The Table Freda Built At Ebony Magazine

For decades starting in the 1940s, Ebony was one of the only magazines created by Black people that spoke directly to Black people. It showed Black Americans falling in love, playing sports, dressing in style, gathering together – and eating. Freda DeKnight was the magazine’s first food editor, publishing recipes that were international and sophisticated, challenging the stereotype that Black American food was limited to soul food.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. As someone who has been lucky enough to go to Napa Valley, I can tell you, it's everything people say it is. Beautiful scenery, quaint, beautiful towns, and phenomenal food and

• 0:44Dan Pashman?

  drink everywhere you go. I don't even know that much about wine, but I know that every glass of wine I had in Napa Valley was excellent. I mean, there's no bad glass of wine and no bad meal. Choose between hundreds of wineries, tasting rooms, and chef-led restaurants from a low-key lunch on a vineyard terrace to a full tasting menu paired by the winemaker. Plan your trip at visitnapavalley.com.

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Our first issue under my leadership was for New Year's, and the recipes were for cornbread, black eyed peas, a baked ham, and greens. And one of the readers wrote and told me that the cornbread recipe was wrong because the mix was sweetened and you did not put sugar in cornbread. And I mean, that's a big point of controversy.

• 1:45Dan Pashman?

  Controversy, right.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Sugar in the cornbread. And she sent me her recipe so that I would have a correct recipe for cornbread.

• 1:55Dan Pashman?

  Did you try it?

• 1:57Speaker 01

  No, I don't think I did.

• 2:05Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. A quick note before we get started, I want to give you a friendly reminder that Father's Day is coming up, and I have an idea for the perfect gift. My cookbook, Anything's Pasta-able: 81 Invented Pasta Recipes for Saucy People. There are no traditional pasta sauce recipes in this book. You don't need another recipe for meat sauce. What you need is recipes for things like cacio e pepe with chili crisp, kimchi carbonara, shells with miso butter and scallions, a whole section on actually delicious pasta salads that will be perfect for you this summer, and something I invented called pasta pizza, where it's a pizza, the crust is made of pasta.

• 2:48Dan Pashman?

  It's very delicious and a ton of fun, and it'll open your mind to a whole new world of, I guess I gotta say it, pasta-abilities. Anything's Pasta-able is available now wherever books are sold. Alright, let's get into it. This week, ahead of Juneteenth, we're sharing the story of the first food editor at Ebony Magazine. As you'll hear, she had an outsized influence on how Black American food is represented in media, both past and present. For decades before the internet, Ebony was where many Black Americans turned for recipes. Ebony was created by Black people, and it spoke directly to Black people, bringing together fashion, food, celebrities, and more to depict a lifestyle.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  I grew up with Ebony, and I remember it as a young girl, and this was Jim Crow era, when everything was divided.

• 3:35Dan Pashman?

  This is Donna Battle Pierce. She's a food writer and historian, and she's writing a book about Ebony's first food editor. Donna was inspired to write the book, in part because Ebony had such an impact on her as a young woman.

• 3:46Speaker 02

  We had very little control over what media said about us. Things were constantly being made fun of or ridiculed.

• 3:58Dan Pashman?

  She says, growing up in the 50s and 60s, Black people and their food were rarely represented at all in white-owned media. When they were, it was usually as stereotypical servants. Think Aunt Shemima or Uncle Ben. Donna grew up in a middle-class black community in Columbia, Missouri. Her mother had a doctorate in education, and her father was a school principal. But she rarely saw her own experience reflected back to her in media.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  The parties that your parents gave, and the wonderful society groups, and church, and all of that, did have people that were well-educated, and well-dressed, and intellectual, and all of that. And so that's the division that black people knew the both parts of, and white people had no idea about. So Ebony was very meaningful because it brought that part of our culture into our lives and highlighted those people. And Ebony said, yes, here they are.

• 4:57Dan Pashman?

