“We’re Not New to This” Chef Amethyst Ganaway on Gullah Heritage and Culinary Memory
- Lauren McCaskill
- 3 hours ago
- 11 min read
The early morning air hung cool and quiet over the sunny grounds of Penn Center. We sat together on the wooden porch of one of its historic houses, the kind of place where time feels layered rather than distant. It was here, on this same campus, that Martin Luther King Jr. often came seeking refuge from the pressures of the movement—retreating to the Sea Islands to think, write, and organize during the height of the Civil Rights era.
The significance of this sacred ground was impossible to ignore. Penn Center has long been a sanctuary for Black thought, culture, and strategy, a gathering ground where history is not only remembered but actively carried forward. Sitting there, with the salt air drifting in from the marshes and the quiet weight of history surrounding us, it felt fitting that our conversation would center on lineage, foodways, and the stories that shape our people.
Across from me sat Chef Amethyst Ganaway, a cultural voice rooted deeply in the South and in the traditions of Gullah Geechee foodways. Our conversation felt like a meeting across regions of the same diaspora—her influence shaped by the coastal South, mine by a Northern perspective still tracing its own ancestral pathways back through the diaspora. In many ways, the interview became more than a series of questions. It became a dialogue about memory, culture, and the power of food to connect past and present across geography, generations, and experience.
The Heart of It All
Food has always been at the center of the table, the heart of the family. For Chef Amethyst Ganaway, it has also been at the center of lineage, a through line connecting grandmother to great-grandmother, South Carolina to West Africa, past to future.
When asked what she hopes people understand when they hear her name, Ganaway thoughtfully responds:
“I hope that they understand that my work is centered on being able to tell true stories about Black culture across the state. But, honestly, across the diaspora as a whole,” she says. “I hope that when people hear my name people realize they have a safe space to authentically tell their stories, the stories of the people that are around them, their lives. And that their stories matter.”
Ganaway, a South Carolina born Gullah Geechee chef and cultural historian, is not simply cooking food. She is preserving memory, correcting narratives, and insisting on cultural credit in a culinary world that too often detaches Southern cuisine from its African roots.
The Women Who Taught Her
Ganaway traces her understanding of food directly to the women in her family.
“I was my grandmother’s first grandchild,” she explains. “And I’m the only one that met our great-grandmother and I still remember her. So I always feel like food has been at the center of our table, but also at the center of our life.”
Her grandmother learned to cook from her own mother. Among her siblings, she was the only one who carried those recipes forward.
“When my grandaunts and uncles were passing,” Ganaway recalls, “my grandmother was the one who made their last meals. Because they wanted the food their mama used to make and she was the only one that could do that.”
Now, those recipes live with the grandchildren and get passed down.
“So I do feel like it’s a way that my direct lineage contacts me — speaks through,” she says. “And I personally believe it flows even further back into the people whose names we don’t know. But we carry a bloodline with them.”
The lessons were never just about recipes.
“They taught me how to maneuver through this world,” she says. “The power that food can hold in keeping memory and creating new memories.”
Banana Pudding and the Spirit of Memory
Her earliest kitchen memory begins at two years old, sitting on a counter beside her grandmother where she was often found in the kitchen.
“She always tells the story about how I somehow got down from that counter,” Ganaway laughs. “To this day, she’s like, ‘I don’t know how you got down, what spirit was in that kitchen with us.’”
There was also banana pudding — made entirely from scratch.
“In our family, you had to sit there and stir the custard for like an hour,” she says. “That was my rite of passage.”
And greens. And potato salad. And the extra boiled egg her grandmother would always tuck aside for her.
Memory, she says, absolutely changes the way something tastes.
She recounts a family debate about whether her great-grandmother used sweetened condensed milk in her banana pudding.
“My aunt swears she did. Me and my granny are like, ‘No she didn’t.’ But I think that’s how lived experience works. Memory can shift the taste of things. But at the core, the spirit is still the same.”
Rice as Ancestral Practice
When asked if there’s a dish that feels like an ancestor speaking, Ganaway answers without pause.
“Rice,” she says. “Washing rice is probably the most ancestral act.”
The act itself — rinsing, watching the water turn from cloudy to clear — becomes meditation.
“You know people have been doing this since the beginning of time,” she says. “Continuing that process feels magical.”
Carolina rice holds particular weight in Gullah Geechee culture. For Ganaway, cooking it is both remembrance and continuation.
“When I cook,” she reflects, “I feel like I’m honoring my ancestors, but I’m also honoring a culmination of my own experiences. I’ve always learned from my friends and peers, and in that process, we’re creating new memories while still honoring the past. Just as cooking rice connects me to my ancestors, it also bonds me to the fact that my friends’ ancestors were doing the same thing. Now we can put our own twist on it. I feel like I’m honoring the past while acknowledging the present.”
Diaspora, Disconnect, and Recognition
Living in Georgia after college, Ganaway had a realization while working in a Southern restaurant.
