Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor Introduced the World to Gullah Food – Here Are 10 Things You Should Know

Author, Food Griot, Dancer, Actress, Broadcaster, and the Woman who Introduced the World to Gullah-Geechee Cuisine; here are TEN Cool Facts/Quotes in honor of the legend that is Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor:

1) Vertamae was raised in Allendale County, S.C where Gullah Geechee cooking became a part of her life

2) “It occurred to me that people very causally say Spanish rice, French fries, Italian spaghetti, Chinese cabbage, Mexican beans, Swedish meatballs, Danish pastry, English muffins, and Swiss Cheese. And with the exception of black bottom pie, there is no reference to black people’s contribution to the culinary arts.” ~Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor

3) After moving to Philadelphia as a child and being inspired by Josephine Baker, at 19, Smart-Grosvenor saved enough money to sail to Paris, France. Like thousands of Afro-Americans at that time who chose to move abroad, she was seeking a new beginning.

4) While in Paris, Smart-Grosvenor met a Senegalese woman selling food on the street, that woman was using many of the same cooking techniques that she recognized growing up in the Gullah-Geechee corridor of South Carolina.

5) Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor became known world-wide after publishing her book, Vibration Cooking: or the Travel Notes of a Geeche Girl, a cookbook/memoir that celebrated her experience as a black person in America and abroad, and her celebration of Gullah Geechee cuisine.

6) By 1970, Smart-Grosvenor was a legend in New York, among the Black Art/ Bohemian Circles – known to to hold dinners and hang with the likes of Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and Nikki Giovanni.

7) “My feeling was/is any Veau à la Flamande or Blinchishe’s Tvorogom I prepared was as ‘soulful’ as a pair of candied yams. I don’t have culinary limitations because I’m ‘black.’ On the other hand, I choose to write about ‘Afro-American’ cookery because I’m ‘black’ and know the wonderful, fascinating culinary history there is. And because the Afro-American cook has been so underappreciated.”~Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor

8) Smart-Grosvenor was also an actress and dancer. She sang backup Sun Ra’s Solar-Myth Arkestra. She also appeared in the film, Daughters of the Dust and Beloved.

9) Smart-Grosvenor has been a contributing editor for Essence Magazine, and published articles in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Village Voice.

10) Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor also was in the broadcasting industry breaking boundaries as a regular contributor to NPR’s All Things Consideredand an array of other radio programs which earned her a plethora of awards, including Robert F. Kennedy Award, the Ohio State Award, the duPont-Columbia Award, and the James Beard 1996 Award for Best Radio Show.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor passed away on Saturday at age 79, spending many of her last years in the place she loved most, South Carolina.