Cooking with Amethyst Ganaway

Y'all...it is an honor and a privilege and a delight to have rising culinary star Amethyst Ganaway here today to talk about Black Southern foodways and her forthcoming cookbook (among other things). The South Carolina-born food and beverage industry veteran has worked as a chef and a freelance writer whose articles and recipes have appeared in The New York Times, Food & Wine, Food52, Saveur, and Serious Eats, among other places. Amethyst is the content manager and head recipe developer for Yolélé, Chef Pierre Thiam's West African food brand, and last week she announced that her cookbook From the Roota to the Toota will be coming out in 2027. Me being me, I got excited about her big news, because I admire her work, think she's good fun, and always learn so much from her. Her being her, she was a totally good sport when I asked her if I could interview her for all of you. So, without much further ado, meet Amethyst Ganaway...

Q: What are your earliest food memories and how did they shape your desire to become a chef? To what degree do those memories involve story, and a sense of who your family was and where they came from? A: One of my earliest food memories is one that my grandma likes to share. I was probably around two or three, and she had me sitting on the counter while she cooked. She turns around briefly, and when she looks back to me, I’m somehow on the ground, unscathed and unbothered. I remember being on the counter, but not how I got down. We have our own beliefs on what happened in between, haha. Outside of that, some of my other memories are of picking wild ingredients – mostly all edible like blackberries and wild plums, and others like wild vetch with
their pea pods and purple flowers, clovers, pecans, and rabbit grass. I come from a family that likes to eat, and that enjoys cooking, so I think that inspired me to become a chef before I realized I wanted to be a chef. I bounced around a bit as a kid, but no matter where I went or who I stayed with, food is commonplace and at the core of the communities I grew up in and the people I grew up with.

Q: I’ve read that your grandmother was active in Black resistance movements in the 1960s. How has food played a role in Black resistance?
A: Food has always played a role in Black resistance. I think many people tend to relegate Black resistance to automatically mean, “resistance during the Civil Rights Movement” in America specifically, but it’s imperative to understand that the same knowledge and skills that had been acquired by the great civilizations across the world had also been acquired and honed across the continent of Africa. So, I say that to say that food had always served as an act of resistance – whether that was using food as the tool to take down leaders by masking poison in their meals, to bringing seeds (and agricultural knowledge) across the Transatlantic Slave Trade to grow for sustenance in a foreign land, to sitting at a diner counter to protest segregation, to Philando Castille paying for students' lunches. Food has always been at the center of Black resistance because food is at the center of Black culture. And besides, who can plan and enact resistance on an empty stomach?

Q: I didn’t realize you studied religion in college. What drew you to that as an area of study, and in what ways do you find it helpful in the work you do as a chef, recipe developer and authority on Southern food and the African diaspora?
A: So the truth is, I was originally a biology/pre-med major, but into the first semester of my junior year I just could NOT pass Organic Chemistry Two. I’d been taking a lot of arts-related electives like anthropology, history, art, and then I found out that if I didn't pass Organic Chemistry again, I’d get kicked out of my major. So, I said, well I already have all these courses so what major can I switch to without losing too many credits. Theology was one of the options and I’m sure I
could have gone with a more traditional B.A. degree, but something drew me to Religious Studies. They had the best courses for me, like “Visions of the Apocalypse”, “Liberation Theology”, “Anthropology of Magic and Religion”, and then I got to take a lot of cool literary and philosophical classes. I never considered going to seminary however. I wanted to be a professor and do research. Getting a chance to take those sorts of classes, and think critically about other people and their cultures while engaging with those people, really helps me think about food
the way that I do. Religion and food have a lot more in common than people think.

Q: How did you get your start in the profession?
A: I was working in restaurants throughout college to pay for school. I started out as a waitress in both family-owned and corporate dining restaurants and I was really good at it. I think many food and beverage workers would agree that we’re all a little bit sadomasochistic to work and stay working in the industry. I loved it. Everything about working in restaurants made me feel I made good – the
stuff we always say about the rush, the camaraderie, the madness, and the emotions. I made good money as a waitress, but then I got bored. I moved into managing and it was good, and I had insurance, but I loved the kitchen, so I took a step back and started over as a line cook. From there, it was up!

Q: You've worked outside of your native South Carolina. What made you decide to come back home?
A: I came back home for both professional and personal reasons, but all of it trickled down into I knew I needed to come back. The work that I wanted to do, I couldn't do from halfway across the country. I feel very much like my story is very Parable of the Son-esque. I needed to come home and make up and atone for lost time, in many ways across my life.