  Ebony's first issue came out in 1945. The magazine's founder and publisher, John H. Johnson, grew up in Arkansas, moved to Chicago, and would make millions in the publishing business. He said Ebony's mission was to paint a fuller picture of black America, to show black people falling in love, getting married, gathering together, and doing it in style. It was part representation, part aspiration. The person who set the tone for Ebony's food coverage from its very early days was its first food editor, Freda Dennehy.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  She was a very adaptable, very inquisitive, and totally enthralled with food and cooking.

• 5:37Dan Pashman?

  Freda was born in the early 1900s in Topeka, Kansas. Donna says, based on that timeframe, her grandparents were probably enslaved. Her father died when she was two, and her mother was a traveling nurse, so she was often away. Freda was mostly raised in South Dakota by her aunt and uncle, Paul and Mamie Scott. The Scotts were caterers. Donna says they were well-known in their area of South Dakota, where they cooked mostly for white people.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  They were introducing dishes to people, and they were cooking the chickens they raised, and they were cooking the wonderful vegetables, you know, eggplants, and they were using seasonings that maybe some people had not been exposed to.

• 6:18Dan Pashman?

  Even as a young child, Freda helped out. She once told an interviewer that by the time she was five, she could bake biscuits in garnish plates. She said, quote, "Instead of cutting out paper dolls and playing house, I was cutting out recipes and playing cook." The Scots didn't just expose Freda to a wide range of flavors. They also exposed her to a lifestyle, good food and good living. The family was well off. Their catering business was successful and they owned land. Freda graduated from Dakota Wesleyan University with a major in home economics and moved to New York City, where she worked as a dancer and a teacher. She was in her 30s when she married Renee De Knight, a pianist for the Delta Rhythm Boys. This was in the wake of the Harlem Renaissance.

• 6:58Speaker 02

  They traveled everywhere, back and forth to Chicago, to California, traveled all over Europe. She'd always had a deep interest in all kinds of food. She'd always associated with immigrants from all different places and had been open to the dishes that people taught her. Then, of course, Europe just redefined some of that, just helped her to really jump in and learn more, as it does for lots of cooks, learn more about recipes and ingredients and dishes.

• 7:30Dan Pashman?

  One night in about 1945, Freda was visiting Chicago. She was invited to dinner at a well-to-do friend's house. At the last minute, the host learned that their caterer had been in an accident, wouldn't be able to make it. Freda stepped in and cooked the meal herself. The guests were blown away. And one of those guests just happened to be John H. Johnson, the founder and publisher of Ebony. He was so impressed that he asked Freda to send him the menu. She wrote it all up in an engaging narrative style that made cooking sound fun. He offered her a job.

• 8:04Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Freda De Knight starts as Ebony's food editor and changes the way her readers see black food. Stick around.

• 8:19Speaker 03

  Time to cook up some advertisements.

• 8:26Dan Pashman?

  As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. Start the day strong with Quaker protein products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious to get a good source of protein. No matter what the day has in store, Quaker protein

• 9:08Dan Pashman?

  products give you a variety of ways to reach your protein goals. Oatmeal, granola, bars, and rice snacks in flavors you already love, like maple and brown sugar, and blueberries and cream. Quaker protein helps fuel you to start whatever's next. Get your protein with Quaker. Available at a store near you. I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American cheese. And now, Lando Lakes cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad Thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy

• 9:53Dan Pashman?

  weeknight dinners.

• 9:58Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to This Porkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Did you listen to last week's show yet? In that episode, I follow a young woman, Eleanor Segal, as she attempts something that I would truly never, ever want to do. It's called the Taco Bell 50K. Yes, that's about 31 miles, during which you need to stop to eat Taco Bell nine different times. In preparation for this race, Eleanor had to do something she calls gastric training.

• 10:21Speaker 04

  I've been trying to eat richer things. I'll have a slice of toast with cream cheese. Usually, if you're eating when you're running, you want to go more carby. But I've been trying to have things that have a similar fatty protein emphasis to a crunch wrap.

• 10:34Dan Pashman?

