Celebrating Our Equality: A Cookbook With Recipes and Remembrances from Howard University

by Carolyn Quick Tillery

Hardcover Book with Dust jacket.

Genres: Cookbooks

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

It was about a decade ago that Carolyn Quick Tillery married two of her passions - history and food - to create a "pick up and go" career for herself. In 1994, she decided to write a book about the history of her alma mater, Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. And from the beginning, she decided to fold in food stories and recipes. Tillery was influenced by food and a powerful oral tradition as a child. A year and a half after beginning, Tillery published The African-American Heritage Cookbook acclaimed for its lively storytelling and Sweet Potato Soup, Mom's Devilish Catfish Stew, Smothered Yard Bird and more than 200 other recipes, rich in flavor and tradition. This was soon followed by the Military Wives Cookbook, which offers readers rare and fascinating tidbits of U.S. history from the perspective of America's military wives while framing nearly 50 sets of recipes with quotes, stories and vintage photographs, in such chapters as "An Independence Tea Party," "Yankee Doodle Pot Roast Dinner," "A Colonial Thanksgiving" and "Christmas in the Confederate White House." Martha Washington, Libbie Custer and Jefferson Davis' wife, Varina, are among the women who share their stories.
A former judicial law clerk, prosecuting attorney and United States Air Force Officer, Ms. Tillery currently manages the United States Central Command Personal & Family Readiness Program, which prepares military families for all phases of deployment and provides them with information to enhance the quality of their lives. She is the author of "A Taste of Freedom," "The African-American History Cookbook" and "Southern Homecoming Traditions," which was a finalist for the prestigious NAACP Image Award.
Southern Homecoming Traditions, the fourth installment in Tillery's African-American Heritage Cookbook series is similar in tone and style: each is really two books in one, a collection of regional recipes as well as a detailed examination of a particular facet of African-American history. Her most recent book is a celebration of the five historic black colleges and one university that comprise the Atlanta University Center: Morehouse, Spelman, and Morris Brown Colleges, Morehouse School of Medicine, Interdenominational Theological Center, and Clark-Atlanta University. Author Carolyn Quick Tillery uses the evocative power of food to take us back to the institutions where so many great African-American leaders were educated, and the region where so many great dishes were created.

Reviews

[Harold Michael Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carolyn Quick Tillery has served up a sumptuously delicious book of Southern recipes and along with it a bit of history, some well known and some obscure nuggets.

In CELEBRATING OUR EQUALITY, Ms. Tillery a former Air Force officer and a prosecuting attorney combines her two loves of cooking and history to tease the pallet with delicious food and prick the brain with events of significance at Howard University.

Tillery is as comfortable spending a day out crabbing for her dinner as she is adept at preparing mouthwatering dishes. Inside CELEBRATING OUR EQUALITY, 262 pages, Citadel Press, she has pulled together a splendid array of culinary delights. From a sparkling strawberry-mint lemonade to watermelon margaritas to get you in the mood for some smothered cabbage, okra fitters, smothered quail and pinto bean pie.

Along the way Tillery seasons her recipes with a sprinkle of history she has learned along the way. For instance, did you know Howard University boast of having the first law school to educate freed slaves?

That's right. For years I thought I had graduated from the oldest night law school in the western world, Atlanta Law School, which opened its doors in 1895, just five years after a night law school had been started in Russia. Little did I know until looking for a recipe for fried eggplant that the "Howard University Law Department was open on January 6, 1869, with six students...." "In the early days classes met three nights a week in the homes and offices of the four instructors."

This book is rich in history . It's rich and hearty meals celebrates the uniqueness of American; both culturally and historically. This one gets a big thumbs up and is recommended for anyone who likes to cook, but especially for students of history.

[Bonita M. Bantom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crab cake recipe is now a family staple.