0:00

I enjoy a nice glass of wine, but I

0:02

don't pretend to be an expert in wine. I

0:05

usually just want a wine that's high quality, delicious,

0:07

and not too expensive. And to me, that's Bogle

0:09

Family Vineyards. And here's the thing about Bogle. This

0:11

is a third generation family owned winery from California

0:13

that makes exceptional wines for about 10 bucks a

0:16

bottle. Bogle wines consistently earn best buy designations and

0:18

high ratings from wine enthusiasts. And let me tell

0:20

you something, the folks at Wine Enthusiast, they drink

0:22

a lot of wine. They drink a lot of

0:25

fancy expensive wine, and yet they still keep giving

0:27

great ratings to Bogle. And Bogle Vineyards has so

0:29

many different kinds of wine. Whatever your mood, whatever

0:31

you're eating, there's a wine for you. They got

0:34

this great Pinot Grigio that's crisp and fruity, goes

0:36

well with spicy foods, with fish. They have a

0:38

classic Chardonnay that's balanced, amazing, with a pork tenderloin

0:40

or butter chicken. I like to take

0:42

that Chardonnay and do what Jacques Pépin taught me, a

0:45

couple of ice cubes in your glass of Bogle. If

0:47

Jacques Pépin says it's okay, then it's okay. And there's

0:49

the Bogle Pinot Noir, refined and elegant with bright fruit

0:51

and about as food friendly as red wine can be.

0:53

You're not gonna believe it's only $10. Neither

0:56

will your friends, if you tell them. So pick up

0:58

a few bottles of Bogle, wherever you buy your favorite

1:00

wines. Please drink responsibly. Hey

1:05

everyone, Dan here. This week's reheat is

1:07

called Searching for Rosa Parks Pancakes. We're

1:09

reheating it because of a request from

1:11

a listener. Hello Dan in

1:13

the sporkful, this is Caroline in Atlanta. I'd

1:15

love to hear in search of Rosa Parks

1:18

pancake recipe as a sporkful reheat. My

1:20

partner and I love peanut butter and I

1:23

made these pancakes the other Saturday for brunch.

1:25

They were even fluffier than I remembered. I'd

1:27

love to share this episode with my partner,

1:29

maybe over another batch of these pancakes. Thank

1:31

you. Well Caroline, I'm happy

1:34

to give you and your partner the chance to listen

1:36

to this one again. I love this episode and I

1:38

made these pancakes too. They are delicious. And I think

1:40

once you hear the story behind them, they taste even

1:42

better. For all you out there, if

1:44

you have an episode you'd like us to reheat,

1:46

send me a message at hello at sporkful.com. We

1:48

may feature you and your pick soon. And hey,

1:50

one more quick note, my friend Nicole Taylor, who's

1:52

featured in this episode, has a more recent cookbook

1:54

that you can check out called Watermelon and Red

1:56

Birds. Okay, let's get to the show.

2:05

In 2016, the Library of Congress posted

2:07

a bunch of the personal documents of

2:09

Rosa Parks online for the first time.

2:11

There are postcards from Martin Luther King,

2:14

lists of volunteers for the Montgomery bus

2:16

boycott, and pages and pages of journals.

2:19

In one entry, Mrs. Parks writes about

2:21

what she learned from her grandparents, who

2:23

had both been enslaved. Curator Adrienne Cannon

2:25

reads an excerpt. I learned

2:27

to cook by observing my grandmother and

2:29

could prepare a simple meal almost as

2:31

soon as I was tall enough to

2:33

reach the stovetop. Buried in

2:36

this trove of papers is another document

2:38

that doesn't have as much historical significance

2:40

but got my attention. Sift

2:43

together one cup

2:45

flour, two tablespoons baking powder.

2:48

It's a pancake recipe for feather-light pancakes

2:50

written on the back of an envelope.

2:54

And a third cup peanut

2:56

butter melted. This

2:58

recipe is more than just a charming footnote. It's

3:00

a window into a time and a place

3:03

and a person. I was telling

3:05

my husband this morning, I was like, yeah,

3:07

Dan Pashman is coming over. We're going to make

3:10

Rosa Parks pancakes. And he laughed. He was

3:12

like, oh yeah, Rosa Parks, the woman who

3:14

didn't get up from the bus and also she

3:16

sued Outcast. And I was like, oh right,

3:18

she did sue Outcast. And

3:21

I was like, that's why we're making the pancakes because

3:23

we have all these misconceptions about her. And

3:26

she's human. And the pancakes

3:28

is like the most human thing, right? This

3:45

is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's

3:47

for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on

3:49

our show, we obsess about food to learn

3:51

more about people. A quick

3:53

note, everything in this episode was recorded

3:55

before COVID. Rosa

3:58

Parks passed away in 2015. at

4:00

the age of 92. A

4:02

couple years ago, I went down to the

4:04

Library of Congress in Washington, DC and met

4:06

with Adrienne Cannon, curates the Rosa Parks papers.