  I'm not a certified gastric trainer, Eleanor. I don't know that a slice of toast covered in cream cheese is going to quite prepare you for nine servings of Taco Bell.

• 10:45Dan Pashman?

  So can Eleanor do it? Can she run 31 miles, eat Taco Bell nine times and not puke? And perhaps most perplexing of all, why does she want to do this in the first place? You'll have to listen to the episode to find out. It's up now. All right, back now to Freda Deny. As Ebony's food editor, Freda wrote a regular recipe column called Date with a Dish, and she featured black celebrities of the day. Lena Horne making East Indian chicken, Dorothy Dandridge making cinnamon buns. A photo of Nat King Cole ran with Freda's tamale pie recipe. He was said to be a fan of it. In 1948, she published her first and only cookbook, also called Date with a Dish. It would later be re-released in the 60s as The Ebony Cookbook. It's an encyclopedia of recipes,

• 11:30Dan Pashman?

  from roast lamb and wine to spiced pig's feet to Spanish rice. Freda made her mission clear in the book's introduction. I asked Donna to read an excerpt from it.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  It is a fallacy long disproved that Negro cooks, chefs, caterers, and homemakers can adapt themselves only to the standard southern dishes. Like other Americans living in various sections of the country, they have naturally shown a desire to become versatile in the preparation of any dish, whether it's Spanish, Italian, or East Indian in origin. There are no set rules for dishes created by most Negroes. They just seem to have a way of taking a plain, everyday dish and improvising a gourmet's delight. This love for food has given them the desire to make their dishes different, well-seasoned, and eye appealing.

• 12:28Dan Pashman?

  That's such a powerful quote to me because it's such, first of all, it's just such a clear mission statement. It's, this tells me that Freda Deny knew exactly what she wanted to do when she got put in charge at Ebony.

• 12:44Dan Pashman?

  It also, though, this sentiment that I see Freda DeKnight sharing in 1948 is one that I've talked to people in black food media in the past few years who are fighting the same battle to some degree. So seeing this quote was sort of some, for me at least, some combination of like inspiring and depressing.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  That the battle's still going on.

• 13:12Dan Pashman?

  Right. You know, this is 1948, so we're taught, so that 70 years later, excellent, talented, black people in the world of American food media are still saying, you know, "We're a lot more than soul food." And having to make that case.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Well, that's because editors, for the most part, are still people that have had that point of view. And editors have a very strong role in what's depicted.

• 13:44Dan Pashman?

  But at Ebony, Freda was the editor. She was the one who decided what foods were covered and how they were characterized. And she didn't just work behind the scenes. Her picture often appeared in the magazine alongside her columns and recipes for dishes like lobster thermidor, Swiss steak, and rice and beefcakes. As the 1950s went on, her star rose. She became a spokesperson for multiple brands and wrote about the business benefits of appealing to black consumers. She appeared on TV to share cooking tips and toured the country as a speaker at both black and white colleges.

• 14:15Speaker 05

  A leading home economist is Mrs. Freda DeKnight of Ebony magazine. Her popular articles on food and home furnishings and her book, A Date with a Dish, have won international honor.

• 14:27Dan Pashman?

  This is from an old black and white video series from 1953, meant to highlight the contributions of black Americans. We don't actually hear Freda in the video, only the narrator. But just watching her, she moves around the kitchen like someone very comfortable being in charge. She gives instructions to a woman who seems to be taking careful notes. Then she holds up a cake and inspects it, offering commentary on it to an assistant.

• 14:49Speaker 05

  And only perfection rates the DeKnight stamp of approval.

• 14:56Dan Pashman?

  Freda once said in an interview, "Food can be glamorous. It can be something outside of kitchen drudgery. It's my aim to teach this to the Negro youth of this country, for too many of them assume the wrong attitude because their parents have associated hardship with it."

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Her favorite quote was "by us, for us", as opposed to the plantation-style cookbooks, which had been popular before. But she was talking about doing it for our culture, as opposed to doing it to be appreciated by the white culture. And she wanted to claim our part in all of American culture.

