Feeding Maya Angelou's Soul

By Brendan Neff and Andrew Eastman | Friday, March 11, 2005

Poet, orator, director, and author Maya Angelou is perhaps best known for her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and her poem "On the Pulse of Morning," which was read at soul food aficionado Bill Clinton's inauguration. Primarily a staunch chronicler of the African American experience, Angelou's prose is distinguished in its ability to captivate the hearts and imaginations of her readers. While this is certainly commendable, it leaves the stomachs of epicurean fans of African-American literature completely unfulfilled.

— Attempting to make mediocre soul food. —

Luckily for them, Angelou recently decided to publish a down-home, soul-food cookbook, Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes. Apparently the preparation and eating of good food takes on a special significance when one is a world-renowned author. As aspiring writers ourselves, we thought we might try our hand in the kitchen in hopes of discovering the journalistic power of soul. Though a white male from Connecticut and a Jewish man from St. Louis are under-qualified to do these recipes justice, the cookbook is specifically dedicated to "every wannabe cook who will dare criticism by getting into the kitchen and stirring up some groceries." This is exactly what these two reviewers dared to do.

Eager to get started on our culinary adventure, we began reading the book in search of the perfect soul food meal to make in our modest kitchen. We quickly discovered that the joy of cooking with Maya Angelou is gaining insight into the African-American experience, while at the same time learning how to make some incredibly soulful dishes. For example, in the chapter entitled "The Assurance of Carmel Cake" the reader discovers that "quilting bees were eagerly anticipated by southern black women (because) they offered the only non-labor, nonreligious occasions where women could gather", while at the same time learning recipes for Carmel and Coconut Cake and Chocolate Fudge. In the chapter "Momma's Grandbabies Love Cracklin' Cracklin'" the reader discovers that the thought of cracklings had the power to make a young Maya Angelou "forget the smell of raw intestines." We found this knowledge very encouraging, especially since we were cooking in our apartment, where the smell of raw intestines oftentimes lingers due to the landlord's questionable personal hygiene. Cracklings, a name given to salted pork skin that is roasted until it crackles, are the key ingredients to correctly prepare Momma's famous Crackling Corn Bread. Remember this the next time you slaughter a pig or "the killing crew" brings the unused parts of a hog into your kitchen.

Similar chapter titles include "Potato Salad Towers Over Difficulties," "Good Banana, Bad Timing," "Ready-to-Wear Tripe," "English, Please," and "Oprah's Suffocated Chicken." Predictably, these chapters all contain anecdotes from Angelou's life, each with varying relevance to cooking. For example, in "Recipes from Another County", the reader discovers that Angelou's grandmother didn't read the local Lafayette County Democrat newspaper because "it is written by white folks, about white folks, for white folks." Clearly such a publication must not have contained many good soul food recipes, but this information did little to improve our culinary abilities. Realizing that the book would probably not provide any substantive instruction in the preparation of soul food, we decided to give it a try anyway. After little deliberation, we decided on the recipes for fried chicken, collard greens, wilted lettuce and, of course, crackling corn bread.

Almost immediately our endeavor hit a snag. Crackling cornbread apparently required those cracklings, which are also known as chicharones. Although Angelou assures her readers that these can easily be found in any Latino grocery store, we were dismayed at our surprising inability to locate any in the Hanover area. Despite repeated trips to both Stinson's and Topside, we were unable to find anything resembling these mysterious ingredients, although we searched under both names. Foodstop was similarly disappointing. Even the shelf-stockers at the trendy, new-age Co-Op Food Store had no idea what we were talking about. Undaunted, we proceeded to purchase all the other necessary ingredients and brought them back to our small apartment kitchen to prepare our soul food feast, courtesy of Maya Angelou and The Dartmouth Review.

Despite periodic interruptions to turn off our smoke detector and answer our neighbors' questions as to what that burning smell was, our preparation of the fried chicken was initially encouraging. The same cannot be said of the collard greens, although we followed Angelou's directions to the letter: "add all ingredients to pot. Simmer for 1.5 hours" was not particularly helpful considering neither of us really knew exactly how collard greens are supposed to look or taste. The outcome was predictably grim. Our wilted lettuce was similarly unsatisfying, despite our efforts to follow Momma's simple directions: "Wash the lettuce and leave it on the counter. It will wilt for you in thirty minutes."

Unabashed after our initial failures and not the quitting sort, we decided to whip up some of Angelou's Golden Whipped Cream. Unfortunately we found ourselves without the necessary ingredients due to a previous night's academic study of the whipping supplies and, all sexual puns aside, Oprah's Suffocated Chicken proved very hard. We regrouped, but had similar problems with our next project: Decca's Chicken, Drunkard Style. The first instruction to "drink 1 glass of wine" not only seemed easy enough, but fun. Alas, all out of wine and no fans of moderation, we decided to substitute the glass of wine with a bottle of Peppermint Schnapps we had handy. One half hour later, our attempted preparation of Decca's Chicken, Drunkard Style ended with an EBA's Chicken Sandwich, Ordered Drunkard Style. To Maya Angelou's credit, that sandwich was delicious, and the delivery man was very courteous. And while she may have been disappointed in us, Decca could scarcely fault fried chicken, bacon, lettuce, mayonnaise, and a tomato on a grilled poppy-seed bun.

All in all, Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes is lost in itself, unsure of whether to be a memoir, a cookbook, or a scene from How Stella Got Her Groove Back. While the anecdotes that accompany each recipe are obviously useful to modern suburban chefs and their designer kitchens ("you can hang a hog up by its hindquarters and eat most all of it, save for the hooves"), they serve primarily to distract from the scarcity of actual cooking instruction. For instance: Maya Angelou's fried chicken recipe includes the directions, "wash and pat dry chicken." We can truthfully report that after throwing out several chickens that were too wet, we finally found a dry one, washed it and patted it, and it still tasted just as grim as the rest of them. Useful content is lamentably scarce in Hallelujah!, save the warning that "Beer is white lightnin', ma'am," which the majority of Dartmouth students already know to be true. Those that don't could more easily learn this by leaving their East Wheelock suites than by reading it in a cookbook. For the reader who is actually serious about cooking soul food, useful instruction is sparse and hard to find. Angelou's inaccessible anecdotes are a poor cover for simplistic recipes, and her literary merit is marred with misdirection. Ultimately, Maya Angelou serves up little as a chef-poet, other than disappointment and the occasional laugh.

Feeding Maya Angelou's Soul

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