“These people were in South Georgia and had never heard of Gullah Geechee culture,” she says. “And we’re right there, a state line apart.”
She began to see how disconnected many people, Black and white, were from the roots of Southern cuisine.
In her personal and professional growth, Ganaway has encountered many mentors who helped shape her path. BJ Dennis, who once reminded her, “Our lived experiences are valuable, and that does make us an expert on what we know.” The words affirmed something Ganaway had always felt but was still learning to trust—that the knowledge carried through family kitchens, community tables, and ancestral memory is not secondary to formal training. It is scholarship in its own right.
No matter what culinary traditions she studies or techniques she masters, Gullah will always remain her foundation. It is the baseline from which she moves outward—an anchor rooted in history, land, and lineage. For Ganaway, every new skill or cuisine simply adds another layer, but the core remains the same: the flavors, stories, and wisdom of Gullah Geechee foodways.
Across the diaspora, she sees both tension and undeniable connection.
“There are diaspora wars online all the time,” she says. “But when people argue about gumbo or use words like ‘tote’ and don’t realize where they come from — that’s West and Central Africa.”
She is clear: the connections run deep.
“We do know our culture, and I love that. But at the same time, I hope people can see the through line across the diaspora. Yes, Gullah Geechee culture is very special and unique because of what happened to us historically, but that doesn’t mean it exists in isolation. Whether you’re in the Mississippi Delta, southern Texas, or along the Gulf Coast, many of our communities still share deep connections to West and Central Africa.”
“It absolutely runs throughout the entire diaspora — the things we eat, the way we speak, the dances we do. It’s all connected.”
Erasure and the Politics of Naming
When African roots are erased in culinary spaces, Ganaway sees both harm and opportunity.
When asked whether cooking ever feels like a conversation across time, Ganaway doesn’t hesitate.
“Absolutely,” she says. “As Sarah Daise has said, time isn’t linear. Everything is intrinsically connected. Cooking is definitely a way to contact the past, but it’s also a way to reach your future self.”
For Ganaway, that connection becomes especially important when African roots in food traditions are erased or uncredited. Historically, she notes, Black culinary influence has often disappeared from recipe books or been renamed and claimed by others. Naming those connections, she argues, is part of shifting that power dynamic.
“We’re in a reckoning right now,” she says. “I think people are viewing African food in a better light than ever before. People have the ability now—the resources—to see the connections across the diaspora and embrace them.”
She points to recent recognition of Black chefs as a sign of change. In the past year, more Black chefs have received Michelin recognition and James Beard nominations while cooking distinctly Black cuisines—West African food, Southern food, and other traditions rooted in the diaspora.
But the progress, she says, is uneven.
“There’s still a big lack of representation when it comes to Black Southern food,” Ganaway explains. “And there are still a lot of misconceptions about it. I feel the same way about many African cuisines. The first thing some people say is, ‘I don’t want to eat food from Africa.’ And it’s like—you kind of already do. You just don’t realize it.”
That disconnect, she adds, fuels unnecessary tensions within the diaspora and makes it harder for Black food traditions to receive the same respect afforded to other global cuisines.
When the conversation turns to food as a political tool, Ganaway places the idea within a long historical continuum, particularly for Gullah Geechee people.
“We’ve been doing this the entire time we’ve been a civilization,” she says. “There’s nothing new about it.”
For Gullah Geechee communities, she explains, food, farming, and land stewardship carry deep political meaning. Practices like freedom farming—discussed during the festival panel she participated in—are about more than agriculture. They are about liberation and reclaiming ancestral relationships to land and water.
“For Gullah Geechee people, it can be incredibly liberating to reclaim stewardship of the land and waters our ancestors were forced to tend here,” she says. “But before that, they had a beautiful relationship with the land and the water in Africa.”
Today, reclaiming those practices is both a point of pride and a new struggle, as communities push back against powerful outside forces threatening land, culture, and autonomy.
Ganaway believes that cooking, music, art, and other cultural expressions are all part of that reclamation.
“I think we’re in another movement right now,” she says. “Another transformation of Black pride and Black power. It’s beautiful to witness in our lifetime—but it’s also sad, because you ask yourself, why are we still having to fight for this?”
Still, she believes Gullah Geechee culture carries a unique influence in that broader movement.
She wants more than trauma narratives.
“I want people to stop denigrating our food into just scraps and poverty,” she says. “We’re not new to this. We really are true to this.”
“When people talk about these things—about foodways and cultural preservation—Gullah Geechee people are often the first ones mentioned,” she says. “If people see us reclaiming these practices, maybe they’ll feel more open to doing the same wherever they are.”
Land, Water, and Liberation
When asked what it means to call food a political tool within Gullah Geechee culture, Ganaway points to the long history of farming, land stewardship, and survival embedded in the tradition.
