[serene classical music playing]
-All right, cheers. -Cheers.
[man] Hercules was the enslaved African American chef
for President George Washington
while the president's house was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
And he was a very accomplished chef.
A lot of people who ate at Washington's residence
celebrated his food in their writing and their diaries and letters.
His cooking was so good
that he actually made money every year selling leftovers.
And he would use that money to buy clothes.
There are stories about him, after his shift was over,
dressing up in fancy outfits
and having a gold cane, walking about town.
So, he was really quite the character.
How did Washington ensure that Hercules remained enslaved?
When Washington summoned Hercules from Mount Vernon to Philadelphia,
there was one problem.
State law said that if an enslaved person was on Pennsylvania soil
for six months or longer, they were automatically free.
So, he would pack up all the enslaved people in Philadelphia
and take them back to Mount Vernon
to start that clock over, and then bring them back to Philadelphia.
[Stephen] Does Washington fear that Hercules will run away?
[Adrian] There's indications that towards the end of his second term,
he does start to suspect that Hercules might try to escape.
Washington's suspicions are so strong
that he actually sends Hercules back to Mount Vernon,
but not to the kitchen, but to the fields.
So this world-renowned cook is now a laborer.
And then one day, he disappears.
[dramatic music plays]
[opening theme song playing]
[string instruments tuning]
[playing chamber music]
[Stephen] Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I've always associated the City of Brotherly Love
with ideas of freedom.
Quaker settlers led the charge for abolition here,
and Pennsylvania was the first state in the Union to outlaw slavery.
But emancipation was a gradual process,
and back when Philly served as the nation's capital,
two chefs that cooked some of the finest meals in the country
remained enslaved here by the founding fathers.
Hercules served George Washington,
and a man named James Hemings cooked for Thomas Jefferson.
And while there are no known images of these men,
their legacies are still alive and well all the way out in California.
[rhythmic music playing]
At a spot called Hatchet Hall, I met Brian Dunsmoor and Martin Draluck,
two chefs who are recreating
the cooking techniques of Hercules and Hemings.
Both enslaved men mastered elegant meals over the open fire,
a method known as hearth cooking.
I mean, the hardest part is just maintaining the fire,
and not killing yourself, kind of, you know,
by standing in front of a fire and melting from the heat.
We've done well over 1,000 dishes since we've been open.
For us, it's more about the techniques, and challenging ourselves,
not to mention it's kind of like a bridge
that helps us tell the story that we're trying to tell.
So part of the way that you guys bring this historical context into your cooking
is through these dinners.
Hercules and Hemings…
Can you tell us who they were
and tell us a little bit more about these dinners?
You could consider them two of America's first celebrity chefs.
They were enslaved property of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
James Hemings specifically traveled to France with Thomas Jefferson, um,
learned to cook professionally.
As most stories in slavery, they got lost, or didn't get recorded in the first place,
so just to be able to tell their story
is the biggest motivation for doing the dinners.
[Stephen] So I'm checking out this menu. Who is this featured?
For the longest time it wasn't known
whether that was James Hemings or Hercules Caesar,
up until recently, where they found out that it's actually neither of them.
-[softly] Okay. -But the picture was so amazing
that it-it couldn't--
We couldn't pick anything else to be the logo for the dinners.
[Brian] We're inspired by American food history,
and we're trying to learn as we go,
and teach people as we go along the way.
There you go, guys, here's your veal olive.
-[Stephen] Thank you. Beautiful. -[waiter] You're welcome, enjoy.
So tell me, what's the story with this dish?
Well, I think what's interesting about Hercules is that
he's apparently one of the most famous chefs of his time,
but you can't find a dish that he's ever created.
And then you have Martha Washington,
who has, like, this plethora of dishes, like, all over the place.
-Err… It doesn't all add up. -Right.
So, a lot of people have a theory
that a lot of the dishes that Martha Washington is credited with
were actually Hercules' dishes.
So, originally, this dish would have been a pounded-out veal cutlet,
rolled with crab meat,
and then cooked in a sherry cream sauce.
What we do, we do a whole veal sweetbread.
And then we serve it with a sauce of sherry cream,
with a little bit of mushroom stock.
And we use Dungeness crab.
[Stephen] Wow.
That's so tender.
So good.
[Brian] So, what's kind of interesting about this dish is that
Hercules was famous for doing French service,
but not necessarily French techniques.
He would do more English-style food,
whereas James Heming, opposite, you know.
He actually cooked French food, after apprenticing in France.
[rhythmic music playing]
[Stephen] Wow.
It's like a present.
[Martin] Oh, yeah.
[Stephen] So, what is this dish?
So, this is a braised rabbit,
and wood-roasted carrots over toasted Midlands grits,
with Madeira mounted with beurre manié.
So, definitely an ode to James Hemings.