4:09

Now, as I learned it in school, Rosa Parks

4:11

stand on the bus that day in 1955, led

4:14

to the Montgomery bus boycott, which led to

4:16

the buses being desegregated, which enshrined her as

4:19

a hero of the civil rights movement, The

4:21

End. But as Adrienne Cannon

4:23

explained to me, after Mrs.

4:25

Parks' refusal to give a proceed that day, life

4:28

in Montgomery for her and her husband was

4:30

pretty brutal. She

4:32

had lost her job for

4:35

taking the stand that she did. Both she

4:37

and her husband were receiving death threats. And

4:40

she was struggling to find gainful

4:42

employment again. Isn't

4:45

that in the end why they moved to Detroit?

4:47

This was why they moved to Detroit. This is

4:49

why they moved to Detroit in 1957. And

4:53

then can you tell me about this one? This

4:55

is the letter from her mother. This is the

4:57

letter from her mother. And she

5:00

begins it. "'Dear daughter,

5:03

received your telegram and letter. Was so

5:05

glad to know that you had gone

5:07

so far and safe. All right. I'm

5:10

doing fine now, but Parks is about as

5:12

usual when you are away. And

5:14

Parks is what Rosa Parks and the

5:16

family called her husband Raymond Parks.'" And

5:19

do we know in any more detail what

5:21

she's referring to when she says, basically

5:23

your husband gets a certain way when

5:26

you're not around? Well,

5:28

he would get depressed. The

5:31

stress of being unemployed and the death

5:33

threats took a particular toll on him

5:35

emotionally. And she served

5:38

not only as the

5:41

main source for the

5:43

family's income, but also

5:45

as a source of emotional

5:48

support for her husband. And

5:51

then we get to this last document here. And

5:53

this is the featherlight

5:56

pancake recipe. And

5:58

it's written. on

6:00

the back of a banking envelope,

6:03

First Independence National Bank of Detroit.

6:05

234 State Street. Street, Detroit.

6:09

Rosa Parks struggled financially almost

6:11

all of her life, and

6:14

she learned to be frugal. She

6:16

recycled paper, she recycled

6:20

aluminum foil and bags. And

6:22

this particular recipe, you can see that

6:24

it's written in red ink, and

6:28

the ingredients for the

6:30

Featherlight Pancaser interspersed with

6:33

directions. Sift together

6:35

one cup flour, two tablespoons. Okay, you

6:37

don't need to hear the whole recipe.

6:39

We'll post it at sporkful.com, but

6:42

there is one part that's really key. A

6:45

third cup peanut butter melted.

6:48

We'll get back to that in a minute. What

6:50

did you think when you first saw this recipe?

6:53

The recipe piques your curiosity, and

6:56

you have the sense of being

6:58

able to connect directly with her.

7:01

We are accustomed

7:04

to viewing her as a civil

7:06

rights icon. And

7:08

what we find in

7:11

both the recipe and the notes

7:13

that I read about her reflections

7:15

on the bus boycott, we

7:18

find certainly this love

7:20

and the skill that she had with

7:22

cooking, the emotional pain

7:25

that she felt, the toll that

7:28

her decision to rebel took on her personally. The

7:33

collection gives you

7:35

a fuller appreciation for

7:37

Rosa Parks as a complex

7:40

and fascinating woman. Can

7:45

I take out the recipe and hold it for a second? Sure.

7:49

So cool. Rosa Parks

7:51

actually held this piece of paper. She

7:54

held it and she wrote on it. And she

7:56

probably at one time had money in

7:58

it. And

8:02

I see one of the things that struck me when I first

8:04

saw the recipe, so it

8:06

has, there's one line that says one third cup

8:08

peanut butter. And on the next

8:11

line it says one tablespoon shortening or oil.

