Kitchen Accents, A four-post food history series based on Joan Adams, "From the Kelvin Kitchen: The Creole Way," The Chicago Defender, November 3, 1934
Separate Grains
In November 1934, with relief lines still stretching across Chicago’s South Side, a homemaking column in The Chicago Defender urged readers to travel by tasting. Under the byline Joan Adams, "From the Kelvin Kitchen" promised that dishes from other regions could give everyday meals an accent. Why would a newspaper written for lower-caste readers sell cosmopolitan cooking during the Depression? Adams answered with thrift, ranking Creole cookery among the most economical schools of cooking anywhere.
Food sovereignty begins modestly here, as knowledge. A household that can stretch rice, greens, and stock into a full meal holds more say over its table than the grocer or the relief office does. Rice anchors Creole cooking, and Adams demanded that every grain cook up separate and distinct, a standard of skill she expected migrants to master in cramped kitchenettes (Ketchum, Ingredients for Revolution, TK; Opie, Hog and Hominy, TK).
[Side Bar]
Joan Adams printed these directions in The Chicago Defender on November 3, 1934, calling boiled rice the foundation of Creole cooking. For Chicago families on Depression relief budgets, one pot of rice could carry a gumbo or a mess of greens across several meals.
Creole Boiled Rice
Ingredients
Rice, washed
Rapidly boiling water
Directions
To get the correct results, that is, rice of which every grain stands out separate and distinct, drop the rice after it has been washed into rapidly boiling water and stir with a wooden spoon until the water boils again, to keep the rice from sticking to the pan. Then leave the rice boiling briskly for 20 minutes, drain, run cold water through it for half a minute and dry six minutes in the oven.
Joan Adams, "From the Kelvin Kitchen: The Creole Way," The Chicago Defender (National edition), November 3, 1934, 7.