The relation to Hemings would be the pan sauce itself,
using his knowledge of the stew stove that he brought back with him from France,
and being able to mount sauces with butter,
or handling delicate cream and butter sauces.
Mmm.
I love it.
So when Hemings returns from France,
he's using the stew stove to cook.
[Brian] The stew stove that Hemings brought back from France
was kind of a segue into what we have now.
-[Stephen] Got it. -[Brian] It's like…
If they didn't bring that back, we'd be in big trouble.
[Martin] We don't have one in the restaurant,
but, uh, we kind of simulate it,
basically keeping whatever you're cooking away from direct, high heat.
[diners chattering]
How have people received, uh, these dinners?
I think everybody that's attended the dinners has responded really well.
Some people that read about the dinner, that didn't attend,
didn't think it was so cool.
You know, it's a touchy subject,
and lots of people don't wanna hear other people talk about it. So…
Why is that, you think?
Americans are like ostriches.
Like, they stick their head in the sand and pretend that everything is okay.
We're not guilty of anything, sitting here, you know?
It's…
We're making progress, and people just need to know.
People need the facts,
and they can make their opinions themselves.
[melodic guitar music playing]
[Stephen] Our finale, first of all, looks really complicated,
um, but what is this dish?
It's a variation on one of two dishes
that we know of attributed to James Hemings.
This is a snow egg.
It's basically a creme anglaise, or ice cream custard,
with a poached egg white.
-It's a beautiful dish. -[Stephen] It's really beautiful.
Yeah.
[guitar music continues]
[Brian] Mm-hmm.
-Yum. -[Brian] This is your best batch yet.
Mm-hmm.
[Stephen] Wow.
Cool custard.
Not too sweet.
-I love the pomegranates for texture. -[Martin] Right.
[Stephen] Such a pleasure to eat.
[overlapping chatter]
What is it about the legacy of these two chefs
that makes you compelled to want to keep their work alive?
[Martin] I can probably name you only a handful
of other Black chefs in general,
let alone ones that made such a significant impact
on the way we eat.
So, it's important as a Black person just to be able to tell their story.
Unarguably, these two guys
were two of the most important chefs in American history,
and they've never gotten any credit for it.
And, you know, as enthusiasts and chefs,
we feel like it's kind of our duty, now that we've dove in, to keep it going.
[soft instrumental music playing]
[chatting indistinctly]
[Stephen] Both Hercules and James Hemings were enslaved on plantations in Virginia.
My obsession with origins took me to the state's Blue Ridge mountains,
where Thomas Jefferson built his home on a sprawling estate he named Monticello.
James Hemings came to Monticello when he was nine years old
with his family,
including his younger sister, Sally Hemings,
who would later bear at least six of Jefferson's children.
[woman] Monticello was a very large plantation.
Jefferson enslaved 607 people during his lifetime,
and 400 of those people would've been on this plantation.
[Stephen] Do we have any sense of what enslaved people would have been eating?
[Niya] Yeah. Jefferson was a very meticulous record keeper.
We have over 65,000 documents with information
-about this enslaved community. -[Stephen] Wow.
We know that Jefferson is only giving meager rations for the enslaved community,
so they had to grow gardens
and they had to trap and hunt to supplement their diet.
[Stephen] So, James Hemings comes here as a little boy?
[Niya] That's right. James Hemings comes here as part of an inheritance.
He's Sally Hemings' older brother.
And so they would have come here as a family unit,
along with members of their extended family,
to begin the work that Jefferson set out for them.
[Stephen] And at what point in his life
does Jefferson decide that he's well-suited for the kitchen?
James was first a body servant and a valet,
and Jefferson is starting to identify those traits within him that would,
um, work well in the kitchen.
And so when Jefferson serves as a foreign minister in France,
he takes 19-year-old Hemings with him
and has him trained in the art of French cooking.
So, Jefferson has kind of an outsized reputation
as one of the nation's first foodies or food lovers.
[Niya] Jefferson is a man who's got ambitious ideas
about what it means to be American.
And he does that in the architecture, he does it with his design,
and he does it especially through food.
If you'd come to Monticello,
you would get what has been described as half-Virginian, half-French cuisine.
Most Virginians hadn't been to France.
Right? They hadn't had these more delicate sauces
and fine dishes being served here at Monticello.
[solemn classical music plays]
[Stephen] When James Hemings gets back from Paris,
what is the deal he negotiates with Jefferson?
[Niya] So when they come back from Paris, they go to Philadelphia.
And James is working as a chef there in Jefferson's household.
Philadelphia has a large free Black population.
Um, and James ultimately decides that he does want his freedom,
and he negotiates with Jefferson.
And Jefferson's response is, "Well, I've spent a great deal of money
having you trained to prepare the food that I want served at my house.
The only way you can have your freedom is if you train someone else."
And ultimately that's James' younger brother.
And so the key to his freedom is that he returns to Monticello,
trains his brother to replace him in the kitchen
before he can have that freedom.
