In a previous issue of American Legacy we published an excerpt from Carolyn Quick Tillery’s cookbook The African-American Heritage Cookbook: Traditional Recipes and Fond Remembrances from Alabama’s Renowned Tuskegee Institute (1996). Tillery’s cookbook was a loving tribute to the foods and people of Tuskegee, Alabama and Tuskegee Institute. In it she mixed biographical sketches, historical photographs, reminiscences, even poetry, with the dishes she celebrated.

Tillery herself a graduate of Tuskegee Institute also included in the book the story of the colleges founding by former slave Booker T. Washington, who himself was educated at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Hampton, Virginia. The cookbook demonstrated her belief that “the recipes and traditions of Tuskegee are a joyful celebration of hope and triumphant.”

The collection is filled with Southern favorites – from smothered pork chops and chitterlings to butter milk biscuits and pecan pie. Some dishes go back over a century and some are from more recent times.

Below are a few recipes for you to try in your kitchen. We hope you enjoy!

Wild Onions and Garlic With
Bacon and Eggs

Wild garlic (Allium canadense)
Wild onion (Allium mutabile)
Wild onion (Allium vineale)

All the above have been relished and
found appetizing in early spring when the
tops are tender, prepared as follow:
Take a few pieces of fat bacon, cut in
small pieces, fry until nearly done, and
while the grease is very hot stir in the
finely cut onion tops [and garlic tops],
and let cook until done. Have ready two

or three eggs that have been salted and
peppered to taste; stir these quickly into
the bacon and onions, being careful not
to let the eggs get too hard, and serve at
once. Some like cheese grated over the
eggs before frying.
[One or two servings]

Sweet Potato Puffers

Whip 2 eggs until quite light; [take] two
cups of cold mashed [sweet] potatoes
[and] one cup of flour into which one
teaspoon of baking powder has been
sifted. The potatoes and eggs should be
worked together. Then the flour and
baking powder [added]; roll lightly; cut
quickly and fry into deep fat like dough-
nuts. Some think a little spice improves
the flavor.

Alfalfa Salad

The young, tender leaves and stems are
especially good when mixed with other
greens, and especially piquant and appe-
tizing made into a salad, thus: Wash and
prepare the alfalfa similar to . . . lettuce,
garnish the whole with shredded onion,
radishes, pickled beets, carrots, etc.
Serve with mayonnaise or French dressing.
This salad lends itself to an almost endless
variety of artistic combinations in the way
of ribbons, spots, layers, jellied etc. The
nutritional value of alfalfa is too well known
to need further discussion here.

Other books by Carolyn Quick Tillery include: Southern Homecoming Traditions: Recipes & Remembrances (2010)

A Taste of Freedom: A Cookbook with Recipes and Remembrances From Hampton Institute (2002)

The Military Wives’ Cookbook: 200 Years of Traditions, Recipes and Remembrances (2008)