 edition of A Date with

13:42

a Dish. Inside

13:46

there are chapter titles like There's

13:48

Magic in a Cookbook, A Guide

13:51

for the Housewife, and my personal

13:53

favorite, Vegetables on Parade. But

13:55

the section that Donna wants to read from

13:57

is called Collector's Corner, an entire

16:00

But as it turns out, Frida

16:02

was born to travel. It

16:05

was said she was born on the train. Her

16:09

mother was a traveling nurse, and

16:11

that was a very wonderful career

16:13

for a woman. Her

16:15

father was a porter, a

16:18

sleeping car porter. And that

16:20

was a wonderful opportunity for black

16:22

men to travel around the country

16:25

and to learn, to see, to bring

16:27

things back and to earn a very

16:29

decent salary. So Frida was born

16:32

into that family. If

16:34

Frida and her family had stayed in Kansas, it's

16:36

hard to say if she would have become a food writer at

16:38

all. But very soon fate

16:41

would intervene, and the direction of

16:43

her life would change forever. When

16:46

she was just two years old, her father

16:48

died, and Frida's mother was forced to move

16:50

them both to Mitchell, South Dakota, to live

16:52

with her brother Paul and his wife, Mamie.

16:55

They were very, very successful caterers, and

16:58

Mitchell was a very white community. They

17:01

lived on a farm. They raised their

17:03

food. They introduced to a lot of

17:05

people that had never eaten it or

17:07

appreciated that little dash of delicious seasoning.

17:10

And then Mamie, Paul's wife, taught

17:13

Frida cooking. Frida's

17:16

path to Ebony magazine began in her

17:18

aunt's kitchen, who she later said

17:20

was among the finest caterers in the country.