[solemn music continues]
[Stephen] The kitchen where James Hemings trained his brother Peter
was, to my surprise, still a working situation.
And it was here that he popularized foods like French fries,
ice cream, and our country's much beloved mac and cheese.
[vibrant string music playing]
Before we get into the mac and cheese,
can you kind of orient me around the kitchen
about how things would have worked in the 18th century?
In this kitchen,
the hearth is the main scene that's happening.
It's a place where there would have been fire always,
so you could do oven baking,
um, so that you could roast meat right in front of it.
So, it's really the heart of the kitchen.
And then you have this masonry unit called a stew stove.
They're made especially to be efficient for creams, sauces, delicate frying.
[Stephen] What are we making today?
We are going to make macaroni pie, is what they would have called it then.
We, of course, call it mac and cheese.
The standard, yummy dish that we all love has a really old history.
[gentle, bright music playing]
[Stephen] You've got the noodles going.
[Dr. Sorensen] Yes. And in this particular recipe,
we want to cook them well, we want them tender,
and they are being cooked in half milk, half water,
which is an interesting combination that is very, very effective.
-It already smells like mac and cheese… -[Stephen] Absolutely.
-…and that's because of the milk in it.
Uh,
a layer of the macaroni.
You're going to layer your butter.
And of course, you could never use too much butter.
[Stephen] So, how is it that mac and cheese became ubiquitous,
uh, through this kitchen?
Well, it started, probably, in this kitchen with James,
but he passed it on,
and it passed on through generations of cooks who had cooked here.
We know that Jefferson bought pounds of raw macaroni
six months before his death in 1826,
so it must have been a well-loved dish here.
And it's hard to know sometimes how food styles do and accrue,
but James probably learned it in France.
[Stephen] Smells great.
[Dr. Sorensen] So we're gonna put it in a Dutch oven.
To sit on these very hard, hot bricks.
Macaroni.
Then we're going to put our lid.
And we're going to add…
-coals… -Oh, okay.
…to the top of this pan so that the heat can
bake all the way around.
So, how dangerous was it to do open-hearth cooking at that time?
[Dr. Sorensen] Pretty dangerous.
You know the old saw,
"If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen"?
-[Stephen] Sure. -There's that. It was always hot.
The dangers, of course, are from burns.
Women wore long clothing.
Being burned from their clothing catching on fire
could really be a problem.
[gentle music playing]
[Stephen] All right, think it's ready?
-Let's go. Okay. -All right.
So, our… pothook.
We're going to, again, lifting straight up and over.
Oh, it's sizzling!
[Stephen] It's beautiful.
-[woman] Hi! -[Stephen] Hi, Gayle.
Wow. Look at that, that looks great.
-Looks so good. -[Dr. Sorensen] More butter.
We've been making mac and cheese,
and I understand that you are a descendant of the Hemings.
I am.
I am related to the entire Hemings family.
James Hemings would've been my great-great-great-great uncle.
His brother Peter was my great-great-great grandfather.
And so, I feel a special relationship to this mac and cheese.
-[Stephen] Rightfully so. -[women chuckle]
So you must have grown up eating mac and cheese.
We all did, didn't we?
-Yeah, we all did, right? -Yeah.
And so, how did it feel once you realized
that you were a descendant of the person, or the family
that helped popularize this dish in the US?
Well, first of all, I didn't grow up with that knowledge.
I didn't learn that until recently.
And now that I know that, I'm wondering where my royalties are.
[all laughing]
[Dr. Sorensen] Thank you.
-We're all wondering that, actually. -[all chuckle]
[Gayle] Beyond that, listen, it's really an honor.
I'm lucky enough to know that history,
but every Black American has something like that in their backgrounds.
They just don't know it.
So, I'm honored, I'm privileged,
and I can't wait to taste this mac and cheese.
-[Dr. Sorensen] If you will hand me… -[Stephen] So good.
-…our tasting dishes… -[Gayle] Oh, boy.
-…we will indulge ourselves.
[Gayle] I'm so excited.
[Stephen] Wow, looks so good.
[Gayle] It does look good.
-Mmm. -[Gayle] Oh, it's so rich. Mmm.
-[Stephen] Wow. -[Dr. Sorensen] Mm-hmm.
[Stephen] So creamy, too.
And how old is this recipe, Leni?
-Two hundred years old. -[Stephen] Whoa!
And probably older.
Wow. You know what I love?
Since you cooked it in the milk,
there's a silkiness,
a luxuriousness on the noodle.
I'll have to cook mac and cheese this way from now on.
Yeah, no, I have begun doing that, and I love it. I really love it.
So, Gayle, what do you think your ancestors would think
about the fact that this dish has become so popular?
[Gayle] Gosh.
Well, I'll tell you how I think about it.
I'm kind of just blown away by the idea
that my ancestors helped originate
this dish in the United States of America, which has become an American staple.
