Top of page

Category: Cookbooks and Food

Cover illustration from The Ebony Cookbook: A Date with a Dish, 1962.

(Re)Discovering Freda De Knight and Her 1948 Cookbook, “A Date with a Dish”

Posted by: Nate Smith

Many Black home cooks may have on their bookcase, or have seen in their mother's collection, a copy of "The Ebony Cookbook: Date with a Dish." This cookbook was the creation of Freda De Knight, who was the first food editor for "Ebony," and author of the monthly food column “A Date with a Dish,” which premiered in Ebony in 1946.

Print showing a family preparing tamales in a large kitchen

Tamales and the Tamalada: a Christmas Tradition

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

During the holiday season there are many diverse traditions.  One food that is traditional in many Latine households is tamales, prepared at a tamalada, or tamale making party.  Tamales are a Mesoamerican dish made with nixtimalized cornmeal dough—masa—steamed in a cornmeal husk, or banana leaf, and seasoned with cheese, beans, meats, and other flavors.