The Museum of Food and Drink and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival are proud to present Migration Stories: Sustaining Gullah Geechee Cooking Across Land and Sea, a virtual event that explores the foodways and cultural heritage of the Gullah Geechee people. This will be the first in a series between MOFAD and the Folklife Festival exploring migration, food, and the transmission of knowledge in America.
Descended from enslaved West Africans who were brought to work the rice plantations of the lower Atlantic coast, the Gullah Geechee cultivated a distinct culture and cuisine that formed a clear connection from Africa to the land and seasons of the Lowcountry.
Recipes such as perloo, a one-pot rice-based dish, is rooted in a history of migration, enslavement, colonization, and resilience. Like all Gullah cuisine, it tells a deeply American story.
Join chefs Amethyst Ganaway and Benjamin “BJ” Dennis for a conversation about Gullah and Geechee food, heritage, and sustainable futures. Ganaway will demonstrate how to make crab fried rice adapted from Sallie Ann Robinson’s cookbook, Gullah Home Cooking the Daufuskie Way. The program is moderated by Michelle Lanier, folklorist, filmmaker, and director of North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites.
Want to cook along? The recipe and sourcing suggestions will be sent out to attendees in advance.
Reservations are required. Purchase tickets for $15
ACCESSIBILITY: This program will feature Real-Time Captioning (CART) during the live broadcast. ASL interpretation is available upon request. To request ASL interpretation for this program, after you register, please EMAIL roffmans@si.edu with subject line “ASL @ Great Migration event” no later than January 27.
USING ZOOM: We recommend using Zoom version 5.2.2 or newer, to see the featured speakers spotlighted together during the conversation. If you have an older version, you can still participate but will only see the current speaker.
BJ DENNIS
Born and raised in Charleston, SC, personal chef and caterer Benjamin “BJ” Dennis infuses the flavors and culture of the Lowcountry into his Gullah Geechee cuisine, bringing a new taste to ever expanding culinary palate of the south.
What differentiates Chef BJ’s food from his contemporaries in “southern” cooking is the homage he pays to the Gullah Geechee culture, brought to the Americas by West Africans, and disseminated along the West Indies and the American South. Dennis infuses the techniques of his ancestors, learned from four years of study in St. Thomas, as well as the lessons of his grandparents about eating from the land, to create fresh interpretations of local dishes focusing on in-season, locally sourced vegetables and seafood. Recent trips to Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Barbados, Dominica, U.S. Virgin Islands, Angola, Senegal and Benin has brought his work full circle. Connecting the people and cultures of the African diaspora through food.
Chef BJ has an associate’s degree in hospitality / tourism management and the culinary arts from the Culinary Institute of Charleston and has worked in a number of award winning southern dining establishments including Carolinas, Anson’s, Oak Steakhouse, Hank’s Seafood, and 82 Queen. His cuisine has been featured in local, national and international events including the BB&T Wine+Food Festival, Cook It Raw, Meatopia, and The Food film fest. His “pop-up” dinners, at local establishments such as Butcher & Bee, Elliottborough MiniBar, Republic Reign, Le Creuset, Roadside Seafood and Proof, are sought after culinary adventures on the underground dinner circuit. His pop up at Labo Culinaire Foodlab in Montreal, Quebec in May 2015 took the Gullah food and culture to an international arena. Also a chef participant at the Terrior food symposium in Toronto May 2015, Canada’s biggest food conference.
Recent appearances on P.B.S. ‘Moveable Feast’ and Bravo’s ‘Top Chef’ has taken him and Gullah Cuisine to a national television audience.
When you taste BJ’s cooking, you can’t help but re-think your idea of soul food.
AMETHYST GANAWAY
For over a decade, Amethyst has been working her way through the food and beverage industry. While earning her BA at the University of South Carolina, the North Charleston native began her career in restaurants as a server and cashier. After making her way through various corporate and fine dining management positions, Amethyst’s resume now includes recipe development, catering, and food writing. So far, she has been published in Eater, Food and Wine, Plate Magazine, and The Post and Courier. In 2020, she was awarded the Les Dames International Legacy Culinary Award and was featured in the New York Times. She is currently the recipe developer for Chef Pierre Thiam’s company, Yolele.
MICHELLE LANIER
Michelle Lanier is an AfroCarolina folklorist, oral historian, museum professional, filmmaker, and educator with over two decades of commitment to her callings. Raised in both Columbia and Hilton Head, South Carolina with ancestral roots in the sandhills, coastal plain, and upper piedmont of North Carolina, Michelle’s ancestral geography guides much of her interdisciplinary work.
In 2008, Michelle successfully advocated for legislation creating the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission, which she led as its founding executive director.
In 2018, Michelle was named as the first African American director of North Carolina’s 25 state-owned historic sites.
She has served on the faculty of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University since 2000. This work has led to Michelle’s role as Documentary Doula (aiding the birth of films) most notably the award-winning Mossville: When Great Trees Fall, which reveals a global south story of resistance to environmental racism. Mossville has been translated into five languages, screened on six continents, and chosen by the United Nations to raise awareness about the climate crisis and its impact on the lives of people of African descent.
Michelle has traveled to Panama and Ghana to document African Diaspora folkways. Her ethnographic work on funerary traditions of St. Helena Island, South Carolina led to her role as North Carolina’s inaugural liaison to the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, which she now serves as an appointed Commissioner.
This program is a co-presentation of the Museum of Food and Drink and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.