Vertamae Smart Grosvenor

“Do you believe that hundreds and hundreds of Africans brought here on this other side would forget everything they once knew?”¹

Nana Pazant, Daughters of the Dust

This is the quote Vertamae Smart Grosvenor (1937-2016) chose to open the introduction of her storytelling cookbook Vertamae Cooks in The Americas’ Family Kitchen. Born in rural South Carolina and then going on a lifelong quest of cooking and studying foodways, Grosvenor was one of the pioneers of reestablishing pride in and knowledge of the Gullah and Geechee cultures. She published her first storytelling cookbook in 1970 called Vibration Cooking, which is Grosvenor’s phrase for cooking without a recipe and using her other senses—taste, smell, sight, knowledge and intuition—to create incredible dishes. This book was revolutionary for many reasons, not least because of its alternative title: or, The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl. In 1970, “Geechee” was thought of as a derogatory term, but Grosvenor and others began an effort to reclaim it and to educate people on who the Geechee and Gullah people are.

Grosvenor is also the inspiration of the title of this website “Yenna Come Nyam.” She writes in her cookbook:

“Home was where “yenna come nyam” meant “come and eat.” I didn’t know that nyam was an African root word used throughout the diaspora. I didn’t know there were cultural reasons why we were big rice eaters, that there were African retentions in the way Grandma Sula made okra soup, in the way Granddaddy made baskets, or in the way Mr. Knowles cast his net in the river. What did I know from African retentions or diaspora?”²

Vertamae Smart Grosvenor

Later in this website, we will dive into some of the conversations around what scholars knew about Gullah Geechee people and how that information wasn’t shared with the communities until much later. Grosvenor—once she learned about this culinary history—began working to share it with the world. In this interview with Grosvenor, you hear her explain her work throughout her life and how she endeavored to share both the love of Gullah Geechee food, but also the histories of that food, with broader audiences.

Food, fellowship and activism: Grosvenor’s incredible connections

Vertamae Smart Grosvenor left a legacy of teaching widely about her Geechee heritage, and using food as a form of activism. Besides her cookbooks, she created a folk opera called Nyam and consulted on numerous projects – TV shows, films, interviews – to give a more full description of the Gullah and Geechee cultures.³ Through her knowledge, training and work as a chef, artist, culinary anthropologist and griot, Grosvenor was able to powerfully assert who she was in an era that didn’t take kindly to powerful Black women. This is what renowned director Julie Dash is going to celebrate in her upcoming documentary.

The description for this documentary reads:

A New Documentary Film by Julie Dash about the world-renowned author, performer, and chef from rural South Carolina, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, a woman who has led a remarkably unique and complex life. This feature film is based upon Grosvenor’s bestselling work, Vibration Cooking, and her extraordinary collaborations with musicians, artists and writers from the Beat Literary Movement, Black Arts-Black Power Movements, New Black Cinema, and her legendary Food as Cultural Memory broadcasts on NPR.⁴

One of Grosvenor’s most noteworthy achievements (in an entire life of noteworthy achievements) was having a role in Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust, which was “the first film directed by a Black woman to receive nationwide theatrical release in the United States,” and is considered a film masterpiece.⁵ That film is where the quote that opens this webpage comes from, the quote that Grosvenor chose to open her storytelling cookbook.

Grosvenor also acted in Beloved—the movie adaptation of Toni Morrison’s novel—and had roles on Broadway.⁶ She was also well-known for appearing on PBS, including in the cooking show The Americas’ Family Kitchen with Vertamae Grosvenor, where she shared her food and storytelling with audiences. She was a commentator on National Public Radio (NPR), where she had a radio show called Seasonings that won a James Beard Award.⁷ The audio clip below is Grosvenor on NPR telling the story of spending Thanksgiving in South Carolina, and all the different parts of the feast they put together. Later in this website, we will dig deeper into all the ingredients and foodways Grosvenor speaks about in this clip.

Listen to Grosvenor speak about crabbing in the creek and making a Thanksgiving feast

Grosvenor passed away in 2016, and her passing was acknowledged by obituaries in the New York Times, NPR, and countless other outlets that she had contributed to. In 2019, director Julie Dash began pre-production of a documentary featuring Grosvenor’s life and works. Titled “Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl,” the film has been awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities.⁸

Though she has passed on, Grosvenor’s vibrant, powerful and ingenious way of looking at and interacting with the world still lives. Through her storytelling cookbooks and the new generations of artists, activists, chefs, scholars and directors she has inspired, her mark on this world is indelible.

Here is one last video of Grosvenor speaking about some of the difficulties and privileges of being an artist, and her commitment to doing what she loves.

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Footnotes

1. Vertamae Grosvenor, Vertamae Cooks in The Americas’ Family Kitchen (San Francisco: KQED Books, 1996), 14. Available here.
2. Ibid, 16.
3. Kathy A. Campbell, “Grosvenor, Vertamae,” South Carolina Encyclopedia, University of South Carolina, Institute for Southern Studies, August 15, 2016. https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/grosvenor-vertamae/.
4. Julie Dash, “Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl: Vertamae Smart Grosvenor Documentary,” Vimeo, accessed April 24, 2021. https://vimeo.com/119870930?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=1978856.
5. Carina del Valle Schorske, “The Uses of Beauty: On ‘Daughters of the Dust’ and Diasporic Inheritance,” Los Angeles Review of Books, July 21, 2017, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/uses-beauty-daughters-dust-diasporic-inheritance/.
6. Campbell, “Grosvenor, Vertamae,” https://www.scencyclopedia.org/sce/entries/grosvenor-vertamae/.
7. “NPR Commentator Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor Dies At 79,” NPR, September 5, 2016, https://www.npr.org/2016/09/05/492674792/npr-commentator-vertamae-smart-grosvenor-dies-at-79.
8. “’Daughters of the Dust’ Auteur Julie Dash Developing New Doc ‘Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl’,” The National Endowment for the Humanities, May 10, 2019, https://www.neh.gov/news/daughters-dust-auteur-julie-dash-developing-new-doc-travel-notes-geechee-girl.