8:13

And then in between those two lines sort of added

8:16

after the fact is the word melted. And

8:19

when you read the recipe you added melted

8:21

into peanut butter, the line above. But

8:24

I wasn't sure if melted. Melted

8:27

is the short. Well,

8:29

you have a point. You think

8:32

about the consistency of the peanut butter

8:34

and that being stiff, heating

8:36

it, perhaps softening it, melting it would have

8:39

made it easier to mix it. That makes

8:41

sense. But you also

8:43

think about the significance that

8:46

peanuts had to Alabama

8:48

and particularly to Tuskegee,

8:51

Alabama, where Rosa Parks

8:53

was born. Because

8:55

at Tuskegee Institute we have George

8:57

Washington Carver. George Washington Carver,

8:59

of course, is synonymous with peanuts. Now

9:02

he did not in fact invent peanut butter.

9:04

That's a misconception. But he is more responsible

9:07

than any other American in history for

9:09

popularizing peanuts. He also, by the

9:11

way, needs to get his own sporkful episode because, I

9:13

mean, born into slavery, he was

9:15

freed after the Civil War and he managed

9:17

to become a renowned expert on agriculture and

9:19

botany despite the fact that almost no school

9:21

in the country would let him in. He

9:24

was the first black student and first

9:26

black faculty member at Iowa State University.

9:29

Then he spent 47 years at Tuskegee

9:31

Institute. By the 1920s, George

9:33

Washington Carver was a household name, especially in

9:35

the South. He shared his

9:37

research in bulletins. His goal was to help

9:40

black farmers plant cash crops other than cotton

9:42

so they could support themselves better. Enter

9:45

the peanut. The title of

9:47

this bullet in the George Washington Carver publishes

9:49

in 1916 is How to Grow Peanut and

9:54

105 Ways of Preparing Peanuts

9:56

for Human. consumption.

10:01

And by 1940, peanuts

10:04

are second only to

10:06

cotton in terms

10:08

of their production in the South. And

10:11

what year was Rosa Parks born? And Rosa

10:13

Parks was born in 1913. Now in 1920,

10:15

it's interesting, George Washington Carver addresses

10:22

the National Peanut Association in

10:24

Montgomery, Alabama, which is where

10:27

Rosa Parks had family. I mean,

10:29

that to me is, it's the

10:32

peanut connection. Right, but I had

10:34

never, the thought of putting peanut butter in pancakes

10:36

had never occurred to me until I saw this

10:38

recipe. Before you saw this recipe, had you ever

10:40

heard of putting peanut butter in pancakes? I

10:43

hadn't heard of putting peanut butter

10:45

in pancakes, but I think that

10:47

in terms of African- American cuisine,

10:49

peanuts have all, you

10:51

know, have a strong history. Even

10:54

before George Washington Carver. Peanuts

10:56

are actually indigenous to South America. They made

10:58

their way to the Caribbean and later to

11:00

Africa, where they were infused into African cuisines.

