Heritage Cooking

Here tender collards are wrapped around a filling of rice and lamb spiked with Japanese ingredients like sake and furikake, then baked in a barbecue-like sauce that gets sweetness from pineapple juice, for an incredibly flavorful dish. Dark leafy greens like collards are the base of the African Heritage Diet food pyramid, a pattern of eating that draws from the foodways of the African diaspora. You'll make more sauce than you need, but you won't be mad about it! Freeze it away and serve with grilled pork, chicken or tofu.

Red Red is a black-eyed pea (cowpea) stew cooked in a gently spiced tomato sauce. It's a great vegan dish that's eaten all day long in Ghana—as an alternative to baked beans for breakfast, or a bean casserole for lunch or dinner. It's usually eaten with fried ripe plantains. Seek out red palm oil in well-stocked grocery stores or African markets—it's the key to the stew's vibrant color. Recipe adapted with permission from Zoe's Ghana Kitchen, Hachette Book Group, 2021.

This citrus salad, made with grapefruit, tangerines and navel and blood oranges, is equally at home as part of your brunch spread or served as a refreshing low-sugar dessert. A sprinkle of orange blossom water gives it a heady fragrance.

This easy pesto recipe is a great way to make use of often-discarded turnip greens and is a fan-favorite dish at Make Food Not Waste, an organization committed to keeping food out of landfills. Read on to find out how their Upcycling Kitchen project is helping supplement food availability in Detroit communities. If you can't find turnip greens, you can make this pesto with kale and/or collards. Toss with cooked pasta or drizzle over roasted potatoes or root vegetables.

This salad is an exquisite combination of flavors: sweet roasted beets mingle with the spicy acidity of the pickled carrots, fragrant dill and the subtle earthiness of fonio. Recipe adapted with permission from The Fonio Cookbook, Lake Isle Press, 2019.

Bammy is made by shaping ground cassava into discs. The cakes are lightly seasoned and pan-fried to seal their shape, then soaked in coconut milk and pan-fried once more until golden brown and crisp. They're a staple in Jamaica, where they're served with everything from jerk pork to ackee (a fruit that's cooked with onions, peppers and fresh thyme, and is said to visually resemble scrambled eggs) and saltfish.