Family recipes, passed down through generations, are one of life’s greatest blessings. In my house, it’s a salsa recipe, started in earnest by my mother, fiddled with endlessly by me, and one that I plan to pass down to my son. For Good Beer Hunting community editor and cooking enthusiast Stephanie Grant, it’s her grandmother’s recipe for red rice, an evolved version of the West African staple jollof, and one that she had to seek out in order to nurture a connection to her Gullah-Geechee identity.
In a story for Good Beer Hunting titled “Hidden Heritage — A Search for Culture, Heirlooms, and My Grandma’s Red Rice Recipe,” Stephanie describes the culinary treasures of past generations and how they shaped her love and longing to understand the people who came before her. In this episode, you’ll hear her talk about how she’s been writing this story since childhood, and what it’s meant to her to see Black Southern culture be honored in kitchens and cookbooks as a long overdue legacy.
You’ll also hear how her search for red rice began, how it ended, and where it’s going, as she continues to put her own touch on food and history, which is something she says all generations are born to do in order to keep traditions alive and accessible. Food is a link to our past, present, and future, and it’s something we can all look to as a common tie even in divisive times.