What‘s for Lunch: Gullah Geechee food with chef James Johnson

NINA MOINI: It's lunchtime. We hope you're enjoying some lunch. We like to talk about food on this program a lot, though, even if it wasn't lunchtime. It's not every day, though, that we get to dig into the history of food. There's a story behind everything we eat. And this weekend, a Minneapolis chef is celebrating Black History Month with a workshop about preserving the Gullah Geechee food traditions. Gullah Geechee people are descendants of Africans who were enslaved in coastal areas of the Southeastern United States. They held on to traditions from Africa and mixed them with new ones, forming a unique language, art, and of course, food. Chef James Johnson is bringing Gullah Geechee food to Minnesota with his catering company, Cooks of Hope. And he joins us now on the line. Chef, thank you so much for being here.

JAMES JOHNSON: Hello, Nina. Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: Well, I have to say, I had not heard of Gullah Geechee cuisine. And I'm so glad that you are teaching us about that today. Can you talk about what makes these foods and flavors unique?

JAMES JOHNSON: Yeah. I mean, I moved here from the Lowcountry 15 years ago. And people didn't really know about Gullah Geechee cuisine. I worked in a lot of corporate dining, corporate places. And what makes Gullah Geechee feel different is that it is heavy on the rice and heavy on the seafood. And also, we do a lot of preserving our food through the smoking method. So yeah, we do a lot of gardening. We do a lot of fresh vegetables out of the field, that type of stuff.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And when did you first start learning to cook these foods?

JAMES JOHNSON: Well, since I was probably nine years old. My grandmother taught me how to cook rice. I was working in the garden. And I think I-- something happened where I started bleeding. I cut myself. And she took me in the kitchen. And she said, son, I'm going to teach you how to cook because I don't think you're going to make it in the field.

[LAUGHTER]

So that was during the time she took me in there and taught me how to cook rice. And then my mother also. I mean, the first time she made gravy and I saw it, I thought it was something magical. So between my grandmother, my mom, my uncles, my dad, everybody cooked down there. I mean, we love to cook down there.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. I love that. So many people that I ask how did they start cooking will say their grandmother. And I just really love that. I think that's beautiful. So you used to be in the corporate catering scene. Now, tell me about Cooks of Hope and who you serve.

JAMES JOHNSON: Yeah, so Cooks of Hope is-- we started out as a revenue generating arm for a non-profit. We used to be a job training program. But since then we evolved into a catering company. And we do mostly business-to-business catering. But we also do more than food. We're now a non-profit. We give back to the community. We uplift the community through our community meals to people that normally can't afford just the basic stuff in life. So we believe in giving back to the community through our non-profit, Cooks for Hope.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And I understand your wife runs that. How has she brought her own food traditions to the table?

JAMES JOHNSON: Well, yeah, that's the beautiful thing about Cooks of Hope. Our cooking style is more of cooking the African diaspora from the continent of Africa, to the Caribbean, to the Lowcountry up to the Minnesota area. She brings that Congolese style cooking. So on the menu this Saturday, that's where you're going to have cassava with smoked salmon. You're going to have pili pili sauce, which is a spicy African sauce.

NINA MOINI: Ooh.

JAMES JOHNSON: So she brings those African touches. Yeah, she brings those African touches and very detailed with that.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. I love when people-- there's room for everybody at the table and to mix it up, but also to have the authentic experiences, like historical experiences. And so I hear that you are leading a workshop on Saturday that's actually run by the Minnesota Historical Society over at the Mill City Museum. And it is sold out. But can you talk about what you like to share with people in these settings?

JAMES JOHNSON: Well, yes. I definitely like to share the culture of Gullah Geechee [? as far as ?] our sweetgrass, our baskets, and then also the cooking technique. Back then during the during the slavery times, there was a lot of pork-based dishes. It was the dishes that was affordable and they could utilize that and make beautiful meals out of. So I go through that process, but I also go through the process of how that cooking has evolved.

With me, I have a healthy conscience towards my cooking, so I try to take away the pork fat out of my cooking. So it's more of a healthy conscious type food. And then I would talk about the Carolina Gold rice. Carolina Gold rice is the original grain that the African slaves came here to harvest. And so we'll be cooking that rice also.

NINA MOINI: Wonderful. And so I assume you do events like this every so often. What are your hopes and your dreams for the future of your catering company as well as your non-profit work?

JAMES JOHNSON: Definitely, we want to have a facility where we can have different workshops, cooking classes, we can have partnership with farmers, local farmers, and partnerships with local gardeners where we can utilize their products and put it into the right people that need the food. I definitely want to go back to job training, that type of stuff. We're more looking for mostly to give back and help the people that really need it.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, how does it feel when you're giving back to people and preserving culture and history? How does that make you feel?

JAMES JOHNSON: OK. it is a sense of pride that you've been able to share your culture, that your grandmother, your ancestors, taught you, these different traditions and techniques. It's really a dream for me to have this workshop where it's going to be focused on my journey from the coast to Minnesota. And my family has a lot to do with that. We're a big old family. Like I said, we do a lot of cooking. I have an uncle that's here. He's the pitmaster in the in the family.

NINA MOINI: OK.

JAMES JOHNSON: Yeah. He has a restaurant up there in Pine City called Maxwell's Southern BBQ.

NINA MOINI: Oh, good.

JAMES JOHNSON: If anybody's ever up there, he's the pitmaster. So I learned a lot from him. I learned a lot from just my grandmother and grandfather, uncles and cousins. And since I'm a chef, I had to put my own spin on it to make things unique.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Really quick, before we let you go, when we have chefs on, we like to get a snapshot of their day by asking them, what's for lunch for you?

JAMES JOHNSON: I'm big on veggies. I like a big mega salad with maybe a nice pan-seared salmon to go with it.

NINA MOINI: Very healthy. I love that.

JAMES JOHNSON: Yeah. I definitely got to put that pili pili sauce on there to spice it up a little bit. I'm big on salad. I'm big on eating healthy.

NINA MOINI: All right. Oh, Chef, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this with us. I can really feel your passion and your joy for this. And I really appreciate your time.

JAMES JOHNSON: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: James Johnson is a chef and the owner of the catering company, Cooks of Hope in Minneapolis.