“We talked about this a little during the panel last night,” she says, referencing the conversation around freedom farming and the role agriculture has played in liberation movements. “Using farming and agriculture as a means of liberation—of reclaiming ancestral practices—is something we’ve been doing the entire time we’ve existed as a civilization. None of this is actually new.”
For Gullah Geechee communities, she explains, reclaiming those practices can be deeply empowering.
“It’s liberating to be able to reclaim stewardship of the land and waters our ancestors were forced to tend here,” she says. “But before that, they had a beautiful relationship with the land and water in Africa. Reclaiming that connection now is something we can take pride in.”
Yet that reclamation also exists within a modern struggle. Today, cultural preservation often means confronting outside forces threatening land, access, and autonomy.
“There’s pride in reclaiming it, but now it’s also a bigger battle against larger powers,” she explains. “And while there can sometimes be tension within our own communities, practices like cooking, music, and art are ways we reclaim what was taken.”
Ganaway believes the current moment reflects a broader cultural shift.
“I think we’re in another movement right now—another transformation of activism, Black pride, and Black power,” she says. “It’s beautiful to witness in our lifetime, but it’s also sad to be part of it because you wonder why we still have to fight for these things.”
Because Gullah Geechee culture is often held up as a visible example of African diasporic foodways in the United States, Ganaway believes the community carries a particular influence.
“When people talk about these traditions, Gullah Geechee people are often the first ones mentioned,” she says. “If people see us reclaiming these practices, maybe they’ll feel more open to doing the same wherever they are.”
Land and water, she emphasizes, are fundamental to the survival of any culinary tradition.
“If you’re in the culinary field and you don’t have a direct connection to land, water, or the people producing your food, then you probably shouldn’t be in this field,” she says bluntly.
Ganaway notes that many chefs—particularly in large cities—remain disconnected from the sources of their ingredients.
“They don’t want to meet the farmers. They don’t want to meet the fishermen,” she says. “They’d rather just order frozen shrimp and move on.”
At the same time, she points out the irony that the modern “farm-to-table” movement is often credited to chefs who overlook the long agricultural traditions that predate it.
“We see people celebrated for starting the farm-to-table movement,” she says. “And it’s like—no, you didn’t.”
That lack of acknowledgment extends to broader conversations about food history.
“When Black culture is brought into the conversation, it usually starts and ends with enslavement,” she explains. “People are just beginning to understand that impact, but we’re still very far from fully recognizing what it actually means.”
Despite those gaps, Ganaway sees cooking itself as a deeply personal and political act.
“Food has always been a means of resistance for Black people,” she says. “For me, cooking is liberating.”
In quieter moments, she adds, it also serves as grounding.
“If I’m anxious or overwhelmed, I cook. I clean. That’s how I center myself.”
When she prepares Gullah food, her intention is clear.
“My goal is to honor our past and tell those stories authentically,” she says. “Authenticity looks a little different for everyone—every family does something differently. But staying true to the culture I grew up with is the most intentional thing I can do.”
The Importance of Oral History
When asked why storytelling is essential to preserving Gullah culture, Ganaway points to the deep oral traditions that have shaped the community for generations.
“Storytelling has been part of our culture from the beginning,” she says. “Being a griot has always been an esteemed position—whether you call them a professor, a storyteller, or the village griot in West Africa. Every community had someone responsible for carrying those stories forward.”
Because Gullah Geechee culture has long been rooted in oral tradition, storytelling remains central to how knowledge, memory, and identity are preserved.
“We are such an oral community,” she explains. “Storytelling has to be a part of it.”
For Ganaway, food is one of the most powerful ways those stories are carried forward.
“It’s important that storytelling runs through food,” she says. “I’ve eaten food where there’s no story behind it, and you can taste the difference. There’s no connection to what the person is doing.”
Cooking, she adds, communicates intention in ways that go beyond flavor.
“You can tell when something was cooked with love and intention,” she says. “You can feel that. You can taste it.”
Yet telling the full story of Gullah foodways inevitably means confronting difficult history. Ganaway is careful, however, not to let that history reduce the culture to trauma alone.
“I intentionally try not to center everything on suffering,” she says. “When you’re doing the research and talking to people, those painful things are going to come up. There’s no way to bypass them.”
Instead, she believes those histories must be acknowledged honestly while also holding space for pride.
“You have to sit with it. You have to acknowledge it,” she says. “Sometimes it makes me more angry than sad.”
But the story, she emphasizes, cannot end there.
“When I think about who we are as a people and as a culture, we have endured,” Ganaway says. “Now, should we have always had to endure? No. We should be able to just live and just be.”
Still, she believes resilience itself is something worth honoring.
“You have to find pride in the culture and in the work of remembering where these ingredients came from,” she says. “That’s part of honoring the past while continuing the story forward.”
Food, for Ganaway, is not trend. It is testament.
And in every pot of rice rinsed clean, every custard stirred slowly, every story told at the table, she is reminding the world:
We are still here.
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