Thanks to a new venture by the chef Kardea Brown, the Charleston international airport in South Carolina is now a gateway for many to experience Gullah Geechee culture through cuisine.
Earlier this year, Brown, known for being the host of Delicious Miss Brown on the Food Network, opened Kardea Brown’s Southern Kitchen at the Charleston airport. The restaurant features recipes passed down from her foremothers, including her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. People say “this is beyond any airport food we’ve ever had,” Brown told the Guardian. The restaurant sold out on its first day and has continued to be popular with travelers.
The Gullah Geechee people are the descendants of Africans who were enslaved on plantations in the Sea Islands. Because they were highly isolated on plantations scattered across islands and coastal lands, descendants were able to retain and create a unique culture with a distinct language, food, music and art. That culture persists even today despite years of attempts to assimilate Gullah Geechee people into mainstream American culture and the gentrification of historic Gullah Geechee lands.
Much of the traditional Gullah Geechee diet consists of food that’s familiar to people today: okra, rice, yams, hot peppers and peas, for example, foods that are also central to diets in coastal west Africa. Airport travelers can try fried green tomatoes, a fried fish plate, pimento cheese grits balls, red rice, collard greens and other dishes.
“They love the hospitality of it all, how the food is very fresh and made to order,” Brown said. “The fact that you’re getting down-home, Lowcountry, southern food at the airport is a plus.”
Brown, who is from Charleston and spent much of her childhood on Wadmalaw Island, is not a classically trained chef, but she grew up around people and women who loved to cook. Cooking and food were always at the center of family gatherings, she told the Guardian. But Brown went to school for psychology and then went into the social work field. She said cooking became an outlet with which to process how taxing her course work could be.
In 2014, she was cooking while an ex-boyfriend recorded her. He sent the video to a producer who said that they wanted to feature Brown on a new show for the Cooking Channel. While the show didn’t make it, Brown’s appearance in the pilot catapulted her career. In 2015, she started the New Gullah Supper Club, a traveling pop-up supper club that centered Gullah dishes.
Since then, she has authored a bestselling cookbook and produced a line of frozen meals, Delicious Eats by Kardea Brown, which are available at Walmart. Delicious Miss Brown is filmed on Edisto Island, and centers local, seasonal and Gullah foods.
With the opening of Southern Kitchen, Brown is welcoming travelers to get a taste of home as soon as they land in Charleston.
Gullah Geechee foodways, culture and cuisine have shaped the region’s culinary scene – from red rice to okra soup to seafood-based dishes – in ways that many tourists may not even realize. While there is a distinction between southern foods and Gullah Geechee foods – and many Gullah restaurants do sell both – people, even from the region, don’t always know the difference.
By having a Gullah Geechee restaurant in the Charleston international airport, Brown is ensuring that, even if travelers don’t otherwise actively engage with Gullah culture during their stay in Charleston, the opportunity exists for them to at least try the food. Brown wants people who visit the restaurant to leave with full bellies and a warm feeling; she wants them to feel like family.
“The storytelling aspect of it was so important because you have so many [travelers] … it’s a bit of a portal, so I thought it was important to highlight that at the airport,” she said. “It was very important to grab passengers and tourists – [you have] their attention right there at the airport before you even set foot on our land.
