Sweet Home Cafe is a Foodways exhibit at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture. Sweet Home Cafe is more than a museum restaurant.
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| Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Photo Credit Janice Temple |
It is part of the Foodways Exhibit on African American Culture and Cuisine. Executive Chef Jerome Grant shared the stories of Thomas Downing Inspired NYC Oyster Pan Roast and Son of A Gun Stew. The Foodways Exhibit is on Level 4 Culture Galleries of the NMAAHC.
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NMAAHC Foodways Culture and Cuisine Foodways are the food people eat, how it's grown and prepared, and its part in their lives. Africans brought with them planting and cooking techniques and memories of recipes. Enslaved and free African Americans cooked in the kitchens of white families, restaurants, and even the White House. Over the last century, many found jobs in food service, in places as varied as boarding houses, hotels, cattle ranches and Pullman cars. Today, a new generation of black chefs continues to contribute to the evolution of American cuisine. |
Sweet Home Cafe at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture
1400 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, DC 20560
nmaahc.si.edu
(844) 750-3012
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| Sweet Home Cafe Foodways Exhibit located Lower Level National Museum of African American History and Culture Photo Credit Janice Temple |
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| Sweet Home Cafe is divided into four stations which depict the migration of African Americans in the United States. The stations are The Creole Coast, The Northern States, The Agricultural South and The Western Range. Photo Credit Janice Temple |
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Transcript
Interview with Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture Sweet Home Cafe Executive Chef Jerome Grant by Janice Temple Founder of World Black History on Periscope.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Executive Chef Jerome Grant Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Executive Chef Jerome Grant shares his Grandma’s Macaroni Salad Recipe.
- Duke’s Mayo
- Salt
- Pepper
- A little bit of paprika
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| Sweet Home Cafe Agricultural South Executive Chef Jerome Grant Grandma's Macaroni Salad Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Coleslaw
- Apple Cider Vinegar
- A little bit of Sugar
- Duke’s Mayo
- A little bit of Roasted Garlic to enhance the sweetness
- As well as Celery Seasoning
Our potato salad It’s Ms. Dion's Potato Salad.
Ms. Dion is one of our cook’s in the back. She is the one that brings the Potato Salad to the cookouts. She is the one that cooks it for every festive holiday within her family. That is her recipe.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Agricultural South Ms. Dion's Potato Salad Photo Credit Janice Temple |
We have been working on this project for awhile. We started tastings late last year. All these recipes have been troubleshot dozens and dozens of times. Whether it is regular dialogue with our associates. Whether it is regular dialogue with our family members. We want you to be able to identify with the things that we have here. We want you to see with your senses. I want to walk in and say I recognize that smell from somewhere. It’s like for me walking in the morning with the guy starting off oxtails. It’s like me walking into my grandma’s kitchen. I smell the cinnamon. I smell the allspice. I smell the cloves.
That’s why this is home.
This should be home for everybody.
We change the menu four times per year.
We continue to tell more stories but at the same time we will focus on the seasonal ingredients of all these regions. We will continue to tell stories.
We are working on a story about Nat Fuller who was a Civil War Soldier but also was a cook for the soldiers down in Charleston. He made this awesome shrimp pie. So we are identifying these stories.
A lot of our meals in our stations will coincide with festivals throughout the museum.
This year for Thanksgiving we are doing a holiday take home.
It’s literally home. You get a Smoked Turkey. You are able to get our Mac ‘n Cheese, our Collard Greens, Country Style Green Beans, you are getting Potato Salad. We are doing Maryland style Oysters for the Marylanders. I am sorry. I mean Maryland style Crabcake for the Marylanders. Smothered Turkey Wings. I mean it’s HOME.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Holiday Take-Home Menu Soups Appetizers Main Courses |
So Thanksgiving Roll out. You will be able to start ordering in about a week. You will have the opportunity to picking up your Thanksgiving Meal the day before Thanksgiving.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Holiday Take Home Menu Hot and Cold Side Dishes Misc Sides and Beverages |
You can buy them by the piece or if you want by sides or if you want to buy a Turkey. You can buy a whole complete meal also. So literally you take it home you reheat it. The only thing that will come raw is your Turkey. The great thing about your Turkey is we set it up for you. We brine it for a day. We rub it down with sage butter. We even give you an herb mocked base as you are cooking. It will have all the instructions. We will include the thermometer in there for you. Everything is done for you. We don’t mind if you tell everybody you made it. I am not going to hold you accountable for it. I am going to make sure it is good. That is what we do here.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Holiday Take-Home Menu Complete Holiday Meal |
We have had great success down the road at Mitsitam Cafe where I came from. I have been a chef there for four years prior to coming here. We have really shattered the mold of what restaurant cafe’s are across the world. Mitsitam Cafe regarded as one of the top ten museum dining concepts around the world. That’s up there with the Guggenheim, the Met Museum, all the cultural museums. What we have here -- blow it away. We are striving for greatest.
We have a lot of positive feedback and at the same time we get a little negative feedback. We encourage the negative feedback so we can make these changes. Troubleshoot these ideas. Really make it something that really promotes our culture.
For me African American food is American food. It is simple as that. At times we cooked for families that were very wealthy. Slavery time and after slavery we were indentured servants. We were the ones preparing these meals. Even like in the White House and the Senate.