11:03

Peanuts came to the American South via the

11:05

slave trade. They were

11:07

cultivated by African slaves to

11:10

supplement their diets. They

11:12

were also fed to hawks, but

11:14

it wasn't really until Carver's

11:17

publications in the

11:20

early 20th century, it

11:22

becomes a kind of loved

11:24

by-product by not just African- Americans,

11:26

but by the rest of the

11:28

populace, particularly in the South. So

11:31

even though you had not seen peanut butter in

11:33

pancakes, it seems like if there was

11:35

any logical place for

11:37

the idea of peanut butter in pancakes to

11:39

come from, it would be from Southern

11:42

African-American food traditions. I think

11:45

so. I think so. It seems

11:47

to me that perhaps this recipe

11:49

is quintessentially African-American. Coming

12:00

up, I take a copy of the recipe to Rosa

12:03

Parks' nieces in Detroit to see what they can tell

12:05

me about it. They'll cook up some

12:07

of Auntie Rosa's specialties and share memories of her

12:09

in the kitchen. She would be

12:11

in that kitchen and you were not

12:13

invited in. You would just hear, potch,

12:15

pans. But eventually when it

12:17

came out it was the best thing ever. After

12:20

that, I'll meet up with food writer

12:23

Nicole Taylor to cook and eat Rosa

12:25

Parks pancakes. Stick around. I

12:40

love a great margarita. But great margaritas are

12:42

hard to find, okay? Oftentimes they're too sweet,

12:44

maybe they're too sour, too much salt. You

12:47

got to have a well-balanced margarita. You know

12:49

something else that I love? Cracking

12:51

open a beverage in a cold can

12:53

on a hot summer day. And that

12:55

is why I get so much pleasure

12:57

from Caiman Jack. Legendary margarita flavored cans,

12:59

premixed and ready to enjoy. You get

13:01

the satisfaction of cracking open a can

13:04

with all the delicious flavor of a

13:06

margarita. Plus cans are portable. You throw

13:08

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13:10

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13:12

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13:14

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13:16

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13:18

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13:21

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13:23

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13:25

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13:27

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13:29

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13:31

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13:34

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13:38

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13:40

malt beverage. Please drink responsibly American Vintage

13:42

Beverage Company, Chicago, Illinois. Welcome

13:53

back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. A lot of

13:55

times people want to ask me like, oh what are you

13:57

cooking? What restaurants are you going to? They ask Emma and

13:59

Andrei and the host work will team the same questions. Well, it

14:01

turns out we provide a listener service

14:03

to you that includes that information. It's

14:06

our newsletter. We don't send it out all the

14:08

time. We're not gonna spam you. We're just gonna

14:10

send you useful information, recipes, restaurant information,

14:12

links to articles that we're reading, shows that we're

14:15

watching, and guess what else? You'll be automatically

14:17

entered into giveaways for cookbooks featured on the show

14:19

as long as you live in the US or

14:21

Canada. That's also where I'll email you to tell

14:23

you about special sales happening on

14:26

this Foligni website by discounts on pasta and

14:28

stuff. So there are a lot of

14:30

benefits and you can sign up

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right now while you're listening. Head

14:34

on over to sporkful.com/newsletter to sign

14:37

up today. Again, that's sporkful.com/newsletter. Thanks.

14:40

Now back to this week's reheat. Rosa

14:44

Parks and her husband never had kids of their

14:46

own, but it's clear she loved children. She had

14:48

11 nieces and nephews who she cared for and

14:50

cooked for all the time. In

14:52

fact, last year, her niece Sheila McCauley Keyes

14:55

published a book entitled, Our Auntie Rosa, The

14:57

Family of Rosa Parks Remembers Her Life and

14:59

Lessons. The book includes many of Mrs.

15:01

Parks' recipes. I went to

15:03

Detroit to meet Sheila and her sister, Deborah Ann

15:05

Ross. As I walked in

15:08

the door, I heard pots and pans

15:10

rattling. They were making some Avanti Rosa

15:12

specialties, chicken and dumplings, cornbread griddle cakes,

15:14

cabbage and bacon, and lemonade.

15:18

Our aunt had a special way of making lemonade.

15:21

She would boil the

15:23

whole lemon. She would cut it four

15:26

pieces and boil it down for half an

15:28

hour till it virtually

15:30

just comes apart. And

15:33

then after she does that, she strains

15:35

it and she'll add sugar to the

15:38

heated liquid and whole

15:40

house will smell good just from you making

15:42

the Auntie Rosa's lemonade. So I really like

15:45

that and it's really tasty. I want you

15:47

guys to try that. Let's do that. Yep. So

15:53

cheers. Cheers to you. Mm-mm.

15:58

Ah, it's so good. It's good. It's

16:01

very good. All

16:03

the food was fantastic. My personal favorite was

16:05

the cabbage and bacon. The cabbage was just

16:07

the right level of firm and crunchy while

16:09

still being tender. And then the smoky salt

16:12

from the bacon, especially with the lemonade alongside

16:14

it. So good. So

16:18

I wanted to show you guys, I

16:21

have the printout from the Library of Congress of

16:26

Auntie Rose's pancake recipe. Deb

16:29

took one look at the recipe and had the same

16:31

reaction I had. Peanut butter. Wow.

16:35

Why you put peanut butter in some pancakes? Okay.

16:40

I've never had this. Man, I've

16:42

never had any of her pancakes.