I'm proud of the stamina they had,
the determination they had, the character they had.
I don't think anyone can imagine
what it would have been like to live under those circumstances,
knowing that you would never be free.
And they survived and then some.
Because I'm standing here today.
-We're standing here today… -[Dr. Sorensen] Mm-hmm.
…and I get so emotional about this, because of them,
because of their strength.
We stand on their shoulders.
This is nice, I like mac and cheese.
We can use it as a symbol,
but let's think of who those people really were,
their strength, their character, their endurance.
So, yeah, I'm super proud.
Not just because I'm descended from them,
but because they represent the very best
of the United States of America.
[classical music playing]
[Stephen] Leaving Monticello,
I thought a lot about what it must have been like
for James Hemings to train his own brother
in exchange for his freedom,
and what his life must have been like afterwards.
So, what happens to Hemings?
[Adrian] So Hemings teaches not only his brother Peter, but others,
at Monticello how to cook.
And then he's freed.
He goes off to Philadelphia,
and then eventually he makes his way to Baltimore.
What happens to him in Baltimore?
[Adrian] He's either a caterer or a restaurateur in Baltimore,
stays there for a while,
and then ultimately, Jefferson gets news that he dies.
He drinks himself to death.
Now, some historians argue about whether that happened or not,
if it was suicide or just an accidental drinking himself to death,
but he ultimately ended up dying.
I'm convinced that he would have been Jefferson's White House chef
had he stayed alive a few months longer. I think he would have made a play for him.
He had invested so much in Hemings
and really respected his talent, and loved his food.
[Stephen] So, this is a Virginia ham, of course.
Is this something that would have been served
to Jefferson and Washington by their enslaved chefs?
Absolutely. So, Virginia hams are famous in their time, as well as now.
And when a president entertained, they wanted to show the very best
of what they had to offer from their home state,
and Virginia hams had that kind of reputation.
-Mm-hmm. -[Adrian] In addition to Virginia hams,
you could have had beef, fish, other kind of well-regarded dish,
but certainly Virginia ham had celebrity status.
Well, should we try some?
-[Adrian] Absolutely! -All right.
[Adrian] Nice.
-Good stuff, right? -That's what I'm talking about.
[Stephen] So, Hercules, who is Washington's enslaved chef.
What ends up happening with him?
[Adrian] There's indications that towards the end of his second term,
Washington does start to suspect that Hercules might try to escape.
He actually sends Hercules back to Mount Vernon.
There are records that he's actually doing hard labor in the fields at Mount Vernon.
Hercules wants to be free.
So, he waits until Washington's 65th birthday.
There was a big celebration planned,
and while all that was going on, he disappears.
Washington, who had a volcanic temper, was really upset about this.
He's writing letters to associates.
He's just trying to find out Hercules' whereabouts,
even a year after Hercules escapes.
They just never catch up to him.
It's really not until 1801, the same year that Hemings dies,
that Hercules is spotted in New York City by the Mayor of New York City,
who used to work with Washington.
And he alerts Martha Washington,
because Washington had already died by this point,
about Hercules' whereabouts, but that's the last we hear of Hercules.
[Stephen] We don't know what happens to Hercules,
but there is some recent evidence that suggests
that he was here in New York City?
Right, so thanks to some dogged research by a crack genealogist and some others,
we find out that Hercules was in New York City,
he took on the name of his previous slaveholder before Washington,
a guy named John Posey.
So he called himself Hercules Posey.
We know that he lived in various places in New York,
and was listed as a cook and a laborer,
and he ends up dying on May 15, 1812 of consumption,
which is what we would call tuberculosis to this day.
So his remains are believed buried somewhere in New York City.
We don't know exactly where,
but he did spend his final days in New York City.
So he's still here with us, somewhere.
[Adrian] He's still here with us, I think it's a wonderful metaphor for his life,
and also these esteemed African American cooks,
because in many ways they're still hiding in plain sight,
not fully accepted, not fully recognized.
And part of our endeavors here
is to really show their contributions to American cuisine,
and show how much they were foundational to the foods that we love today.
[Stephen] Hercules was not the only culinary legend
whose contributions were lost to the shadows of New York City.
As I dug further into food history in the Big Apple,
I discovered that back in the 1800s,
oysters were the biggest game in town.
And it was a free Black man named Thomas Downing
who built an empire in the heart of Wall Street
and was known as the oyster king of the city.
"Recipe for New York Oyster Stew,
circa 1826, for Thomas Downing."
[Stephen] My friend, chef Omar Tate,
has dedicated his craft and art to Thomas Downing
and other Black entrepreneurs of the Mid-Atlantic states.
[Omar] "Made from hand-gathered oysters, as many as one can carry.
Sea salt and lime and mineral deposits
displayed high as the galoshes and then some.
Cook time, several moons.