17:23

In fact, Mamie Scott's recipe for

17:25

an inexpensive dinner is the very

17:27

first one in Frida's cookbook. There's

17:29

a meatloaf, a beaten onion

17:31

salad, cauliflower, bechamel sauce,

17:34

and marble cupcakes. And

17:38

Donna says that it's likely Frida was learning a

17:40

whole lot more than cooking on that farm in

17:42

South Dakota. The truth of

17:44

the matter is that Paul Scott,

17:46

her mother's brother, was much, much

17:49

more than a caterer. He

17:51

was a political activist. According

17:54

to Donna, it's Paul who instilled a sense

17:56

of activism in Frida that would later show

17:58

up in her work. She

18:00

didn't just create a cookbook. She

18:03

was providing visibility to an entire

18:05

community of Black Americans. In

18:09

college, Frida studied home economics, and though

18:12

she certainly loved food, there's no indication

18:14

she was planning a career in the

18:16

culinary arts. She spent

18:18

some time in Minnesota and Chicago, and

18:21

then in the late 1920s, she

18:23

moved to Harlem. This

18:27

would have been right in the middle of the

18:29

Harlem Renaissance, an explosion of

18:31

Black creativity and culture in

18:33

April Manhattan. This

18:36

time in New York marked such an important

18:38

turning point in Frida's life that Donna went

18:40

to visit Frida's apartment just to soak it

18:42

all in. I stood outside

18:45

just to feel the vibe and

18:47

where she was and how it was

18:49

located close to the libraries and

18:51

close to museums. I

18:53

wanted to feel how she felt

18:56

and how it all fit together,

18:59

and I'm still putting the puzzle pieces together with

19:01

help from others. It

19:04

was here in Harlem that Frida met her

19:06

future husband, musician Renee DeKnight,

19:08

and they got married just as his career

19:10

was taking off. His

19:13

group, the Delta Rhythm Boys, recorded

19:15

with big stars like Ella Fitzgerald

19:17

and Fred Astaire. They performed

19:19

on Broadway, got a weekly spot on the

19:22

radio, and they were even on the big

19:24

screen. Frida would have been

19:26

rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest names in

19:28

Black entertainment. And

19:30

soon, she would be given the opportunity

19:33

of a lifetime, but it never would

19:35

have happened without a dinner party, a

19:37

sickly chef, and a chance meeting with

19:39

a visionary businessman named John Johnson, creator

19:42

of Ebony Magazine. More

19:45

after the break. John

19:53

Johnson launched Ebony Magazine in 1945,

19:55

just a few months after the

19:57

end of World War II. The

20:00

civil rights movement, as we know it today, was

20:03

still almost 10 years away. But

20:05

his business, the Johnson Publishing Company,

20:07

was already moving the needle. John

20:11

H. Johnson came along and said, I

20:13

want to be able to focus on

20:16

my culture, and I want to be able

20:18

to show the things that all of us

20:20

know in the culture, and yet I want

20:23

it available to everyone. The

20:25

magazine was the first national publication of

20:27

its kind, created by a

20:29

black publishing company, specifically for a

20:31

black audience. It

20:33

featured black writers, musicians, and political

20:36

figures of all kinds, and

20:38

it was an immediate hit, selling out its

20:40

original press run of 25,000 copies. I

20:44

grew up seeing it on

20:46

the coffee table everywhere, every black

20:49

person, because it was the first

20:51

correct representation of a

20:53

culture that had been

20:55

so severely misrepresented before.

20:59

John Johnson and Ebony Magazine would change the course of

21:02

Frida tonight's life forever, but when they met, she wasn't

21:04

looking for a job. In fact,

21:06

she wasn't thinking about work at all. She

21:10

had simply accepted an invitation to a dinner party

21:12

in Chicago. It was a gathering of intellectuals

21:14

and creative types. But

21:18

soon before the party, Frida got a

21:21

frantic call from her hosts. The

21:23

chef had taken ill, and the evening was going to

21:25

be ruined. And Frida said, oh,

21:27

I can handle this. She

21:31

was one of those people, as those of

21:33

us who were food lovers would say, oh,

21:35

you can put that together. What do you

21:37

have here? She

21:39

created these wonderful dishes that

21:41

she knew, having grown up

21:43

in South Dakota and in

21:45

Minneapolis with family that were

21:47

wonderful chefs. She created this

21:49

wonderful meal. John Johnson,

21:52

who was also at the party, was so

21:54

impressed by Frida's cooking that he asked her to

21:56

send him the recipes. was

22:00

just like what the date with the dish columns turned

22:02

out to be. It was beautifully done,

22:04

beautiful recipes, beautiful storytelling, and

22:06

he knew that he wanted

22:09

that for his magazine. We

22:12

don't know what dishes Frida made that left such

22:14

an impression on Johnson. But leafing

22:16

through the pages of our cookbook,

22:18

I'm imagining perhaps it was East

22:20

Indian chicken or pork tenderloin with

22:22

sweet and sour beets, maybe polished

22:25

off with her famous rose petal

22:27

ice cream. Whatever

22:29

it was she cooked, it was

22:31

certainly delicious because Johnson immediately

22:33

offered Frida a position at the

22:35

only national black magazine in the

22:38

country. And in 1946, she

22:41

took a job she had never applied for, moved

22:44

to Chicago, and became Ebony

22:46

magazine's first food editor. Her

22:52

column was very fashionable. It

22:54

was usually in the back of Ebony

22:56

magazine. And she

22:58

interviewed celebrities and she also

23:01

interviewed home cooks. As

23:03

soon as Frida started her career at

23:05

Ebony, she also began inventing a new

23:07

editorial approach to recipe making. Instead

23:10

of simply listing the ingredients in cooking

23:12

times, Frida's style was entertaining.

23:16

There were photographs and stories connected to

23:18

the food, and she used all

23:21

of her Harlem connections to pull in some

23:23

big names. People like Louis

23:25

Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and one of

23:27

the most glamorous actresses of her

23:29

day, Lena Horne, who

23:32

was Frida put it, likes her dishes

23:34

to be as interesting as her songs

23:36

and clothes. And spicy.

23:39

Frida was making it very clear. Real

23:42

ladies and movie stars

23:44

do love spicy food. And

23:46

over the years, she had no shortage of star

23:49

power in her column to prove it. She

23:51

knew them from her travels. She knew them

23:53

from Europe. She knew them from all that

23:55

she had done, just as the upper middle

23:58

class knew each other. fraternities,

24:00

sororities, travels, clubs,

24:03

and she traveled around the country and she

24:05

looked up people and people were thrilled to

24:07

be a part of what she was doing.