16:45

She did like peanut butter. She liked it. Probably

16:47

what made her write this down. I

16:50

think it's worth noting that this recipe, which

16:52

is so connected to Rosa Parks birthplace in

16:54

Alabama, is written on an envelope

16:56

from a bank in Detroit. This

16:58

piece of paper is Southern food

17:01

culture migrating North. Rosa

17:03

Parks actually spent more than half her life in

17:05

Detroit. The bus where she staged her

17:07

protest is in a Henry Ford museum there. And

17:10

as I drove to see Sheila and Deb outside the

17:12

city, I took the Rosa Parks highway. But

17:15

they say growing up, their parents didn't tell them their

17:17

aunt was famous. And Auntie Rosa, she wasn't

17:19

one to toot her own horn. They were well

17:21

into grade school before they made the discovery. Sheila

17:23

says with her own kids and grandkids, she's

17:26

taken a different approach. When my

17:28

children were born, I wanted to make

17:30

sure that they knew who this

17:32

woman was and her contribution to the United

17:34

States of America and around the world. I

17:37

wanted them to know. That's something

17:39

to be very proud of. My grandchildren,

17:41

they do ask a lot of questions about

17:43

her. They do ask, why did they make

17:45

her get off the bus? I took my

17:48

grandsons to the Henry Ford

17:50

where the bus is. And that

17:52

was the first thing my oldest grandson asked.

17:54

He's only seven. He said,

17:56

why did they make Auntie Rosa? He

17:58

said, look at all these seats. because in

18:00

his mind he does not, he

18:03

can't comprehend, he can't understand, there's plenty

18:05

of seeds. I said, I know,

18:07

you know, and so I had to explain

18:09

to him, and that's hard to do

18:12

to explain to a little child why people

18:15

would do such a

18:17

thing. So how did you explain it to him?

18:20

At the end before, they have like a little

18:22

video where you could watch and you could see

18:24

some of the things that were going on during

18:26

that era, and I did explain to him

18:28

and I told him some people

18:31

were really mean, and

18:33

I explained to him like that, you

18:35

know, that they were mean people and they were

18:37

good people. It's interesting, there's

18:40

so many misconceptions about that day on the

18:42

bus. One of the first parts of

18:44

the story that people always

18:46

hear is, well, she sat down in the seats that were for

18:48

the white passengers, but technically she didn't,

18:50

right? She said she sat in the first row that were

18:53

marked for colored, right? Right,

18:55

she did not sit in the wrong

18:58

place, but this was

19:00

something I didn't know either. The

19:03

rule was, this segregation, Jim Crow

19:05

law, there had

19:07

to be a row of seats separating

19:10

as if the color of somebody's skin

19:12

was gonna rub off on you, a

19:14

seat in front of you, so you

19:16

gotta get up and move. So they're gonna come up

19:18

to her and say, you know, you

19:21

have to go, you have to get up and move. Right, she

19:23

was in the first row, the first colored

19:25

row. Some white guy

19:27

came and sat down in the last white

19:29

row to make them have to get up

19:31

and move. That was the game. He was

19:33

just agitating and testing

19:36

and she said she tried to tell what

19:39

really happened, the press liked that

19:41

story about the bus being full.

19:43

They liked that story, so they ran with

19:45

it. So she said, well, let

19:48

that go, but I know

19:50

what happened. And another one of the misconceptions is,

19:52

she was, there's this sort of idea of, she

19:56

had had a long day, I mean, I'm sure she was working

19:58

hard, but like, there's this idea that she was just kind of

20:00

too. tired to get up or this

20:02

idea that somehow she sort of stumbled

20:04

into being this seminal

20:06

figure. But she was actually, I

20:09

mean, she knew exactly what she was doing.

20:11

Like she, you know, she, she was ready

20:13

to make a principled stand at that point

20:15

in her life. She was already active in

20:17

the NAACP. Yeah, she was an activist. Yes.

20:19

She, she was already on board

20:22

with trying to make some changes,

20:25

make something happen. That's something she used to

20:27

say too. You want, you

20:29

know, something different to happen.

20:31

You have to do something. She

20:34

was a great organizer. Her

20:36

house was crazy looking, but she was a great organizer.

20:38

If you ever went to her house, you'd be like,

20:40

Oh my Lord. She

20:42

had stacks and stacks of stuff

20:44

everywhere. But that's how she was.

20:47

Tell me about how she organized the kitchen. Like what

20:50

was, what was the scene in the kitchen when Auntie

20:52

Rosa was cooking? They pretty

20:54

neat. The kitchen was neat. The

20:56

kitchen was neat. No dirty dishes,

20:58

no everything in this place. They

21:00

had a little pantry. And did

21:03

you guys ever cook with her? Later on,

21:05

I do recall that I did help

21:08

her cook in her kitchen and she

21:10

cooked very slow. Like with

21:12

the lemonade, for goodness sakes, I'm

21:14

thirsty. No, she's going to take

21:17

this lemonade, boil those lemons. That's

21:19

going to take a good 30 minutes plus 15 more.

