Episode Two - Black Farming
Discuss
Agraria’s Black Farming conference was called “Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule.” What significance does that phrase have for you? How do you think it resonates with Black farmers?
During the Great Migration of the early 20thC, many African-Americans moved from the rural South to Northern cities, many for factory jobs in the expanding industrial economy. How might the Great Migration have affected their access to food? How do you think it affected their participation in agriculture?
Ariella Brown led an effort, sponsored by Rep. Marcia Fudge, to build one hundred “seasonal high tunnels” in her Cleveland Congressional district. What is a “seasonal high tunnel” and how does it work? How would an array of high tunnels affect urban residents’ views of agriculture? How would it change their ideas about where food comes from?
Leah Penniman’s book is called Farming While Black. In what ways might the experiences and concerns of Black farmers be distinct from those of white farmers (or farmers of other races)?
Kenisha Robinson talks about connecting with her father’s commitment to feeding his family by growing food. She describes feeling “rejuvenated” by her work digging the soil. Besides access to fresh produce, what other motives attract people to the practices of regenerative agriculture?
Listen
Farming While Black: A Guide To Finding Power And Dignity Through Food
Black in the Garden is hosted by millennial Black plant enthusiast and self-proclaimed Plantrepreneur, Colah B Tawkin. Episodes cover a range of topics that directly influence and impact black plant keepers https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/black-in-the-garden/id1488463073
'Make Farmers Black Again': African Americans Fight Discrimination To Own Farmland https://www.npr.org/2020/08/25/904284865/make-farmers-black-again-african-americans-fight-discrimination-to-own-farmland
Watch
Why aren't there more black farmers in the United States? | The Stream
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2zRvzq1WHk
Why Black People Need Farms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAJ2nhw_Hhs
The Young Black Farmers Defying a Legacy of Discrimination https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxbdwsy88V4
How Black American Were Robbed of Their Land https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldLiR794DsQ
How Black Farmers Reclaimed Economic Power With Cooperatives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yR8E4x8ApI
Read
Links
Seven contributions of Black farmers to agriculture https://www.farmproject.org/blog/2017/2/4/hikqys8igvv0bo368aco3mrb1rv7d1
Justice for Black Farmers Act https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/justice-bill-would-transfer-up-to-32-million-acres-to-black-farmers
Identifying and Counter White Supremacy in Culture in Food System. https://wfpc.sanford.duke.edu/reports/identifying-and-countering-white-supremacy-culture-food-systems
Why Have America’s Black Farmers Disappeared? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/29/why-have-americas-black-farmers-disappeared
How USDA distorted data to conceal decades of discrimination against Black farmers https://thecounter.org/usda-black-farmers-discrimination-tom-vilsack-reparations-civil-rights/
We don't farm because it's trendy; we farm as resistance, for healing and sovereignty https://www.ehn.org/black-farming-food-sovereignty-2645479216/particle-7
African-American farmers have lost untold acres of land over the last century. An obscure legal loophole is often to blame. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/african-americans-have-lost-acres/
Exploring Culinary Traditions of Africa, African America and the African Diaspora
Foods of the Enslaved: Micahel Twitty Cooks Recipes from American History https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/food-of-the-enslaved-michael-twitty-cooks-recipes-from-american-history
Black Farmers Stage Sit-In. https://aaregistry.org/story/black-farmers-stage-sit-in/
Contributions of African Crops to American Culture and Beyond: The Slave Trade and Other Journeys of Resilient Peoples and Crophttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.586340/full
Books
Cox, Anna-Lisa. The Bone and Sinew of the Land: America's Forgotten Black Pioneers and the Struggle for Equality. PublicAffairs, 2018.
Daniel, Pete. Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights. University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
Ficara, John Francis., and Juan Williams. Black Farmers in America. Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2006.
Penniman, Leah, and Karen Washington. Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018.
White, Monica M. Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement. Univ of North Carolina P, 2021.
Magazines
How Slaves Shaped American Cooking https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/3/140301-african-american-food-history-slavery-south-cuisine-chefs/#close
Joel Salatin’s Unsustainable Myth. His go-alone message made him a star of the food movement. Then a young, black farmer dug in to what he was really saying. https://www.motherjones.com/food/2020/11/joel-salatin-chris-newman-farming-rotational-grazing-agriculture/
Do
Look at the list here of inventions of Dr. George Washington Carver using peanuts, sweet potatoes or soybeans. Research one of the inventions, find a similar recipe and recreate at home using these or other plants.
Dr. Carver also invented the Jessup Agricultural Wagon, a mobile school bringing knowledge to rural areas where students did not have access to schools. Create your own “Farm school in a box”. What materials will you include? Share in an afterschool or other program for younger youth.
Additional Resources
https://www.blackfarmers.org/ National Black Farmer’s Association
https://www.greennghetto.org/ Rid-All Green Partnership: Urban Agriculture and Youth Education
The Legacy and Current Growth of Black Cooperatives https://truthout.org/articles/the-legacy-and-current-growth-of-black-cooperatives/
These resouces from Soul Fire Farm offer links to presentations, videos, audiobites, articles, books, chapters, and the Liberation on the Land media series.
Eat
Black-Eyed Peas Soup. This is a recipe from African-American culinary historian Michael Twitty.