• 15:39Dan Pashman?

  In 1963, Freda Denight died of cancer. She was in her 50s, and she'd been at Ebony for 17 years. Negro Digest Magazine, another Johnson publication, ran a five-page tribute. It began, "Through her astute knowledge and brilliant use of food and fashion, Freda Denight helped to forge new image for American Negro women." Even though Donna never met Freda, she always felt a connection. The women in Donna's family passed down Freda's recipes, and both Donna's grandmothers happened to know Freda. They were friends. When Donna told her parents she wanted to go into food as a career, they weren't happy. Her parents were educators. Her dad was a principal who helped desegregate his school district.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  And they did not want me to do anything with food, because they said that's something that Black people have always been known for. Wonderful to do for family, but not to do it as a career.

• 16:32Dan Pashman?

  But Freda showed Donna that a career in food could be both glamorous and important. After all, integration didn't only have to happen in schools. Donna went on to work as a test kitchen director and to become the first Black food writer at the Chicago Tribune. I asked Donna how Freda's work has influenced her. She pauses, then, before talking about Freda, goes back to her own childhood.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  It's been a full circle for me. I had a lot of anger that I had to really get over. I'm still getting rid of the anger of having grown up in the community I did, watching my father, who was this elegant administrator, and he too was elegant and had been a World War II veteran and college graduate. And watching, I was in the yard as a little girl, watching a man walk by. And a drunk man walked by, drunk white man, and called him Boy. And my dad stood up, but he didn't say anything. And that's what, I know now, that's what he had to do to be alive for us now. And that's still a vivid memory. I can be there. I see that.

• 17:39Speaker 02

  And so there's lots of things that Freda has helped me with in terms of how she insisted

• 17:50Speaker 02

  on bringing so many stories to the front. It's important for all of us to speak what we know as Black people. And that's the inspiration from Freda, for me.

• 18:04Dan Pashman?

  It feels like it's given you a purpose.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  It's helped direct my purpose. My passion has always been food and fashion. That was my major in college. And then to, to learn about her made me understand exactly what she went through and the nuances that are, are there. And it's given me a real determination. You know, this is not, this is not something you retire from. This is something I'll do forever because this is something that's very important to my life.

• 18:47Dan Pashman?

  In the time Frida was at Ebony, from the mid 40s to the mid 60s, its circulation doubled to a million readers a month. The magazine became the cornerstone of John H. Johnson's publishing company, which went on to launch Black World and Jet magazines, among others. But after Frida died, food became a lower priority at Ebony. It would be 20 years before they hired another full-time food editor, Sharla Draper. Coming up, I speak with Sharla and we visit the Ebony Test Kitchen where she worked. Stick around.

• 19:24Dan Pashman?

  And now, a delicious word from our sponsors.

• 19:28Dan Pashman?

  It's very good.

• 19:31Dan Pashman?

  When you're cooking, ingredients matter, right? You use higher quality ingredients, you usually get better results. And if you're listening to this show, you're probably the kind of person who puts some thought and effort into your ingredients. But ingredients don't just matter with food, they also matter with laundry detergent. Of course, the cleaning job needs to get done, the odors and stains have to be tackled, and I want to feel good about the detergent and the ingredients in it. Because remember, whatever's in your laundry detergent is essentially in your clothes, and then you're putting those clothes on, you want good stuff in there. And All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients. It's 100% free from dyes, perfumes, parabens, and irritating residues. Check out the label and see for yourself, it lists all the ingredients and what they do. We've been using it in my house, we're very happy with it, and let me tell you,

• 20:12Dan Pashman?

  family of four, two teenagers, we do a lot of laundry, so we have put All Free Clear to the test. It's a powerful clean that you can feel good about. All Free Clear is the number one detergent brand recommended by dermatologists for sensitive skin. When it comes to laundry detergent, the choice is clear, All Free Clear. Pick up a bottle for your next laundry day. Start the day strong with Quaker Protein Products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious to get a good source of protein. No matter what the day has in store, Quaker Protein Products give you a variety of ways to reach your protein goals. Oatmeal, granola, bars, and rice snacks in flavors you already love like maple and brown sugar, and blueberries and cream. Quaker Protein helps fuel you to start whatever's next. Get your protein with Quaker, available at a store near you.