Add cream and allow it to reduce.
Reduce it 'til there's nothing but brown. Rich and plenty.
Until it reduces and it's no longer white.
Until it reduces your suffering.
Until it reduces the time between when you last saw your wife,
children, mother.
Reduce it down, slow, patient.
Pro tip.
Watch carefully.
Cream rises and spills over.
Serve hot, immediately."
[Stephen] For the last ten years or so,
you've been cooking in some of the best restaurants
in New York and Philly.
So, what's, kind of, your mission as a chef?
I label myself as Black heritage cooking,
and I'm trying to de-frame what it is,
as African Americans, we can put out there in the food space.
I think oftentimes when people look at Black foodways,
as a chef, people assume "Okay, Southern food, fried chicken."
There are many more stories to tell.
[Stephen] One of the explorations
that you've jumped off on is Thomas Downing.
[folk guitar plays]
[Omar] Thomas Downing was a man who built up
one of the best oyster restaurants in New York City on Wall Street
in the 19th century to mid-19th century,
during a time when most African Americans in this country were still enslaved.
It's just like a phenomenal story that people don't know about.
[Stephen] As an oyster town,
there's oysters, you know, piled on the streets,
there's oyster shells on the sidewalk.
We've been using oyster shells to make some of the mortar for buildings.
[Omar] Yup.
So this is the environment that Downing walks into, right?
[Omar] Yeah. But he starts out collecting and harvesting,
and then selling as an individual,
and then builds off of that.
People were selling oysters outside.
So basically, like a hot dog stand equivalent of the day.
Exactly. Yeah.
I read that, at the time,
New Yorkers, on average, were eating 600 oysters a year.
[Omar chuckles]
What were they, like, a half a penny, you know, at that time?
What a luxury.
Well, should we…
-explore the culinary side of your work? -[Omar laughs]
[lively strings play]
[Omar] I mean, particularly with this dish, um,
because Thomas Downing is unique and very specific to the New York story,
I wanted to bring together things specific and unique to New York in general.
So, this dish, there are two applications of oysters.
Oyster stew was very popular in the 19th century.
[Stephen] So, the soup has cream, thyme,
a little bit of…
[Omar] Yeah. Cream, thyme, black pepper,
oyster fat, which is a very special component.
It's oysters that got poached at, like, 140 degrees for several hours,
blended until all the flavors lend itself into the oil.
It's a very clean, pure oyster flavor that I use to cook the vegetables down in.
The vegetables are garlic, onion and celery.
So, it's just like layers of oyster on top of itself.
[Stephen] Oyster on oyster.
All right, well, bon appetit to us.
[Omar] Cheers, man.
-Cheers. -[laughs]
Oh, wow.
Yeah, what do you think?
It's so good, man.
I really taste the richness of that oyster fat.
It adds such an intensity and complexity to the soup.
I'm very happy with this.
-[Omar laughs] -Right?
This is actually the first time
I'm sitting and eating this with a person, so… [laughs]
I'm just as excited as you.
Mmm.
I love the apple there.
That's so refreshing to eat.
[Omar] Very good.
Very good.
Mmm. It tastes like limestone and herbs, and apple.
Let's talk a little bit more about him as a restaurateur,
-[Omar] Mm-hmm. -because from what I understand, you know,
obviously there's a lot of oyster taverns back in the day.
But his restaurant is a place where,
you know, bankers, attorneys, politicians are all coming to eat.
One hundred percent. I mean, in my opinion,
Thomas Downing walked into the dive bar scene and was like,
"We need a cocktail lounge." Know what I mean?
[Stephen] The story is pretty amazing,
because in the basement of this extremely fancy restaurant,
Thomas Downing and his son George
are helping to harbor folks who have run away from slavery.
[Omar] Right.
[Stephen] And the juxtaposition of that
just makes Downing, to me, one of the iconic--
-He's a superhero. -Really.
I love that part of his story.
He's able to navigate those two worlds so seamlessly.
So much so that when he dies,
the Chamber of Commerce shuts down for the day.
Right.
I mean, the rumor… There's like 1,000 people at his funeral.
I mean, wow, right?
But why do you feel like it's so important to keep his work and his legacy alive?
I never had an oyster until I was 22 years old.
[Stephen] Wow.
[Omar] And I only experienced them because I became a professional cook
and started working at a fine-dining restaurant in Philly.
And so, we were serving only white folks,
so oysters seemed to be only for white folks to me, you know?
For me, it was about reclaiming that,
because not only is it our history,
but the fine part of it is our history as well.
And Thomas Downing is completely and 100% responsible for that.
[Stephen] But Thomas Downing wouldn't have been at the top of his game
without the working-class Black oystermen that supported him.
And they built their community on the water's edge of Staten Island
and called it "Sandy Ground."
Can you tell me what made Sandy Ground so special historically?
