Cuttin' Up: The Hotline Experience presented by VAE Raleigh
By VAE Raleigh
We invite you to share a story about a time you or a loved one was cuttin’ up in the kitchen. Your story can feature a unique culinary tradition, recount a core memory, or detail a favorite recipe, ingredient, or kitchen utensil. –The goal of this hotline is to memorialize and celebrate culinary traditions, both past and present, that are rooted in oral history.
This podcast is hosted by VAE Raleigh for our exhibition, Cuttin' Up: The Black Culinary Experience on view in Downtown Raleigh, NC until July 22nd, 2022.
Cuttin' Up: The Hotline Experience presented by VAE Raleigh Jun 13, 2022
The Amazing Breakfast
Call (919) 283-1212 and tell us your story today!
We invite you to share a story about a time you or a loved one was cuttin’ up in the kitchen. Your story can feature a unique culinary tradition, recount a core memory, or detail a favorite recipe, ingredient, or kitchen utensil. –The goal of this hotline is to memorialize and celebrate culinary traditions, both past and present, that are rooted in oral history.
This podcast is hosted by VAE Raleigh for our exhibition, Cuttin' Up: The Black Culinary Experience on view in Downtown Raleigh, NC until July 22nd, 2022
TRANSCRIPT
so I'd say my like quintessential breakfast meal would be something that my grandma always made me. She's still alive and everything. But I mean, I can't really get down there just to have breakfast anymore. I feel bad. I'm sort of in the position where I can cook for her now, which is great. But what she made was cheesy scrambled eggs grits and those little like Brown and fair sausages that would be like the frozen ones and the Food Lion. Then I spent like my entire life after that point. Basically. Just trying to recreate the cheesy eggs because I'm such a picky egg eater, you know, I can't have a bunch of white spots in it. They have to be slightly undercooked so that they keep cooking on the plate and they're like perfectly fluffy when you get them. And the secret that I have found out is that she diseases so much better. She uses like like half of the stick or something. I don't know man, but like that was my favorite thing and it was always served on like a paper plate like a styrofoam plate. I'm just waiting at the light wash dishes all that much. But yeah, I remember getting that and eating in the middle of the kitchen. We have this huge circular table in the middle of the kitchen, so there wasn't really that much space to walk. He just kind of had to Planet and just like I don't know talk to whoever came in the kitchen. It was pretty communal. Strong memory would be like in the morning. I would get this breakfast. My Grandpa would be outside with my older brother doing some kind of yard work and I was a little late to wake up. So. I would just be inside chilling by myself eating this amazing breakfast. Sometimes I would also have post. with butter and then this preserved like this jelly preservatives on my aunt Darlene would make Is usually like the strawberry flavor. Sometimes she did great. And strawberry is my favorite for sure. And I don't know. I just remembered so vividly seeing all the you know, the yellow the purple the Reds all like in the morning just the composition of my breakfast like really got me through the day and got me thinking about food a little differently. How we use it to live life?
Multi-generational Collard Greens
Call (919) 283-1212 and tell us your story today!
We invite you to share a story about a time you or a loved one was cuttin’ up in the kitchen. Your story can feature a unique culinary tradition, recount a core memory, or detail a favorite recipe, ingredient, or kitchen utensil. –The goal of this hotline is to memorialize and celebrate culinary traditions, both past and present, that are rooted in oral history.
This podcast is hosted by VAE Raleigh for our exhibition, Cuttin' Up: The Black Culinary Experience on view in Downtown Raleigh, NC until July 22nd, 2022
TRANSCRIPT
Hi, so I'd like to talk about collard greens. They have been such an impactful part of my growing up and see how the recipe gets passed down and slightly altered. I think it's passed down. I'm very blessed to have my great-grandmother and my grandmother and my mom in my life and I remember collard greens were a special occasion dish like that's something we only had on Christmas Easter Thanksgiving. Maybe a birthday if you're really lucky and you ask for it. But as I've grown up I started watching my mom learn how to make it when she was. my mom didn't learn until she was in her forties from her mom and my grandmother's recipe It doesn't really work for me. Like he says like oh you don't need to put extra water in it, but then my Greensboro, but now my mom makes her dreams in a slow cooker versus like a big pot the way my grandmother would And my great grandmother has a very specific way that she washes her greens. I can't even recount it to you, but I've been there and I've been through my favorite pictures. And now I also make my Greens in a pot. I don't have a pressure cooker the way my mom does so I just make it work and I put a little bit of extra stuff in it. you just make an extra tasty for me, and it's so like warm and comforting and it's no longer just the special event food now it's Whatever, I f****** feel like it excuse my language. But yeah, so, thank you.
Aunt Cindy's Mahogany Cake
Call (919) 283-1212 and tell us your story today!
We invite you to share a story about a time you or a loved one was cuttin’ up in the kitchen. Your story can feature a unique culinary tradition, recount a core memory, or detail a favorite recipe, ingredient, or kitchen utensil. –The goal of this hotline is to memorialize and celebrate culinary traditions, both past and present, that are rooted in oral history.
This podcast is hosted by VAE Raleigh for our exhibition, Cuttin' Up: The Black Culinary Experience on view in Downtown Raleigh, NC until July 22nd, 2022.
TRANSCRIPT
I want to tell you about my Aunt Cindy's mahogany cake. She inherited this recipe from my grandmother and the secret ingredient is vinegar. In frosting that's a very moist rich chocolate cake with this very tart. Sweet frosting and it has been present at every single literally every single birthday in my entire family immediate and extended. For years and it is the most delicious cake I've ever had nothing compared and no celebration is complete without it. And it's just I wish I had the whole recipe and could recite it to you, but it's actually kind of this complex recipe but that secret ingredient is vinegar and the tartness just makes life so much better and so delicious.