NC State is cooking up methods to rejoice Black Historical past Month

Chef Erica Glascow / Pictures courtesy of NC State Eating

For 3 weeks in February, Chef Erica Glasco at North Carolina State College was exhausting at work, cooking up themed meals in honor of Black Historical past Month.

The menus had been featured at One Earth, a campus restaurant that provides world cuisines, the place Glasco is a supervisor.

Every week’s menu was curated with a selected theme in thoughts, all referring to Black tradition.

The group selected a three-week occasion as a result of it gave them the chance to spotlight several types of delicacies and emphasize the wide selection of meals that comes from Black cultures. To that finish, the sequence featured soul meals the primary week, adopted by Creole delicacies and a “tour of Africa.”

“I needed to do one thing different than simply soul meals. As a result of there’s so many different Black cuisines on the market. And that’s the place the Creole and the Tour of Africa got here from,” Glasco mentioned.

As well as, Glasco needed to share recipes that she grew up on, whereas showcasing her culinary abilities.

“I feel it’s essential as a result of all of us love good meals, however generally, you don’t take into consideration the place it got here from, you realize, and what my ancestors went by means of. How they took what they got and simply made a very good meal, and households simply sat round and loved that,” mentioned Glasco. “I need my love for cooking to point out by means of.”

Glasco additionally used her expertise to place her distinctive contact on every recipe: “I adopted the recipe, however I don’t assume I measured something for any of those. It was simply based mostly off what I’ve realized.” 

The primary menu launched on Feb. 15, and Glasco served fried catfish, mac n cheese and collard greens. For the collard greens recipe, Glasco drew inspiration from Southern soul meals chef Edna Lewis. 

“She’s generally known as the grand dame of southern cooking. So as a substitute of doing my collard inexperienced recipe, I made hers. And marketed and printed up a pleasant little show card explaining who she was and her recipe,” Glasco mentioned.

Glasco’s Southern soul meals. 

Glasco additionally served a vegan mushroom pot pie. “[I’ve] by no means completed only a vegetarian or vegan, you realize, every part has to have meat in it. However it was the most effective factor on the menu and all people beloved it,” she mentioned.

The second week featured an array of Creole dishes, together with jambalaya, shrimp etouffee and feijoada, the nationwide dish of Brazil.

“It’s a recipe created by slaves who had been left solely the scraps of the meat,” Glasco mentioned. “They mixed these scraps with black beans and made a scrumptious stew.”

Week three highlighted dishes from completely different elements of Africa, akin to braai drumsticks from South Africa and maharage, the nationwide dish of Tanzania, which is constituted of cooking down kidney beans in coconut milk. 

A “tour of Africa.”

Glasco has curated menus for One Earth’s Black Historical past Month celebrations prior to now—she started three years in the past with a weeklong themed menu, and final yr, hosted a Black Historical past Month lunch. Sooner or later, although, she hopes to go “greater and higher.”

“I’m very grateful for them permitting me to current my menus for Black Historical past Month,” she mentioned.