Sandy Ground is the oldest continuously inhabited African American community
in the United States,
settled by free Blacks with descendants still living in the community.
New York supplied the world with oysters,
and as an oystering community,
it grew to 180 families,
two churches, and two schools.
Right out here on the south shore of Staten Island.
They were able to harvest enough oysters to be able to live and,
you know, take care of their families.
Growing up in Sandy Ground gave me the confidence that I needed
to step out wherever I wanted to go.
And so that oyster community,
with all those people that looked just like me,
helped me to know that I could be whatever I wanted to be.
[Stephen] Mm-hmm.
That's such an important part of our legacy, too.
I think,
often when we talk about our ancestors and our history,
we tend to talk about them in a way that makes it feel like
-we have all been erased. -Mm-hmm.
And what's more true is what you're saying, is that
their legacies live in us.
Sandy Ground is included in the state and national registers of historic places.
So there will always be a record for somebody who wants to look for it.
Communities change, but the history remains the same.
[gentle guitar plays]
[Stephen] When I think about New York City,
I think about ambition.
And the spirit of Thomas Downing and the Black oystermen was alive and well
in the heart of Brooklyn,
in "do or die" Bed-Stuy.
[gentle music continues]
-Hey, what's up, guys? -[man] Mothershuckers.
-[woman] Mothershuckers. -[Ben] Wanna try some oysters?
-Yeah. -[Ben] Yeah?
[woman] I've never had an oyster.
All right.
-There you guys go. -Thank you.
Yo.
-Very fresh. -[man] This is good.
I'm here for it.
Ben Harney is better known out here as "the real mothershucker,"
and his oyster cart takes it all the way back
to the beginning of Thomas Downing's legacy.
Yo, what's up, guys? You want to try some oysters?
-[man 1] Let's do this. -[man 2] I'll take it. I'll try an oyster.
-Hell, yeah. That's what's up. -Little oysters.
Oysters raise your libido.
-That's the rumor. Right? -Yeah, is it true?
[Ben] That's what everybody says.
[man 1] We got the brother with his oysters.
That's it.
Let me tell you, this is my first time eating an oyster, you know that, right?
I hope you'll be able to swallow it.
[Ben] Don't worry about it.
[man 1] Yeah, they got a brother selling oyster.
-It better not be nasty. We can cook. -[Ben] We're not allowed to do that.
-[man 2] In your mouth, like a shovel. -[Ben] Throw it back.
Just put it down.
-You put fear in me. I'm telling you. -Ain't nothing to be scared of.
-You ready? -[man 2] Yeah, you?
We're doing this for Brooklyn because we in Brooklyn.
-That's my guy. I like-- This my guy. -One, two, three. Let's go.
[man 2] Mmm!
Tastes like outside. Like the ocean.
-That's official. -[Ben] Mm-hmm.
So how many people have you put on to oysters for the first time?
Yo! Across the board, men, women, children, you know?
It's one of my favorite things to do,
is to stop somebody and be like, "You want an oyster?"
And they're like, "Ew, oysters?"
And then I'm like, "Have you ever had an oyster?"
And they're like, "No… but I don't like them."
"How do you know you don't if you've never tried it?"
[Stephen] So, talk to me about the name.
-You got a great name… -[Ben chuckles]
…the Real Mothershuckers.
I was always going out places, and people always would be like,
"So you're a bad mothershucker, huh?"
It was the constant joke, you know?
So after a while, I was just like,
"You know what? That actually fits, it sounds good, and it's simple."
I'm a mothershucker!
-[Stephen] Yeah, no. Strong name. -You know? Yeah.
[Stephen] Cool, well, should we taste some?
-[Ben] Hell, yeah. Yeah. -[Stephen] Okay.
[Stephen] Do you have a ritual, should we cheers it?
-Yeah, cheers. -[Stephen] All right, cool. Cheers.
Thank you.
[Stephen] Mmm.
-Think about that? -I like that a lot.
[Ben] Mm-hmm.
-Upside down. -Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
It goes down easily.
All right, I'm going to do a mignonette one now.
-Oh, that's real good. -Right?
It's got a nice little bite to it,
something you can actually chew.
-Yeah, it's got a little bounce. Yeah. -Mm-hmm.
Why was it important for you to come to Bed-Stuy to start your oyster cart?
[Ben] This is where I'm from and now, the area has erupted,
it's literally become the happening place to be.
And so, for me, introducing oysters into the area that I grew up
and to the people that I grew up with,
is something that's really important because
it's always been seen as somewhat of an elitist thing.
Our people are familiar with crabs,
they're familiar with shrimp,
they're familiar with lobster, and they'll go crazy for them.
But oysters, and it's like,
"Ew, we don't do that. We don't eat that." You know?
And I'm just like, why? We do everything. There's nothing that we don't do.
There's nothing that's not our thing, you know?
[Stephen] I'm continually amazed
by the force of our creativity and determination as Black Americans.