24:10

As Ebony's circulation grew, so did

24:12

the success of Frida's column. Her

24:15

food writing was changing the way black chefs were

24:17

presented to the public. Yes,

24:19

there were regional American dishes like collard

24:21

greens and mac and cheese, but

24:24

she also printed French, Italian, and

24:26

Caribbean recipes. After centuries

24:28

of stereotyping and pigeonholing, Frida

24:31

was showcasing the sophisticated reality

24:33

of black culinary excellence.

24:38

A year later, the magazine

24:40

published an editorial titled Goodbye,

24:42

Mammy. Hello, Mom. This

24:45

was Goodbye, Mammy, and

24:48

that was the Mammy

24:50

character that had been

24:52

representing the black cook,

24:54

Aunt Jemima. Hi, try

24:56

this tasty pancake. Oh,

24:58

yes, Uncle Ben. Goodbye

25:02

to that representation that we

25:04

knew all along was just

25:07

something that was used by

25:09

privileged whites to keep

25:11

things to themselves and not

25:14

to recognize the contributions of

25:16

black people. According

25:18

to that Ebony article, World War

25:20

II had created a sea change

25:22

in the lives of black American families.

25:25

Just like Rosie the Riveter, over six million

25:28

women had stepped into the workforce

25:30

for the first time, taking wartime

25:32

jobs in munition factories and

25:34

hospitals. And for many black

25:36

women, that meant leaving domestic work

25:38

in white households. Now

25:40

that the war was over, there was no

25:43

going back. A culinary

25:45

revolution was coming to black

25:47

kitchens across the country, and

25:49

Frida was at the forefront. I

25:52

think that was absolutely the exciting

25:54

part of it for her, to

25:56

be able for once and at

25:58

the beginning to... show the beauty

26:01

and the dishes that we

26:04

created. And we didn't

26:06

create them for white tables, but

26:08

we created them for our families

26:10

and our celebrations and our culture.

26:14

After two years at Ebony, Frida wrote

26:16

a cookbook named after the column she

26:18

created. In 1948, she

26:20

published A Date with a Dish,

26:22

a cookbook of American Negro recipes.

26:26

Though the book would be republished by

26:28

Ebony several years later as The Ebony

26:30

Cookbook, this first edition

26:32

was released independently, exactly as

26:34

Frida intended. In

26:37

the very first chapter, she made her mission

26:39

quite clear, writing, quote, "'There

26:42

has long been a need for a

26:45

non-regional cookbook "'that would contain recipes, menus,

26:48

and cooking hints "'from and

26:50

by Negroes all over America.

26:53

"'Read each paragraph, story, and

26:55

recipe "'as you would a novel. "'Then

26:58

you will know and enjoy to the

27:01

fullest "'the meaning of culinary arts.'"

27:04

For her, the time had come. She

27:06

had enough strength and enough power. She

27:09

was in charge. She wanted the cookbook to

27:11

come out, and she wanted people like

27:14

me, two generations later, to

27:16

still be cooking for them and

27:19

still be enjoying the stories that

27:21

are there and treasuring how she

27:23

had put us in a

27:25

place where we should have been for a long time.

27:29

And it will be around forever. Thanks

27:31

to the Library of Congress, the

27:33

book has been officially recognized as

27:35

a significant contribution to America's history,

27:37

and a copy has been added

27:39

to the archives. You

27:41

could even find a digitized version of

27:44

the original publication online. That's

27:47

where I found A Date with a

27:49

Dish, and I have absolutely loved exploring

27:51

it. Honestly, it's been hard

27:53

to choose just one recipe to try, but

27:55

I've landed on Ebony's Barbecued Spare

27:57

Ribs with a homemade barbecue sauce.

30:00

American Public Television is the

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leading syndicator of high-quality, top-rated

30:04

programming to American public

30:07

television stations. You can

30:09

learn more at aptonline.org.