Tap each era
The story on a plate
Four hundred years of cooking, from plantation kitchens to the corner restaurant down the street.
Start here
What is FBA food?
Foundational Black Americans are the descendants of people enslaved in the United States. Their kitchens built Southern cooking, then carried it north and west to every corner of the country.
Soul food is making something of what's available to you and putting your heart and energy into it.
Chef Jeff
For generations, FBA cooks were handed the scraps: the feet, the tails, the innards, the greens other people threw away. They turned those scraps into some of the most loved food in America.
That is the whole idea behind Peasant at the Table. Anybody can make expensive food taste good. Taking something simple and making it special is cooking.
1866Earliest known cookbook by a Black woman in America
6MPeople who moved north and west in the Great Migration
1960sWhen "soul food" became a household name
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The pantry
The ingredients that built the FBA kitchen, and what our cooks did with them.
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Get the book
Written down at last
A record, so nobody can take our food and claim it as their own.
Volume 1
The Foundational Black American Cookbook
Recipes Rooted in LegacyChef Jeff Waddell
Signed copy from Chef Jeff
Coming soon · card, Apple Pay or Google Pay
Buy on Amazon
Coming soon
COMING
Volume 2
The Second Genesis
FBA Food and the Great MigrationChef Jeff Waddell
"Soul food isn't a thing or the food itself. It's a feeling we have deep down inside."
On soul food"Back then we didn't use measuring cups. All we had is a cup of our hand and the pinch of our fingers."
On how recipes were passed down"We're running a 100 yard dash, but everybody else has a 50 yard head start, and we only lose by seconds."
Volume 2, the thesis"It's about damn time we document the things that we know. Not for credit, not to brag, but so we have some kind of record."
Why the books existThe culinary app
Kitchen school
Recipes talk in their own language. Here's the translation: measurements, kitchen words, and how to read a recipe from top to bottom.
=
The measuring ladder
3 tspteaspoons
=
1 tbsptablespoon
×16 =
1 cup8 fl oz
×2 =
1 pint
×2 =
1 quart
×4 =
1 gallon
Cheat sheet
Cups to spoons
| 1 cup | 16 tbsp |
| ¾ cup | 12 tbsp |
| ⅔ cup | 10 tbsp + 2 tsp |
| ½ cup | 8 tbsp |
| ⅓ cup | 5 tbsp + 1 tsp |
| ¼ cup | 4 tbsp |
| ⅛ cup | 2 tbsp |
Butter
| 1 stick | ½ cup |
| 1 stick | 8 tbsp |
| 1 stick | 4 oz / 113 g |
| 2 sticks | 1 cup |
| 4 sticks | 1 lb |
Hand measures
| Pinch | about &frac116; tsp |
| Dash | about ⅛ tsp |
| Smidgen | about &frac132; tsp |
| Palmful | about 1 tbsp |
| Handful | about ½ cup |
Pan sizes
| 9-inch pie | about 4 cups |
| 8×8 square | about 8 cups |
| 9×13 casserole | about 14–15 cups |
| 10-inch skillet | about 8 cups |
| 12-inch skillet | about 12 cups |
Cook it till
| Chicken | 165°F |
| Pork chops | 145°F + rest |
| Ground meat | 160°F |
| Pulled pork | 195–205°F |
| Fish | 145°F, flakes |
| Frying oil | 325–375°F |
Liquid vs. dry
| Liquid cup | Glass, with a spout |
| Dry cup | Fill, then level it |
| Flour | Spoon in, don't pack |
| Brown sugar | Pack it down |
| 1 cup flour | about 125 g |
| 1 cup sugar | about 200 g |
Make:
Sweet Potato Pie
- the sweet potatoes at 400°F for 45 to 60 minutes, until soft all the way through.
- Peel while warm and .
- the butter and sugar, then beat in the eggs .
- Add potatoes, milk, lemon extract and spices. Mix .
- Pour into the and bake at 350°F for 40 minutes, .
Tap the highlights
Every highlighted word on the recipe card is something a recipe expects you to already know. Tap one and I'll explain it.
Five rules for any recipe
- Read it all the way through twice before you touch a pot.
- Ingredients are listed in the order you use them.
- Get everything out, measured and chopped first. Cooks call that mise en place, "everything in its place."
- Watch the comma. "1 cup flour, sifted" means measure then sift. "1 cup sifted flour" means sift then measure.
- Times are a guide. Your eyes, nose and fork tell you when it's done.