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There are many foods eaten as bread around the world. For the enslaved in New York, most from Kongo and Angola, West Central Africa, it would have been pounded yam. For West Africans, it was rice and yam. A gift from Indigenous Americans to all was corn meal. Corn was moved to Africa to support the feeding of those enslaved on the voyages to the New World. It would have been the main grain of enslaved and free people here in New York. Wheat came from Europe, and the African cooks, throughout the diaspora, had to learn the art of baking with it.

In honor of Pinkster, the celebration of spring, and life itself, we share with you rice, grown now in the Hudson River Valley by people from the Senegambia area of West Africa. Rice was expensive in colonial times. Today, it is the most consumed grain within African diaspora cultures. It speaks to our shared history of adapting to survive and thrive.

We wish you all a Happy Pinkster!

Click here to try this recipe at home, and to make your own Jollof Rice. 

We'd like to thank the Ever Growing Family Farm for donating rice for "Joy Is An Act of Resistance".