And in the 19th century, few places held more possibility for us than Philadelphia.
We were free here some 80 years
before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
And Philly was home to a rich legacy
of Black entrepreneurship,
from street vendors hawking the famous pepper pot stew,
to the elite families of Black caterers.
So, we're in Philly, a place that you have roots with.
Can you tell me about your family?
Yes, so I come from one of the great Black catering families of Philadelphia.
I didn't know before doing a lot of this research
that catering was started by African Americans,
great entrepreneurs in the 1800s,
and my family was one of those first pioneers of that,
the Dutrieuilles.
This is one of the first photos I saw of the family that I was like,
-"Wait a minute. People looked like this?" -[chuckles] Yes.
"How come we don't know more? What's her story?
Where'd she come from? What are they doing?"
So I love this photo.
-[Stephen] She looks amazing. Yeah. -It says so much.
This is my great-great grandfather, Albert Dutrieuille.
-[Stephen] Very handsome man. -[Lauren chuckles] Yeah.
I love this, this is a good kitchen shot.
It gives you a glimpse of the staff and how things were in the kitchen then.
[Stephen] And the scale too, it's a really large kitchen.
-[Lauren] Yeah. -They're obviously quite organized.
-Everyone looks crispy in the uniforms. -Right.
[Stephen] Love that.
And how did you find this out?
Well, my dad first sent me a photo that he found with, you know,
this family in, like, fancy furs and cars.
And he's like, it turns out
my grandmother's parents had this successful catering business.
I thought, "That was really cool." And I thought it stopped there.
And then last year, a cousin of my dad passed away.
He was living in a home
where the catering business was run out of.
He was telling me about going into the basement
and seeing all of the catering supplies.
And I was just like, "Wait, hold up.
-This house was still in the family… -Yeah?
…and there was still catering stuff lying around?"
First question I asked him was like, "Are there any menus?"
Being a foodie and being in the food scene,
I was just like, I need to get my hands on a menu to recreate this experience.
Honeydew melon showed up on a lot of menus.
Bellevue broth, that was on plenty of menus
that they put together.
Virginia ham and greens, you've got some Southern influence.
Frankfurters and kraut, I thought that was interesting.
[Stephen] Yeah, kind of German influences there, right?
[Lauren] Right.
They range from, like, really simple to pretty decadent with, like, caviar,
filet mignon, stuffed peppers.
It was-- It was really cool.
You know, I'm struck by the menu,
-by, really, how it's a story of… America. -Mm-hmm.
How big was this business?
They were very successful.
It's written like it was a very lucrative business,
well known throughout Philadelphia.
We were at the front.
We were starting the trends, doing the work.
What we know as catering today was started by my family
and these other families back then,
and just to know that, like, we set that tone, owning a business,
um, starting this industry, that's really cool.
[Stephen] To celebrate that history in the City of Brotherly Love,
my man Omar Tate, a Philly native,
cooked a feast inspired by the rich Black food history of Philadelphia.
We were joined by chefs, historians,
and other descendants of the Dutrieuille catering family.
Welcome, everyone.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
Thank you all for coming to this very, very special meal
that we've prepared.
It's super special to me because I grew up here in Philadelphia.
And there's a very, very rich history here in Philadelphia.
These things are important. They don't need to be lost.
They're not gonna be lost.
-Thanks for coming. -[Stephen] Thanks to you. Cheers.
[Omar] The first thing we're gonna have is Bellevue broth,
which is something that I actually learned about by reading the Dutrieuille menu.
I've never heard of it before,
um, but apparently it's been around for a few centuries,
and it's a broth mixture of chicken and just a shellfish broth
with whipped cream and parsley.
I'm really excited to share that with you guys.
-[Stephen] Oh, wow. -[Lauren] Oh, really good.
-Wow. -[woman] Oh, my God.
-[man] That's great. -[woman] How rich is this?
[Stephen] The texture, the weight of it is so good.
[Omar] It gives it a little more body. Yep.
It's very light, but it has a nice density to it, too.
-Super flavorful. -[woman 2] Yes, it really is.
Yeah. It tastes like butter, but without that greasiness.
[Harry] Yeah, not as heavy.
-Yum. -[Omar] Yeah.
[Valerie] That's a good word to describe it, "Yum."
[Lauren] We'd never tried Bellevue broth or heard of it either.
So it's something that they always presented
at the bigger, most upper-class banquets and dinners.
I wonder how many people have tried Bellevue broth,
because if you all found these menus,
and no one at this table's had it,
-you hadn't heard of it before. -[Omar] Right.
[Stephen] Maybe you're connecting a part of history
that is, like, several decades missing.
Right. I mean, I really hope so. I think it's very important.
A lot of times our history is dark, you know,
or we view it as dark.
But there was just so much beauty between the lines,
and I feel like menus and food is the synthesis that happens
between the lines, in between history.