21:22

You'd be like dropping

21:24

from thirst. I just want

21:26

some lemonade. So you know,

21:29

you want a cool drink? Yes, but okay.

21:32

But I thought you meant today, but

21:34

see, you can't say that you had thought you

21:37

went today. No, you can't say that to

21:39

her, but she would be

21:41

in that kitchen and you were not invited

21:43

in. You would just hear like rattling.

21:46

You hear pots, pans, something's

21:49

going on in there and be like, come

21:51

on with the lemonade. But eventually when

21:53

it came out, it was the best thing ever.

21:57

How does it feel now just like sitting here eating these

21:59

foods, having and these memories and it brings those memories

22:01

back. Oh, it's an emotional

22:05

experience and it's happy. It's

22:07

a happiness, because I know, I

22:10

know that she's watching, she's probably watching us

22:12

cook this food and saying, rolling

22:14

her eyes, oh Lord, they cooking again.

22:17

They cooking again. But I like

22:19

to think about the good things. I

22:21

think she was a really good

22:23

aunt. She was the one

22:26

that was with us and that

22:28

helped to raise us because our parents had been there

22:30

for 20 years. She walked

22:32

my sister down the aisle. She

22:34

gave my sister Deb away. She

22:37

did all those things that a

22:39

parent, mother and father

22:41

would do all rolled into one. So

22:43

she was a dynamic person. So

22:46

it was really hard

22:48

losing her, you know, she

22:51

was our parent. So

22:54

Sheila was very close with her aunt, but

22:57

when she went to the Library of Congress to see the

22:59

papers there herself, she realized

23:01

there was another side to Auntie Rosa. Oh,

23:04

her letters to my uncle, which

23:06

I thought were the greatest things ever,

23:08

love letters. I didn't think my aunt

23:11

had a love life, but she did write

23:14

in a letter to her darling husband.

23:17

My aunt was a stern person. She

23:19

was good, but I could

23:21

never imagine your loving wife

23:23

assigning off like that. Now

23:25

that made me cry. Yeah?

23:48

Good morning. Hey, Nicole, it's Dan.

23:50

Is he downstairs? Yeah I am, I wasn't sure

23:52

which buzz you were to press. Now of course

23:54

this journey would not be complete if we didn't

23:56

make and eat Rosa Parks featherlight pancakes. I

23:59

met up with my... Nicole Taylor. She's a food

24:01

writer who knows a lot about Southern food history

24:03

and culture. You may remember her from our series,

24:06

Other People's Food. Nicole grew up

24:08

in Athens, Georgia. She lives in Brooklyn now. I

24:10

asked her what her first reaction was when she

24:12

saw the pancake recipe. The handwriting,

24:14

that was the first thing was

24:16

like, Oh, look at the handwriting.

24:18

Nice cursive, Miss Parks.

24:21

And kind of the simplicity of the

24:23

recipe, but it wasn't simple because peanut

24:26

butter, adding peanut butter into

24:28

a pancake mix, you don't see that

24:30

a lot. But then the Tuskegee thing,

24:32

right? So when I think Tuskegee,

24:34

the first thing comes to my mind is obviously

24:37

Tuskegee University. And

24:39

Dr. George Washington Carver. When I first

24:41

saw the recipe, the first thing that jumped down at me

24:43

was peanut butter. And I'd say peanut butter, pancake butter. That

24:45

sounds genius. First of all, like I can't I need to

24:47

eat that. But it wasn't till I was

24:49

down at Library of Congress and talking to the historian there

24:51

that I, you know,

24:53

I feel stupid that I didn't make the connection that like,

24:56

the way she described it was this is

24:59

a quintessential African American recipe. Well,

25:01

I would say definitely having peanuts.

25:03

My entire life, peanuts have

25:06

always been around, you know, either

25:08

peanuts in the shell, roasted

25:10

peanuts, boiled peanuts, it

25:13

is a southern pantry staple. I grew up in

25:15

Athens, Georgia. And I would say, I

25:18

hate so many peanut butter sandwiches growing up.