Q: You’re doing a lot of interesting things right now. What’s a typical workday like for you?
A: My days are usually meetings of some sort with someone, clients I’m working with for helping them with social media, recipe testing, or developing and creating menus for events. Some days it looks like Xbox and Netflix. Most days it looks like twenty tabs open on my computer in the morning and ten by the time I go to bed at night. It’s stressful but relaxing in its own way. Sometimes fun gets thrown in like a photo shoot, or fishing with friends.

Q: Tell us more about your forthcoming cookbook, From the Roota to the Toota. How will it expand our understanding of Southern food?
A: Take hundreds of years of the varieties of Southern Black culinary and cultural experiences and try to fit it into one book with recipes, interviews, anecdotes,
illustrations, and brilliant photography. Then take everything you thought about the “country, southern, unhealthy, scraps”, and flip it on its head. Speaking of head, get ready to see headcheese, squirrels, grouse, black pot, brains, tongues, and yes, chitlins if you're adventurous. But you’ll also see stew chicken, biscuits and gravy, greens, and a lot of rice – the food that makes you feel good and you can cook on a weeknight or low and slow on a Sunday morning for supper. There will be old school tips and tricks, instructions for butchering, and how to utilize every part of an animal or ingredient. There’s no possible way I could put the entire breadth of Southern Black foodways into one book, but I hope that it can serve as a guide and as a start to helping people understand and truly respect the complexity and richness of the Black South.

Q: Where do you find inspiration?
A: I find most of my inspiration from my own experiences in life and the lives of those around me. I find inspiration from books and from the air and the soil and the sea. But most of all I think my inspiration really comes from the fact the food is so good, and I want to keep learning and trying as much of it as I can.

Q: What’s your favorite cookbook(s) and why?
A: This is the hardest question to answer. I don’t know if I have any in particular, but I really like obscure cookbooks, and old church cookbooks!

Q: What is your favorite regional ingredient and why?
A: This is a hard one, but I’m gonna say Lowcountry cluster oysters. Oysters taste like home to me, as weird as that might sound. Briny but sweet, plump and succulent, either fresh out the water or slightly steamed with a dab of hot sauce. You won't find cluster oysters anywhere outside of SC and GA, and they can be intimidating to people used to single oysters. But if you’ve ever eaten a cluster oyster while standing in or near a salt marsh, you know exactly what I mean. If
you haven't, then come down to visit during oyster season in the fall and winter. Don't come to Charleston though. We are full.

Q: What is one accessible, but amazing recipe readers should learn how to make with that ingredient?
A: The only thing you need to do with the oysters is eat ‘em fresh or steam them! a little lemon juice, hot sauce, or a mignonette is acceptable, occasionally cocktail sauce, but that’s it.

Q: And finally, what do you like to do when you’re not cooking, recipe testing, writing, and being the culinary queen that you are?
A: I like playing video games and reading books and long walks on the beach. All jokes aside! I also enjoy eating with friends and family and hanging out with my two favorite girls, my dogs Luna Bear and Haley Foxx.

Follow Amethyst on Instagram at @thizzg for all the latest and greatest things she's up to, whether it's television appearances, freelance work, cleaning freshly caught fish, or cooking up something that will, no doubt, make you very, very hungry.

Writing prompt: Write about a favorite food memory you have. What made it so unforgettable? I know one of mine involves a grilled piece of freshly caught sea bass after a long hike on a windy day in Marseille. Yours?

Endnotes

Prayers up for Usher: I was so looking forward to going with one of my oldest, dearest friends to see Usher's very first show in the "Past Present Future" tour this past Wednesday night. Unfortunately, he had to postpone due to a neck injury he suffered while rehearsing for this spectacle that was sure to dazzle us. This guy gives fans his all, and he's been working seemingly nonstop for the past few years. I am looking forward to seeing him when he's 100 percent at that rescheduled show, which in my case will be December 9.

How I got my Usher fix anyway: Thursday night I made myself feel slightly better by watching Usher's Tiny Desk concert from two years ago (even though I've probably watched it eleventy billion times already). If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it.

What I'm looking forward to this weekend: The powerful-ass coffee that I will very much need at Wasatch Roasting Co.

Next week: We're going to be talking flamenco. You won't want to miss it. I'll never understand how I managed to line up two badass female icons in a row, but I am grateful to both of them for humoring me, and speaking to all of you.