Frommer's, Fried Chicken and the Afro-fusion Delights of Harlem

34 Pages·2015·2.26 MB·English

CTPIJTW
JAN ’15 | 4(1)

The Semiotics of Soul Food:
Frommer’s, Fried Chicken and the
Afro-fusion Delights of Harlem

Monique Taylor

Abstract
Faded family photos place me in Harlem as early as the mid-1960s when, as a girl, I made the suburban
to urban trek each summer with my family in our wood-paneled station wagon. Harlem to me then
meant deciphering the Southern roots transplanted north of my Aunt Skeeter and Uncle Tyrone. In the
morning the adults would plot the downtown explorations of our New York travels over plates of eggs,
country ham, grits and biscuits. I continued these visits to see relatives in Harlem well into my twenties
when I was a college student at Yale. After long weekends of study and sightseeing, I was packed off on
the train back to New Haven with foil wrapped packages of chicken and greens and mac and cheese.
Decades later when I made gentrification in Harlem the subject of ethnographic field work, I connected
my family’s Harlem experience to that of many of the black migrants who had made their way to Harlem
in waves going back to the early 1900s bringing with them a distinct food culture that can be traced to
the ends of a far-flung set of geographic roots in Africa, the Caribbean and the American south. These
days it is clear that uptown gentrification threatens what folklorists and anthropologists would term the
“foodways of Harlem.” From a plate of reimagined fried chicken on a bed of grits to fusion cuisine that
serves up sides like afro-Asian collard green salad, my travel to Harlem in the summer of 2014 brought
me face to face with these changing foodways in ways I have yet to fully digest. Along with townhomes
selling for millions of dollars, the current upscaling of Harlem bestows a reputation as a ‘must-eat’ site on
foodie treks through Manhattan. A weekend food truck rally is made popular through Facebook. In
guidebooks such as Frommers, online endorsements by trip advisor and insider tips from the sassy Zagat
guide, today’s traveler is urged to make Harlem a destination for eating. Magazine, social media and blog
talk of a restaurant renaissance depicts a burgeoning scene that on its surface communicates tolerance
and diversity through food and eating. The following essay is an analysis of Harlem food and eating
communities that are defined through food discourse(s). In what Annie Hauck-Lawson terms ‘foodvoices’ I
explore the role gentrification plays in changing Harlem foodways.

Keywords
Harlem, Langston Hughes, Frommers, Foodways, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto, Food Truck Rally,
Zagat, Frank’s, Cotton Club, Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, Ghetto, Soul Food
CTPIJTW
JAN ’15 | 4(1)

The International Quarterly of Travelogy
Read this and other works at <<http://www.coldnoon.com>>
ISSN 2278-9642 | E-ISSN 2278-9650

Recommended Citation
Taylor, Monique. “The Semiotics of Soul Food: Frommer’s, Fried Chicken and the Afro-fusion Delights of
Harlem,” Coldnoon: Travel Poetics, International Journal of Travel Writing 4.1 (2015): 160-191.
Available at: <<http://coldnoon.com/41xv/>>
The Semiotics of Soul Food:
Frommer’s, Fried Chicken and the
Afro-fusion Delights of Harlem

Monique Taylor

I can never put on paper the thrill of the underground ride
to Harlem … At every station I kept watching for the sign:
135TH STREET. When I saw it, I held my breath. I came out
onto the platform with two heavy bags and looked around. It
was still early morning and people were going to work.
Hundreds of colored people! I wanted to shake hands with
them, speak to them. I hadn’t seen any colored people for so
long — that is, any Negro colored people. I went up the
steps and out into the bright September sunlight. Harlem! I
stood there, dropped my bags, took a deep breath and felt
happy again (Hughes 90).

Faded family photos place me in Harlem as early as the mid-1960s
when, as a girl, I made the suburban to urban trek each summer
with my family in our wood-paneled station wagon. Harlem to me
then meant deciphering the Southern roots transplanted north of
my Aunt Skeeter and Uncle Tyrone. Long after the other children
had gone to bed, I was the small set of eyes in the corner of the
living room watching loud and long games of bid whist through a
haze of cigarette smoke. Always on the night of our arrival the
room was abuzz with news from back home and filled with a
lingering aroma and praise for my Aunt Skeeter’s fried chicken,
collard greens and corn bread which had been prepared in the
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MONIQUE TAYLOR | 161