25:20

I used to call them choke sandwiches. And

25:24

what are some foods that you grew up with that

25:26

have peanuts or peanut butter in them that maybe since

25:28

you since you've come up north, it

25:31

might strike folks not in the south as being

25:33

novel to have peanuts or peanut butter

25:35

in there. Well, I mean,

25:37

it's funny, I was this morning on the phone talking to

25:40

my friend, who was a chef and Charleston chef BJ Dennis,

25:42

he cooks a lot of Gullah Geechee food, which is

25:45

basically food directly from West Africa

25:47

that came over to coastal Georgia

25:50

and South Carolina. He

25:52

does like peanut butter and collard greens. And

25:55

I think people freak out over that

25:57

there was a big collard green gate. with

26:00

Whole Foods, because they posted a recipe with

26:03

peanut butter and collard greens, but it's a very

26:05

common thing. I mean, if you

26:07

go to West Africa. What was Collard Greengate?

26:09

It was that people thought that was a

26:11

strange combination. My grandma would be mad if

26:13

I put peanut butter in my collard greens.

26:15

Who had that reaction? Twitter, black Twitter. I

26:18

mean, there were a few like food scholars

26:20

or people who were really into food was

26:22

like, no, no, no backup weight. This is

26:24

a traditional African diaspora dish and

26:27

peanuts or groundnuts. Other people

26:29

call them groundnuts. Are

26:31

part of our culture and a part

26:33

of our food. We may not put a lot

26:35

of peanut butter in certain things, but I definitely

26:37

think the pairing of peanut butter and vegetables is

26:40

a big thing, but people don't understand it. All

26:46

right, so, we're gonna

26:48

get started here. Let's do it. The

26:50

instructions do say cook at 275 degrees. Ha,

26:54

yes, I saw that and I'm like, oh,

26:56

okay. My assumption there

26:59

as a cook that she means medium high. She

27:03

uses shortening. She

27:05

said shortening or oil. Yeah, I'm

27:07

gonna use butter because I can't

27:09

tell you the last time I used

27:11

shortening. Really? Which is very. That's old

27:13

school. Very old school. You

27:16

got your buttermilk there? I have buttermilk. I

27:18

was shocked that Miss Parks didn't use buttermilk,

27:21

but I'm gonna use buttermilk because I

27:23

keep buttermilk in my refrigerator and I

27:25

rarely have regular milk. I

27:27

like that you're not afraid to put your own spin on

27:30

this, Nicole. I mean, I think that's

27:32

what good cooks do. They don't follow

27:34

the recipes like, I'll

27:38

say this. Rosa Parks probably made these

27:40

pancakes a million, a zillion times. She

27:42

probably did not look at

27:44

this envelope. What do you think? Certainly

27:46

not after she'd done it a few times. Exactly.

27:49

In other words, Nicole may not be cooking

27:51

the recipe exactly as Rosa Parks wrote it,

27:53

but she feels she's cooking it in the

27:55

right spirit. The way most experienced home cooks,

27:57

especially back then, did it. Goodbye.

28:00

experience, feel, and whatever you

28:02

have on hand. So, this

28:05

flower here is, ha ha ha, I wonder if

28:07

Mrs. Parks used white

28:10

lily, because in my flower container

28:12

here, it's all white lily,

28:14

which is a southern brand that

28:16

southerners love. And

28:18

I'm gonna put our maple syrup on

28:21

the stove, so it will warm up because

28:24

it was in the fridge. Genius.

28:27

I appreciate that Nicole, because cold maple syrup

28:29

on hot pancakes is just, I mean. Terrible.

28:31

Right. Oh, I would never do that, always.

28:33

No, no, I know, that's why I'm here, Nicole. That's

28:35

why I'm not at someone else's house. All

28:38

right, here. I'm

28:40

glad you don't have me on camera, because

28:43

I have my morning attire on, my scarf.

28:45

I wonder if Mrs. Parks wore a headscarf

28:47

like this when she was

28:49

cooking, because she was always so put

28:52

together in public. Yes, and the impression that

28:54

I get from speaking to her nieces was

28:56

also that she's just like a formal

28:59

person. Really? I mean, yes,

29:01

like a person who. Well,

29:04

that means she would have had her lipstick on and

29:06

a really nice dress if you were coming to her

29:08

house to make a peanut butter. And

29:10

I'm gonna try the peanut butter unmelted.

29:14

Really? Yeah, I'm nervous about

29:16

melting the peanut butter. I'm

29:18

gonna defer to you, Nicole, because I've never cooked the

29:20

peanut butter in this way, so whatever you think. I

29:22

just think you can get a little putting a hot,

29:25

okay, for instance, we melt the peanut butter and

29:27

then we have egg. I

29:29

mean, like how. Or if it could cook

29:31

the egg. Yeah, that's it. Oh, yes. So

29:33

that's what I'm like, eh. And

29:35

then if you melt it, do you melt it

29:38

in a separate pan? Do you need a little

29:40

butter in a separate pan? So the peanut butter

29:42

doesn't stick to the pan, it just seems, as

29:44

I'm thinking about it, like, no. There

29:49

we go. A

29:52

third cup of peanut butter. This

29:54

is it, this is the moment of truth, Nicole. This is the moment of truth.

