My GeeChee Gullah Love

The culture of the Geechees and the Gullahs blesses us from the coast of West Africa and Central Africa and ended up in the coastal Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. I use the word blessing loosely because it was on the ships of slave traders that these beautiful people would arrive here. I didn't know how deep the revelation of who they were would be for me until I realized these people were actually me. You see, my mother is a GeeChee. Ninety percent of my mothers family comes from the low country of coastal South Carolina in and around Charleston, South Carolina. I had been spending summers there since I was about nine years old. And the thing I most loved was the food and the music.

Next door to my Aunt Leola's house was her huge field. She cultivated that land and created a place where all kinds of vegetables grew. Many people came to pick from this field. It was organic in every sense of the word. no pesticides or any chemicals in this garden. And some of most beautiful vegetables I've ever seen. I was fascinated. I was from New York and I didn't have a garden even though I grew up in the very fertile Hudson Valley. My aunt though, grew some of the most beautiful okra I had ever seen, They were long, sturdy, and thicker than what I would see in the produce sections of stores where I was from. She showed me how to pick them and collect them in a basket or apron. Once we got them home she showed me how th wash them. Then it was off to the prepare.

After washing them we sliced them into small cylinders to get them ready to fry. Prior to that we had sliced some sausage that the sausage man sold door to door, and sauteed some shrimp that my uncle caught. And before that we fried the onion in the bacon fat from our bacon we had cooked. We seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, garlic, bell pepper, and onion. After we sauteed everything, we put the foods we had already prepped on a platter and added the okra to the pan and let the magic begin. The okra goes through the frying process and gives off the most wonderful aroma. Seasoned with all those spices and sizzling in the remnants of what was there before it, like I sizzle in the shoes of my ancestors, it gives me life. It will soon add to my belly and nurture me in ways I had no idea this vegetable could. I was so blessed to be in the kitchen that day and in the field. I was a part of the harvesting and the preparation and finally the nourishing of our family that day. I was in the low country, eating low country food, with my GeeChee Gullah family, absorbing the culture and not even knowing it. This is commonplace for them. We had rice cooking on the stove from the barrel of rice that exists next to the large potbelly stove in the kitchen, next to the updated appliances. When the okra was done we mixed in all of the ingredients and there was before us the most inviting pan of food. We served our family, sat around laughed and talked, I picked up on some more of the Gullah language, and it was well with my soul.

It my hope that whoever reads this story will have the desire to go learn more about GeeChee Gullah culture. They are a hidden gem of a people who cook the most beautiful food, with the most beautiful intentions for all who eat it. They traveled from Africa with rice braided into their hair among other seeds. They had no idea of the new world or new life but knew they needed to have some of home with them. They are worth the exploration. They are friendly, loving, and will feed your belly and your soul.