I've been reading "Cooking the Gullah Way, Morning, Noon, and Night" by Sallie Ann Robinson as research for my historical paranormal novel, which is set in the Gullah Region and features Gullah characters and a Gullah heroine. Gullah is a distinct African-American culture in the coastal and sea-island region of Lower North Carolina, South Carolina, and Upper Georgia. It has its own history, crafts, and language. This particular cookbook (she has written several) has helped me make the food and medicine in my story authentic. Since I love eating, I'll try cooking some of these recipes soon, too!

As a cookbook, "Cooking the Gullah Way" is divided into morning, noon, and evening meals, as well as desserts and drinks (homemade wines and nonalcoholic). These include tasty-sounding dishes like country-fried fish with grits, Yondah black-eyed pea soup, and flounder full of crabmeat. She also writes about home remedies, with natural plants to cure muscle aches and other common complaints. So far, what I have enjoyed most as a reader is Ms. Robinson's stories of her life growing up on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina.

I'm sure I'll update as I try the recipes; I am a big "foodie". ( )

SALLIE ANN ROBINSON FEEDS THE MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT

Celebrity Chef Sallie Ann Robinson, a native of the famous Sea Island known as Daufuskie Island located just down the Savannah River between the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia, has made guest appearances on numerous cooking shows and been profiled in such publications as the 2005 Old Farmer’s Almanac, Southern Living, and National Geographic. In COOKING THE GULLAH WAY, MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT, her book of highly appealing regional recipes and personal memoir, Robinson goes beyond writing about her native Gullah culture to honoring, sharing, and preserving its customs and dialect with the kind of affectionate familiarity, and certainty of knowledge, that only a fifth-generation daughter of the island could possess.

There are many levels on which to appreciate Cooking the Gullah Way. Lovers of exceptionally good food might justifiably desire to simply roam through its pages, pick out favorite recipes, and feast on their findings. Yet the recipes themselves often provide more than satisfying pleasures for the palate simply by virtue of names that reflect Robinson’s coastal heritage sensibilities. Imagine, for example, a filling breakfast of the author’s "Gullah Bacon Corn Muffin" with a side dish of "Sassy Strawberry Preserves"; a lunch featuring "Sallie’s Seafood Spaghetti" with "Yondah Black-Eyed Pea Soup"; or a dinner of "Grilled Fresh Vegetables," "Local Sea Island Country Boil," and "Country Candied Yams with Raisins" all washed gently down by your choice of "Soothing Sassafras Tea," "Ol’ Country Lemonade with Orange," or a homemade wine such as "‘Fuskie Backyard Pear Wine." Such mouth-watering teasers defeat all attempts at resistance.

However: a major special feature in Cooking the Gullah Way is Robinson’s chapter on “Gullah Folk Beliefs and Home Remedies.” As the author writes, “Those times living on Daufuskie without a television or radio to inform us about the weather made us wiser as we learned nature’s ways.”

Chapter sections on “Living with Nature” and “Sea Island Folk Beliefs” offer notes of real interest for students of southern culture and history. Moreover, in these days of economically challenged households, the section on “’Fuskie Old-Fashioned Home Remedies” offers possible alternatives and/or supplements to medicines for the treatments of a variety of ills. Everything from asthma and earaches to high blood pressure and toothaches is covered with a note of caution to first, “learn about any remedy and be aware of the good and bad sides of it.”

If the winning recipes and folk remedies make Cooking the Gullah Way a homemaker’s dream companion book, the down-to-earth wisdom and observations shared through the interwoven stories make it a delectable choice for the general reader as well. We smile with appreciation as Robinson’s “Pop” explains that in the morning when he calls out, “Off and on it!” to his still sleeping family, the phrase means for every able body to “Get off ya backside and on ya feet.” And we nod with humored enlightenment when he points out that, “A heap may see, but only a few knows”––meaning that seeing is not necessarily synonymous with understanding. With that in mind, what we need most to understand about Cooking the Gullah Way, Morning, Noon, and Night, is that this book delivers as much delicious nurturing for the soul as it does nourishment for the body.

by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of "The American Poet Who Went Home Again"
and "ELEMENTAL, the Power of Illuminated Love" ( )