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| Foodways Exhibit Hercules was George Washington's chief cook at Mount Vernon and in his presidential homes. Washington biographer G.W. Custis described Hercules as "highly accomplished and proficient in the culinary art as could be found in the United States." Hercules escaped from slavery before the end of Washington's term. Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Some of your biggest galas in the world, congressional galas were all down by African Americans. We have always been in the kitchen. For me, that goes to show you that American food is African American food. We take precedent. We are part of it. We helped mold that. We have helped mold dining forever. We want this to continue to grow. We want to push this forward. We want people to understand our story. We want people to constantly talk about what we do here.
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| NMAAHC Foodways Culture and Cuisine New York Oyster House Owner, Thomas ca 1860s Located Level 4 Photo Credit Janice Temple |
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| Sweet Home Cafe Northern States Thomas Downing Inspired Oyster Pan Roast Photo Credit Janice Temple |
For us this is not just a restaurant in a museum. It is an exhibit. We are here to represent our culture through food, through community. We want people to feel very receptive to what we do.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Dining Room Back Wall Greensboro Four Lunch Counter Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Pickle juice!
We pickle our own okra, green beans and everything like that. We still use pickle juice.
You don’t let stuff go to waste.
Trust me.
So a little pickle juice.
A little bit of sugar.
Duke’s Mayo
Paprika
And that’s it
Salt
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| Sweet Home Cafe Agricultural South Executive Chef Jerome Grant Grandma's Macaroni Salad Photo Credit Janice Temple |
We changed it up a little bit.
We added roasted peppers in there instead adding raw peppers.
We added charred onions
Just to enhance the flavor of those vegetables in there.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Agricultural South Mac n Cheese Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Our Mac ‘n Cheese is like a home recipe but what we have done is a little different than everybody else’s. There are two versions of Mac ‘n Cheese. There is one with egg and one with a roux. We chose not to do either of them.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Agricultural South Collard Greens and Mac n Cheese and Fried Chicken Photo Credit Janice Temple |
We still make a bechamel. We are utilizing cream cheese to help tie it together. It actually gives it more of a zip. At the same time it doesn’t feel as heavy. We use jack cheese as well as sharp cheddar. It is oven baked. We still like the crust on top. We have people coming in here fighting for it. And that goes to show you how much it reminds you of home. There was nothing better that getting that corner slab of Mac ‘n Cheese.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Agricultural South Fried Chicken and Biscuits and Cornbread Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Cornbread is made in house.
Biscuits we are making every fifteen minutes.
If you look at them, they are rustically done. They are not cookie cutter. It’s like when your grandma was making biscuits.
They taste great.
They look cool.
We slather a little honey butter on the end of it.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Agricultural South Slow Cooked Collards Cornbread Sticks and Potlikker Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Cornbread Potlikker
That goes to show you the central vitamins within it while the greens are breaking done.
The crazy thing is our greens are vegan.
I had a woman tear me up and down about it.
“How can you cook greens without any fatback? You ain’t got no smoked turkey in there?”
At the same time we want to make sure we have something for everybody.
Right now in our culture we have a lot of vegetarians.
Whether it is a lifestyle or healthy living, we still want to embrace everyone.
We still want to give them that sense of homeness.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Creole Coast Duck Andouille Crawfish Gumbo Carolina Rice Green Onions Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Our Creole Coast over there, we do a Crawfish, Duck, Andouille Sausage Gumbo. That really showcases the Creole Coast.
Prior to those days, people ate duck. Duck was plentiful.
Down South in the Carolinas we ate duck. So we are bringing these flavors back.
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| Western Range Pan Roast Trout Cornbread and Mustard Green Stuffing Hazelnut Brown Butter Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Our trout over here. Trout is one of the most bountiful fish throughout the Midwest. We jazzed it up by stuffing it with cornbread and as well mustard greens. So you have the sweetness as well as the bitter.
Son of the Gun Stew which is a story in itself.
Son of the Gun Stew used to be called the Son of B***** Stew.
You know when we make these stews they gave us the junk that was left. It was lungs, cow brains. It was everything that you didn’t want to eat because the better cuts of meat went out to market. We couldn’t afford them or they didn’t have them for us. We jazz up here but we do it with short ribs. It is still taking that traditional old school recipe and putting it out there and jazzing it up for our guests that come in.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Western Range Black Eye Pea Golden Corn Chanterelle Empanada Photo Credit Janice Temple |
We feature a totally vegan empanada which is the cross mingling of Native American with Latinos and African Americans throughout the West. We do a little Chanterelle Mushroom and grilled corn. We actually juice corn to help bind it and keep it moist on the inside instead of adding cheese or cream or something like that. So We utilize corn milk and it helps thicken it up. It is it’s own natural thickener. Nothing better than blistered carrots.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Western Range High Mesa Peach and Blackberry Cobbler Photo Credit Janice Temple |
We also do a Peach and Blackberry Cobbler that is not overly sweet. It has a tad bit of sugar in there. The richness, the tanginess of the peach that is going out of season is what really helps wrap the flavors together.
Our dessert bar we have a couple of cool items over there.
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| Sweet Home Cafe Dessert Bar Johnston County Sweet Potato Pie Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Sweet potato pie
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| Sweet Home Cafe Dessert Bar Banana Pudding Trifle Photo Credit Janice Temple |
Grandma’s banana pudding!
Nothing crazy!
The only jazzy as it gets is a little bit of fresh vanilla. It is still done with vanilla wafers, three day old bananas right when they are nice and sweet.
For us this is home.
We want you to feel like it’s home when you come in.
It is only going to get better.
Don't forget to order your Sweet Home Holiday Take-Home by November 18, 2016
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| Sweet Home Cafe Holiday Take-Home Menu |
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