Tuskegee Institute alumna celebrates 25 years of a cookbook honoring the university's history

Ever since Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute in 1881, the small Southern town of Tuskegee, Alabama has been a mecca for African Americans. In 1999, Carolyn Quick Tillery, an alumna of Tuskegee University (as well as a former Air Force officer and prosecuting attorney) wrote The African-American Heritage Cookbook: Traditional Recipes and Fond Remembrances From Alabama's Renowned Tuskegee Institute. A narrative cookbook, it traced the history of Tuskegee through vintage photographs, journal entries and more than 200 recipes. On the 25th anniversary of its publication, a new edition of the book was released, featuring 19 previously unpublished profiles. 

Evan Kleiman: Carolyn, what was your goal when you started researching and writing these recipes and remembrances 25 years ago?

Carolyn Quick Tillery: I did not initially start with the goal of writing a cookbook. I started with expanding a law review article I had written on  the court case McCleskey v. Kemp, which found that Blacks were more likely to receive the death penalty if they killed a white person than if they killed a Black person. I began researching the history of the death penalty and some of the stories were so horrific that to escape that trauma, I would go home and remember some of the foods that my mother cooked. Because I was in the South, there were vegetable and fruit stands where I could obtain fresh produce, and go home and cook those comforting foods of my childhood. 

I also associated cooking with stories because the kitchen in most houses in the '60s was not a great room as we have today. It was geographically dislocated from the rest of the house. So in order to keep company in the kitchen with her and have help with some of the more menial tasks, such as chopping onions, which I hated, or polishing silver during the holidays, my mom would always tell stories about her family and her childhood, and before I knew it, the work was done. 

At the time, I was living in Montgomery, Alabama, which is approximately 70 miles from Tuskegee. That's when the inspiration came to connect the story of Tuskegee's history with the foods of the local area. That's when I really began researching George Washington Carver's recipes or the Jesup wagon, which was taken into African American communities not only to teach them how to farm but [to teach people] how to preserve and prepare foods for greater nutritional value.

Booker T. Washington as a Hampton graduate, 1875.  Photo courtesy of Tuskegee University, formerly known as the Alabama Tuskegee Institute. Photo courtesy of Tuskegee University, formerly known as the Alabama Tuskegee Institute.

Was this wagon one way that the Tuskegee Institute went out into the community?

Exactly. When Booker T. Washington arrived in Tuskegee in 1881 as a 25-year-old graduate from Hampton University, he was only 17 years removed from his own emancipation. The first thing he did when he arrived was to go out into the local community and acquaint himself with the population and their needs. What he found encouraged him that what was needed immediately was an education that could result in their quick employment and ability to earn a living. But he saw terrible hunger and housing insecurity. He determined that he could best help the local community by improving their condition so they could focus on education. That's one of the purposes of his farmers fairs and the Jesup wagon, to go out into those communities. 

At the time, the majority of the Blacks in Tuskegee and the surrounding area were sharecropping. Many of the owners of the property required them to plant crops right up to the cabin door so there was very little space for them to grow their own food, which required them to buy food from the farm store at higher rates. It kept them in a cycle of poverty. To help break that cycle of poverty — I think Dr. George Washington Carver arrived at school in 1941 — he taught them how to use the space available to them most efficiently to produce the largest crop. He took that wagon through the community and taught farmers and their wives new farming methods. 

George Washington Carver was such an extraordinary person. In addition to all of his agronomy, all of his scientific knowledge with agriculture, what circumstances led him to the kitchen?

Dr. George Washington Carver was born into slavery but he was treated more like a member of the household because of his very sickly medical condition. As a result, he learned arts such as knitting, crocheting and cooking. That is how Dr. George Washington Carver became interested and involved in food preparation.

Tuskegee original buildings, 1882. Photo courtesy of Tuskegee University, formerly known as the Alabama Tuskegee Institute. Photo courtesy of Tuskegee University, formerly known as the Alabama Tuskegee Institute.

I would love it if we could focus on a couple of other alumna luminaries. Could you speak a little bit about Olivia Davidson and how she affected the school's success?

Olivia Davidson was Booker T. Washington's second wife. Her major contribution to the success of Tuskegee was her ability to raise funds and influence visitors to come to the school to invest in this school. At the time that Tuskegee was established, the legislation only provided $2,000 per year for salaries, and nothing else. Everything that they needed to build the school, they either had to raise it, build it themselves or find donors. Keep in mind that they were located 70 miles from the heart of the Confederacy and faced opposition from some Southerners, not all, who believed that African Americans should not be educated and educating them was a threat to the status quo because they were less likely to be oppressed. This is the environment in which they were operating in to raise funds for the school. Olivia was able to go North and bring out donors to the school and raise the money for buildings, etc., which the students built themselves, and many of which are still standing on campus, and they raise their own food.

I think I counted nine biscuit recipes in the book. Can you describe a few of the variations and if there was one that was specific to Dr. Carver?

Every Southerner has their own secret recipe for biscuits and there are as many variations as there are cooks in the kitchen. Dr. Carver's sweet potato biscuit recipe is found on page 147. I've actually tried this recipe several times after testing it. It is an exceptional recipe. It's light, it's fluffy and I serve it on special occasions. One of the things that southerners put on their biscuits is fig jam. It serves up well with butter and fig jam.

Carolyn Quick Tillery, an alumna of Tuskegee University, became an Air Force officer and a lawyer before penning a cookbook that reflects on the institution's history. Photo by Ashley Elizabeth Tillery.

That sounds so good. So Dr. Carver is famous for his work with the peanut and he developed nearly 300 recipes. What do you feel is the most unusual of those recipes?

I think what's most amazing about Dr. Carver's work was that he used science for the benefit of both African Americans and white farmers. He encouraged white farmers to rotate their crops to put nitrogen back in the soil. At the time, peanuts were a lowly crop and cotton was king. So with great difficulty, he was able to encourage them to rotate their crops with the peanut and save the Southern economy because they had absolutely depleted the ground of nutrients needed to raise crops. In doing so, he had to give them reasons to grow the peanut, as opposed to continuing to grow cotton. That's how he came up with those many uses for the peanut. I think one of the most unusual uses was that he was able to create coffee from the peanut. 

Have you ever tasted peanut coffee? 

I've not tasted peanut coffee. But I have had what you'll find at every Southern football game — either roasted peanuts or boiled peanuts, boiled peanuts being my favorite.

I really want to thank you for the reissue of this book. It's such an important telling of stories. 

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

"The African-American Heritage Cookbook: Traditional Recipes And Fond Remembrances From Alabama's Renowned Tuskegee Institute" celebrates 25 years of publication with a new edition. Photo courtesy of Kensington Books.