[Valerie] Absolutely.
-[Stephen] You did it justice. -Yeah, you did. You did a wonderful job.
How do you all feel getting to also taste a part of this history, too?
[Lauren] It feels amazing.
It's really cool to find a talented chef to bring these dishes to life.
Our family, they're so humble,
they never really spoke about this growing up,
you know, so it was kind of a surprise to us.
Alex got to go through the house in Spring Garden…
-[man] Yeah-- -…and clean it out.
It was like my Indiana Jones moment.
[all laughing]
I went to the basement, and I went to dig around,
got dirty and all, you know,
the cobwebs and pulled it out and saw the plates.
I'm like, what was going on here? There's so much they didn't tell me.
So, Ms. Patty, we are talking about this late 19th-century history,
and talking about the Dutrieuilles,
but our connection to catering actually goes back almost 100 years before.
Absolutely. So, Robert Bogle is known as the father of catering,
and before him, there wasn't actually a catering profession,
and the word "caterer" wasn't known.
Robert Bogle served both the Black community,
but really was the caterer of choice for the white society as well.
[lively classical string music plays]
[Omar] The next thing is the Virginia ham with greens.
Classic comfort, just simply stewed down with ham,
vegetables, a little bit of aromatics like onion,
garlic, and just a touch of vinegar.
And we're also going to have crab salad on crackers.
Another special one,
not specifically related to the Dutrieuille family's history,
but it's related to the larger history of catering in Philadelphia in general.
You have to take one of everything.
Yeah, a little more.
Mmm.
-[Valerie] Omar, that's really good. -Wow.
[Omar] Collards. It's collard greens, mustard greens, and dandelion greens.
-[all] Oh! -[Omar] And turnip greens.
-Here we go. -A collective "oh."
-[diners chuckling] -Mmm.
-Mmm. That's delicious, chef. -Wow.
-Omar, you did it again. -[all laughing]
You're a food person. How are you feeling being connected to this legacy?
I mean, it's an honor.
I want my grandkids to be able to, like, look at these menus and be like,
"This is still being made today."
I hold it near and dear to my heart.
It's family, it's tradition, it's Black history.
It's Philadelphia, which is--
-[Lauren] It's American history. -American history.
And at the time that it happened, years before segregation ended,
they were doing so much.
I was looking at the cars they were driving. How was that possible?
-[Lauren] I had the same thought. -You didn't see that, you know?
-[Lauren] Yeah. -Dressed to the nines.
It blows my mind. So it's an honor to carry on that lineage.
[Lauren] I had the same thought when Dad sent the photos.
Fur coat and fancy car. I was like, "Black people lived like this?"
We absolutely did.
Generations and generations of free Blacks
and generations and generations of entrepreneurship.
We created our own economies,
and we had families like the Dutrieuilles that carried on that tradition,
fed our communities and were examples of how we could be self-reliant,
independent, entrepreneurs,
and turn around a dollar within our community.
It was really, really a strong impact.
[Omar] For our entrée,
we will be having pepper pot stew.
Pepper pot stew was the most popular dish in Philadelphia
in the 18th and 19th century, and even extended into the 20th century.
There's even a painting of a woman selling pepper pot to vendors.
It was sold as a street vended item
by mostly free women of color up and down Market Street.
So I'm very excited to share that with y'all,
and bring that dish back to prominence.
-[Lauren] Yeah, this looks so good. -[Valerie] Omar, this is delicious.
-[Harry] Mmm. -[Lauren] Yeah.
[Valerie] What did you use, oxtail?
Mmm. Oxtail, yes.
[Lauren] It's so good!
[Patricia] It really is.
It has great spice, but it's not spicy, so what are we tasting?
So, because of the connection to the West Indies,
there's scotch bonnet in here.
This is tomato based with the scotch bonnet, paprikas,
garlic, onion, thyme,
but more important than all those spices, to me,
is time, as in, like a clock.
You have to be patient
and take care of every layer in this stew.
[Stephen] I love this dish because it's so complex.
With the spice, with the texture of the rice and the meat.
It's not heavy-handed, but there's so much flavor. Really beautiful dish.
I mean, quite honestly, like, when I make this dish,
I don't really use a recipe.
There are recipes for pepper pot,
um, but I really try to draw a feeling of an ancestral connection.
I feel I'm directly connected
to the way African Americans liberated themselves in the past,
which is through craft.
So, through these dishes,
we really get to unabashedly tell our truths,
because everyone wants to eat.
[Stephen] I've always felt there is a power connected to food,
a grace in gathering for a moment shared,
and a freedom found in the exchange of emotions and ideas.
As the abolitionist movement of the early 1800s grew,
and the Underground Railroad brought more and more people to Philadelphia,
a growing free Black community was looking to expand their opportunity.
And some set their sights on a territory
that would soon be known as Texas.
[blues guitar music playing]