• 20:59Dan Pashman?

  I grew up on Lando Lakes cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lakes American Cheese. And now, Lando Lakes Cheese and Butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lakes Cheese and Butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad Thai, Lando Lakes has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.

• 21:32Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back. While Frida Deny was working as the food editor at Ebony, Charlotte Draper was growing up on the South Side of Chicago, about 10 miles from the Ebony building. Charlotte's parents subscribed to the magazine, and she even had a family friend who worked there.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  Well, we always had Ebony at the house. Probably by the time I got into high school, college, I could see the significance, some of the stories that Ebony would cover. Because Ebony, it was an aspirational magazine. You know, it demonstrated people who came from humble beginnings that went on to become justices on the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall. And it also demonstrated, you know, the lifestyle of some of the rich and famous, whether it would be Lena Horne or Sammy Davis Jr.

• 22:24Dan Pashman?

  Charlotte learned how to cook from her grandmother's. She says cooking is in her genes. In college, she majored in home economics with a minor in marketing. After she graduated in the 70s, she landed a job at Kraft, where that marketing minor came in handy. Because Kraft wasn't just interested in recipes. They were interested in the business of food. And for them, that included a focus on black consumers. The company worked with a black advertising agency, came up with marketing that targeted black Americans. And Charlotte was part of that effort. Kraft was also where Charlotte learned about the importance of food styling. If you're gonna get people excited about a food product or a recipe, the food's gotta look good. But when she opened up Ebony's food section around this time?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  It was pretty dreadful looking.

• 23:06Dan Pashman?

  How so? What made it dreadful?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Well, it was very dark. It was extremely dark.

• 23:13Dan Pashman?

  But it wasn't colorful?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't colorful. It was in color, but it was browns and blacks and, you know, nothing that would make the average person stop and say, "Wow, look at how good this looks." And as I worked with Kraft and the advertising agency, I looked more closely. The food pages came under scrutiny.

• 23:37Dan Pashman?

  Charlotte knew what the issue at Ebony was.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  There was not an in-house food editor at that time.

• 23:43Dan Pashman?

  Freda Denite's role had gone unfilled for 20 years. In the wake of her death, the magazine was mostly just rerunning her old Date with a Dish columns. Charlotte saw an opportunity. She began to pester that family friend who worked at Ebony and finally got a meeting with Mr. Johnson. She took a food spread from a recent issue and revamped it, mocked it up how she thought it should be done. Colorful, enticing. She presented the two side by side to Mr. Johnson. In 1983, she got the job. She started working to make the food coverage more contemporary and added a popular feature called Reader Favorite Recipes. Readers would submit their recipes for a dish, and Charlotte would test them out. The winning entry got 50 bucks and the recipe published in the magazine. Within a year, Ebony's revenue from food advertising increased 50%.

• 24:28Dan Pashman?

  Now, the food section was growing, just like the rest of the business had been for a while. Johnson was publishing five magazines by the time Charlotte started working there. They'd moved into a fancy office building on Michigan Ave, one of the most prestigious addresses in America. The building was one of the first in downtown Chicago designed by a black architect. Charlotte says everything about it was first class, especially the parties.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  They served the absolute primo quality shrimp.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  I have a good friend now that we still, when we talk about Ebony, we go shrimp.

• 25:04Dan Pashman?

  You still remember the shrimp?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 25:06Dan Pashman?

  Well, was it about the shrimp? Tell me about the shrimp.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Well, they were delicious. I mean, they were huge.

• 25:11Dan Pashman?

  Was it like shrimp cocktail style? Or it was cooked some other way?