North Carolina style of my mother’s family. These were hot summer
nights cooled by the breeze of an electric fan and tall glasses of
sweet tea or cherry red Kool-Aid. In the morning the adults would
plot the downtown explorations of our New York travels over plates
of eggs, country ham, grits and biscuits.
I continued these visits to see relatives in Harlem well into my
twenties when I was a college student at Yale. After long weekends
of study and sightseeing, I was packed off on the train back to New
Haven with foil wrapped packages of chicken and greens and mac
and cheese. Decades later when I made the gentrification in Harlem
the subject of my ethnographic field work, I connected my family’s
Harlem experience to that of many of the black migrants who had
made their way to Harlem in waves going back to the early 1900s
bringing with them distinct food culture(s) that can be traced to the
ends of a far-flung set of geographic roots in Africa, the Caribbean
and the American south.
These days it appears that uptown gentrification is transforming
what folklorists and anthropologists would term the “foodways of
Harlem.” Along with townhomes selling for millions of dollars, the
current upscaling of Harlem bestows a reputation as a ‘must-eat’
site on foodie treks through Manhattan. From a plate of reimagined
fried chicken on a bed of grits to fusion cuisine that serves up sides
like afro-Asian collard green salad, my travel to Harlem in the
summer of 2014 brought me face to face with the elasticity of
foodways in ways I have yet to fully digest.
In guidebooks such as Fodors and Frommer’s, online
endorsements by trip advisor as well as insider tips from the sassy
Zagat guide, today’s travellers are urged to make Harlem a
destination for eating. “Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster created
the influx,” claims a 2013 on-line Fodor’s post, “and now [other]
notable spots help solidify Harlem as a bona fide food and
restaurant destination.” A weekend food truck rally is made popular
through Facebook and food blogs promising tastes that range from
“a 21st century spin on the traditional Japanese hibachi” to
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“authentic organic Columbian food” that “skillfully blend[s] tradition
with eco-friendly ingredients.”
Magazine, social media and blog talk of a “restaurant
renaissance” depict a burgeoning scene that on its surface
communicates tolerance and diversity through food and eating. But
after decades of decline, the transformation of Harlem into a top
destination for travel, food and eating invites curiosity and
questions: When did this “restaurant renaissance” take off and why?
Who are its actors and authors? How does it reveal the
contradictions of capital in neighborhood restructuring? As
anthropologist James Watson argues, “food is a universal medium
that illuminates a wide range of other cultural practices … that are
implicated in a complex field of relationships, expectations and
choices” (Watson and Caldwell 1). Read closely, the meals, menus
and marketing of a food scene offer a semiotics of food tourism
and a multiplicity of meanings behind a real and imagined Harlem
that is as cooked up as the ingredients appearing on its tables these
days.

IN THE BEGINNING

Some of the earliest travelers to Harlem are identified in Gilbert
Osofsky’s classic work, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto. As Osofsky
documents the evolution of Harlem from its aristocratic roots to the
predominantly Negro ghetto of the early twentieth century, he
introduces 1860s’ visitors to pastoral, rural Harlem as
“downtowners wandering about on country jaunts” (74). Arriving in
Harlem at that time was accomplished by a long journey that
extended from Central Park northward along “the road,” or Harlem
Lane as St. Nicholas Avenue was then known (84). St. Nicholas
Avenue, which originates near the intersection of 110th Street
(Central Park North) and Lenox Avenue, heading northwest toward
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125th Street, where it follows the north border of St. Nicholas Park,
was originally conceived to improve access to Central Park (Postal
5). According to a New York City Landmarks Preservation
Commission report, “it became a popular route for trotters heading
to the Harlem Speedway and Jerome Park, where the American
Jockey Club built a racecourse seating eight thousand spectators”
(5).
At the end of the 19th century, the distance and seclusion of
Harlem made it attractive as “the country retreat of a burgeoning
metropolis” and for an “exclusive class” that counted Comodore
Vanderbilt among its ranks, Harlem also offered rest and relaxation
in the form of drink and dining:

After a day on the country these “fashionable people” might
stop at Toppy McGuires Clubhouse or sip wine at the
intriguing Brossi’s Tunnel, bored out of rock at One Hundred
and Twenty-second Street. “Harlem had become the rural
retreat of the aristocratic New Yorker,” an old Manhattanite
recalled, and its “chief charm [was] its well-bred seclusion
…” (74).

Many writers have noted that the black claim to a prevailing
Harlem narrative often has rewritten or neglected a longer Harlem
history in which a white elite as well as a German, Italian and Irish
immigrant working poor were previously the inhabitants and
creators of Harlem’s cultural identity and its traditions (Taylor 2003;
Vergara 2013). This history would include and extend to the
foodways of Harlem as well. “Dear Carl,” Harlem’s poet laureate
Langston Hughes wrote to well-known renaissance patron Carl Van
Vechten:

… do you mean to tell me that you do not know where
Franks is! Or do I read your card wrong? Franks is the large
restaurant on the north side of West 125th street, exactly 315
West 125th Street. It is just about the oldest restaurant in
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Harlem and was, I understand, a solid and well known steak
house and fish place long before Harlem became colored.
Many of the old waiters are still there and some of the old
patrons still come from other sections of the city to dine
there occasionally … Sincerely Langston (Bernhard 251).

Fig. 1: Frank’s Menu Cover
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Fig. 2: Frank’s Menu

Until it was integrated and became a popular dining spot in black
Harlem, Frank’s was known for its whites only policy. As was The
Cotton Club, another popular club and restaurant in renaissance
Harlem. Blacks were employed as entertainers and, as seen on the
cover of a special edition collectors menu, as waiters.
Like Frank’s, the menu of the Cotton club reveals popular
restaurant fare in the 1920s and 1930s to be with little fanfare or
flourish with dishes ranging from steaks and fish to boiled
vegetables and salads. Both Frank’s and the Cotton Club list Chinese
food selections such as one dollar plates of chicken chowmein,
pork, shrimp and beef chop suey, foo yong dan — which the menu
translates as Omelettes (sic) Chinese — and pots of coffee and tea
for 25 cents. During the Harlem Renaissance
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Fig. 3: Cotton Club Menu Cover

Fig. 4: Cotton Club Menu

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the Cotton Club was known for employing Chinese waiters who
served Chinese food.
Perhaps in keeping with the tastes of changing times, Frank’s
recognized the appeal of “soul” in the form of “exotic” cuisine by
offering a special edition African meal to its white patrons. Listen to
chef Robert Kitchen introduce a menu called “Franks African
Cuisine” which includes dishes such as pallava sauce, goat soup,
peanut soup and ghalif rice.:

Fig. 5: Frank’s African Menu

Chef Kitchen first situates the reader/diner at an “auspicious”
reception at a “commanding elegant” apartment where
philosophies and points of view are shared with an “impressive”
array of guests: politicians, diplomats, scholars, publishers, civil
rights leaders. The groups’ turn to the subject of cuisine is Kitchen’s
segue to the consensus he seeks about Africa and its exotic cuisine.
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