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
For the soup
· 2 tablespoons olive oil
· 1 medium red onion, chopped
· 2 garlic cloves, chopped
· 1 small shallot, chopped
· Kosher salt, ground coriander, kitchen pepper,* several pinches of each
· 1½ pounds collard greens, trimmed from the stalk and sliced into thin, very small strips
· 2 cups chopped fresh heirloom tomatoes, or 14-oz. can chopped plum tomatoes
· 2 teaspoons dried marjoram or oregano, or 2 sprigs of fresh marjoram and oregano
· 2 cups cooked black-eyed peas,** or 2 cans black-eyed peas
· 4 cups vegetable stock
(optional ingredients)
· more broth for the cooked black-eyed peas
· protein, such as pork, lamb, or duck bacon; ham hock; smoked turkey; or soy meat products
*For the kitchen pepper
· 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
· 1 teaspoon ground white pepper
· 1 teaspoon red-pepper flakes
· 1 teaspoon ground mace
· 1 teaspoon ground Saigon cinnamon
· 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
· 1 teaspoon ground allspice
· 1 teaspoon ground ginger
Preparation
**For cooked black-eyed peas
Sort through a 1-lb. bag of black-eyed peas. Look for any stones or “off” peas or stray objects. Soak overnight in cold water or in hot water for just over an hour and drain. In a large saucepan, add the peas and cover with low-sodium vegetable stock and bring to a boil, skimming frequently. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 1¼ hours or until quite soft, occasionally stirring gently. For extra flavor and richness, you can add a protein to the bubbling pot—like pork, lamb, or duck bacon; ham hock; smoked turkey; or soy meat products.
For the soup
In a large Dutch oven, gently heat the olive oil and add the onion, garlic, and shallot. Cook until translucent and fragrant. Add a pinch of kosher salt, a pinch of ground coriander, and a pinch of kitchen pepper. Add the collards and cook for 4–5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and season again with a generous pinch of kosher salt and gentle pinches of coriander and kitchen pepper. Cook slowly until the tomatoes break down into a sauce, about 15 minutes. If using dried herbs, add them at this stage.
Add the peas and vegetable stock to the pot and simmer for 45 minutes. If using fresh herbs, add during this stage, but remember to remove sprigs when it’s time to serve. Add final pinches of kosher salt, coriander, and kitchen pepper.
Boiled Peanuts This recipe is a tribute to George Washington Carver, whose contributions to agriculture are immeasurable.
Ingredients
Raw Peanuts - Enough to fill your pot
Water - Enough to float the peanuts (measure how much used)
Salt - About 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) of salt per gallon of water
Directions
Rinse the raw peanuts several times in water to remove debris. Put the peanuts into a pot. You can also use a crockpot. Add water (measure as you fill) until it reaches no more than 1" from the top of the pot. The peanuts will float. Stir the pot, and bring it to a rolling boil (turn crockpot on high).
Fresh green peanuts should boil at least 1 hour, and up to 4 hours. Dried raw peanuts usually need to boil more than 8 hours, and up to 24 hours. Add fresh water as required, because the water boils away over time.
Taste the peanuts as they boil. Raw peanuts first soften as they boil. The salt flavor only infuses the peanuts after they soften, and the brine permeates the shells. When they are as soft as you like turn off the burner, and let the boiled peanuts soak in the brine for several hours to saturate the peanuts with the salty flavor.
Green raw peanuts take at least 1 hour to boil, and raw dried peanuts may require up to 24 hours to boil. The raw peanuts' maturity, size, internal moisture content, and your taste preference determines their required boiling time.
When using this boiled peanuts recipe in a pressure cooker with dried peanuts, cook them for about 45 to 55 minutes at 15 pounds pressure, depending on how soft you prefer them. Let the pressure cooker reduce pressure naturally, don't force cool it. After pressure cooking the peanuts you can continue to boil them in the open pot to further soften them.
Regardless how you boil them, we suggest soaking the boiled peanuts in the brine for several hours after they reach the texture you like. Soaking infuses the peanuts with salty goodness, and makes them juicy. You can soak them overnight in the refrigerator for maximum flavor. Eat them cold, or reheat them in the juice to enjoy fresh hot boiled peanuts.
While no boiled peanut recipe can tell you exactly how long to boil your peanuts, by sampling them as they boil you'll decide when they're done to your liking.
This Georgia expert tells his boiled peanut recipe for green peanuts. Notice JR uses "about 25 pounds of peanuts, 3 cups of salt for the first cooking". He doesn't say how much water that is. The ratio of salt to water is the important factor not pounds of peanuts.
Many online boiled peanuts recipes advise using more salt than you need. The concentration of salt in the water is the important factor rather than the pounds of peanuts in the water.
Our boiled peanuts recipe suggests 1/2 cup of salt per Gallon of water. Some like more, some less. We recommend about 8 Tablespoons (+/-2) of salt per Gallon of water when boiling peanuts.
Proper boiling and soaking time allows the saline solution to flow through the shell into the pods, and saturate them with flavor. Green peanuts will take at least 1 hour to boil, up to 4 hours. Dried raw peanuts will take up to 24 hours to boil. Dried peanuts (and dried beans) soften faster when boiling without any salt. Add salt to the water as they cool and soak. Do not try to rush good boiled peanut flavor by using extra salt. Let the magic happen naturally, over time as it does around the world for boiled peanut vendors.
The perfect boiled peanut recipe creates the best texture, flavor, and wetness from that particular batch of peanuts. Flavor perfection requires proper cooking, and soaking time using the freshest ingredients.
Regional boiled peanut recipes add chili peppers, jalapenos, old bay seasoning, shrimp boil seasoning, sugar, jaggery, star anise, turmeric, Chinese 5 spice, cilantro, onion, garlic, Szechuan peppercorn, chicken stock, liquid smoke, etc.