• 25:13Speaker 01

  No, it was shrimp cocktail style. They were big.

• 25:17Dan Pashman?

  Past hors d'oeuvres, big and juicy.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, bigger than most people were used to seeing. But that's just an example of the primo quality you would find at Ebony Magazine, at Johnson Publishing Company.

• 25:32Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Who wouldn't want to work at the Ebony building?

• 25:35Dan Pashman?

  Especially if you worked in food, because along with everything else in the building, there was a state-of-the-art test kitchen. So should we go check out the Ebony Test Kitchen?

• 25:44Speaker 01

  Sounds good.

• 25:44Dan Pashman?

  All right. In 2005, John Johnson died. A few years later, the Great Recession hit. That, combined with general hard times for magazines, forced Johnson Publishing to sell the building on Michigan Ave. It sat vacant for years, until 2017, when a developer decided to turn it into apartments. The Test Kitchen, where Sharla worked, would be destroyed. But at the last minute, a team of preservationists at Landmarks Illinois swooped in to find their new home. The Museum of Food and Drink in New York acquired it. The kitchen was dismantled, moved to New York, and reassembled in the Africa Center in Harlem. That's where I met up with Sharla. Wow. We enter the kitchen. I had seen pictures of it. I knew it would be colorful, but it is so much brighter in person.

• 26:27Dan Pashman?

  How would you even describe the pattern on these walls?

• 26:30Speaker 01

  I would describe the walls as vibrantly colored, more of a psychedelic pattern. Orange would be the dominant color, I think.

• 26:41Dan Pashman?

  All the walls, cabinets, even the front of the dishwasher. It swirls of color, mostly dayglow orange, with red, purple, and olive green mixed in.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  And one of the things that the decor does is it communicates the vibrancy of the African-American consumer market. And coming from Kraft, our kitchen at Kraft was beige. So this was certainly an eye-opener to come in here.

• 27:10Dan Pashman?

  Right. It feels like just the decor, the way this place looks, makes it feel like a lot is happening here.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. And there were days when there was a lot going on, literally, in the Ebony Test Kitchen.

• 27:26Dan Pashman?

  It's not super big, about the size of a standard home kitchen. But the appliances, they were high-tech when the kitchen was built in the early 70s. Microwave, trash compactor, wall-mounted can opener, two dishwashers, general electric power scrub, two-speed Americana line. And of course, it looks old-fashioned now, but I mean...

• 27:45Speaker 01

  It was top of the line, cutting...

• 27:47Dan Pashman?

  In the center of the kitchen, there's an island with a six-burner stove. And on one wall, there's an opening, a pass-through window, like you'd see in a restaurant where the cooks put the food up to it. To be taken out to the dining room, Charlotte would put dishes she was testing out on the counter for employees to try and have them vote on their favorites. If I was working at a place with a test kitchen and a pass through counter, I would make the point of walking past that pass through counter quite a bit. No samples? Okay, I guess I'll be back in a half an hour then. See if there's any samples later.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had a lot of foot traffic.

• 28:19Dan Pashman?

  And back in the day, on the other side of that pass through window were the elevators. Ebony was a regular stop for black celebrities at the time. So when those elevator doors opened.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  You never knew who you might meet. The Jacksons, who were originally from Gary, Indiana.

• 28:34Dan Pashman?

  Of course.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  They would come over to the building on occasion. So you never knew.

• 28:38Dan Pashman?

  As I said to Charlotte, when she was working at Ebony in the 80s, it was a time when technically segregation was long past. But in practice.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  It was not.

• 28:48Dan Pashman?

  Right. So from that perspective, what was it like to have this kind of a space?

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Well, it gave you a real sense of pride that a black man from Arkansas had built this. When you say you represent Ebony magazine, people will pay attention and they will listen to what you're saying.

• 29:12Dan Pashman?