29:57

We're gonna see what happens here. No

32:00

syrup because I just want to taste pure pancake

32:02

and then and then we'll see how it does

32:04

with syrup. I Can

32:08

see the feather light thing They're not as dense

32:10

as I thought and you can taste the peanut

32:12

butter the peanut butter really hits the back quickly

32:14

Look, I've had two bites without syrup. This is a

32:16

lot Yeah,

32:19

I mean the in these pancakes are about I

32:21

would say what a half inch thick at least

32:23

I like a pancake with some real thickness that

32:25

has a real cake interior I

32:28

also like that they've maintained their

32:30

delicate edge crisp even

32:32

after sitting for a little while Would

32:35

you make these again Nicole for sure? And

32:37

I like the peanut butter in the inside I

32:40

feel like you could make these pancakes serve

32:42

them without syrup Make them kind of small

32:44

like silver dollar style and almost serve them

32:46

as like an afternoon snack Like

32:49

a tea cake Type of thing.

32:51

I can see that You

32:54

seem skeptical my head is going to the side but

32:56

I could see that it might

32:58

not be the traditional Well, I

33:00

see pancakes as pancakes and that's a

33:02

morning thing. Mm-hmm, but sure tea cake,

33:04

okay Hey,

33:07

you're the one that's putting buttermilk and Rosa Parks's recipe

33:09

here in the column Rosa Parks is

33:12

from Tuskegee I Bet

33:14

you Rosa Parks wanted buttermilk in these pancakes.

33:16

Maybe she can find buttermilk that day Well,

33:19

buttermilk is a staple southern staple.

33:21

So She wouldn't be

33:23

mad about the little milk But

33:26

she might be mad if I serve them with tea in the afternoon for

33:28

sure Definitely

33:34

Now that you've made these pancakes and eaten them

33:37

Does it change your perception of

33:39

Rosa Parks? It just makes

33:41

me more curious about her personal life Did

33:44

she make these every weekend? Was

33:46

it a special treat? It

33:49

makes me look at her it's more

33:51

of a I'm doing air quotes here

33:53

normal person Like she

33:55

had to eat She just

33:57

wasn't this person who was all about her

33:59

work and all about changing the Civil Rights

34:01

Movement, she cared about

34:04

nurturing and feeding her family. So

34:07

yeah, definitely the pancake recipe makes me

34:09

feel closer to her, for sure. I

34:15

boarded the bus downtown

34:18

Montgomery on Coats Square.

34:21

The bus I proceeded out to town- This is Rosa

34:23

Parks speaking in 1956, a

34:25

year after that day on the bus. It's

34:28

hard to find audio of her talking about anything

34:30

other than that day. But

34:32

even though she's telling a story I've heard

34:34

before, I feel like I hear

34:36

it differently now. The

34:38

other passengers there reluctantly gave

34:40

up their seats but I refused to do so.

34:44

The driver said that

34:46

if I refused to leave the seat he

34:48

would have to call the police

34:50

and I told him just call

34:53

the police. The time

34:56

had just come when

34:58

I had been pushed as

35:01

far as I could stand to be pushed,

35:04

I suppose. I

35:06

had decided that I

35:09

would have to know once and for all what rights

35:11

I had as a human being and

35:13

a citizen. Now

35:15

if you want to try Rosa Parks

35:17

pancakes yourself, you

35:25

posted the recipe online along with a link to

35:28

the entire archive at the Library of Congress. It's

35:30

in the post for this episode at sporkful.com. My

35:36

thanks to Nicole Taylor, who's clearly very good at

35:38

putting her own spin on Southern cooking. In fact,

35:40

so good she made a whole cookbook about it.

35:42

It's called Up South, Chasing Dixie in a Brooklyn

35:44

Kitchen. It's really great, check it out. Thanks

35:47

also to food historian Andrew Smith who helped

35:49

out on this show. He's the author of

35:52

Peanuts, the illustrious history of the Goober P.

35:54

This episode was originally produced by Anne

35:56

Sanne, Shoshana Gold and me with editing

35:58

help from Dan Charmin.