  Charlotte spent two years as Ebony's food editor. It was an early stop in a long career in food. She went on to be the food editor at Southern Living magazine and worked in communications at Campbell's Soup. Today, she runs her own food marketing company. How does it feel to be back in here?

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Well, it feels, you know, certainly very nostalgic. And I'm glad they were able to save the Ebony kitchen. I was living in Alabama when the building was sold. And that made me very sad. Because, I mean, it's just a piece of history here.

• 29:49Dan Pashman?

  What, what part of the Ebony test kitchen and Ebony's food coverage more broadly do you feel like we can see in food media today?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Well, there are so many people who are making a space in food media where maybe 25 years ago, there was not space for so many voices. You have Tony Tipton Martin, who is now the editor in chief for Cook's Country Magazine. There's Bryant Terry, who's a chef from the West Coast, and he's written that phenomenal book, Black Food.

• 30:29Dan Pashman?

  Of course, there are many more. It's true that in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, media outlets showed more interest in black voices, although there have been several steps backwards since then. And Charlotte says even when that progress was happening, there were still struggles. At one point, she put together a proposal for a cookbook of her own, and she shopped it around.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Well, you know that saying, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And one of the comments that I got was, well, do you know how many black cookbooks there already are? And I knew. And I said, but on the other hand, do you know how many Italian cookbooks there are? There have been significant inroads. There is a place at the table for more African Americans and people of color today. And then there are also instances where you couldn't get a seat at the table. Well, let's build our own table.

• 31:43Dan Pashman?

  I'm pleased to report that the Ebony Test Kitchen is now part of the permanent collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. It's not on display at the moment because it requires some rebuilding and preservation. But keep an eye out because it's really cool. One more note, Charlotte Draper now makes a podcast. It's called Folks, Food, and Soul. She's also leading the celebration of National Soul Food Month with all kinds of events. You can find more at nationalsoulfoodmonth.com. Next week on the show, I get to taste America's 250th birthday cake, and I talk with the person who's baking it. That's next week. While you wait for that one, check out last week's episode about the Taco Bell 50K. Who would run the equivalent of 31 miles while eating Taco Bell nine times? Well, at least one listener, I'll talk with her.

• 32:28Dan Pashman?

  That one's up now. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer- Emma Morgenstern. And senior producer-

• 32:34Speaker 06

  Andres O'Hara.

• 32:35Dan Pashman?

  And producer- Johanna Mayer. It was edited by- Tracy Samuelson. Additional editing by Hallie Bay Ramdeen, Alexis Williams, and Oloakemi Aladasuyi. Our engineer is- Jared O'Connell. Special thanks to E. James West and Charlotte Lyons. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And I'm Fig in Chicago, Illinois, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 33:18Speaker 07

  This podcast is supported by Nurtac ODT, Remedy Pant. We know you didn't ask for an interruption, but migraine doesn't wait for the right moment to interrupt either. It just barges in, takes your time, and throws everything off. So when migraine takes your time, take Nurtac. It's for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura in adults. Nurtac can provide pain relief in two hours, which can last up to two days. Ask your healthcare provider if Nurtac is right for you, because your time is for you, not migraine. Don't take if allergic to Nurtac ODT. Allergic reactions can occur even days after use. Get help right away for trouble breathing, rash, swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or throat. High blood pressure and Raynaud's syndrome can occur. Get help for high blood pressure, numbness, coolness, pain,

• 34:02Speaker 07

  or color changes in fingers and toes. Common side effect is nausea. For full prescribing information, call 1-833-4-NUR-TAC, or visit Nurtac.com. All right, back to your podcast, playlist, or whatever's keeping you going today.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Most homeowners have one. That bad window? The one that's drafty, sticks, or leaks? You'd love to replace it. But you may think no company wants a one-window project. Renewal by Anderson does. In fact, replacing your worst window can help improve your home's comfort and energy efficiency. Start with just one and see the difference for yourself. During your free consultation, we'll provide an exact price quote, even if you're replacing just one window. Visit renewalbyandersonhome.com. Only valid at participating locations.