Freda DeKnight (1909-1963) celebrated Black American chefs and home cooks as Ebony magazine’s first ever food editor. Her book “A Date With a Dish” was one of the first cookbooks written specifically for a Black audience.
Freda DeKnight (1909-1963) celebrated Black American chefs and home cooks as Ebony magazine’s first ever food editor. Her book “A Date With a Dish” was one of the first cookbooks written specifically for a Black audience.
Food has been a unifier for millennia, not just gathering people together to share a meal, but acting as a warm introduction to new histories and traditions. This February on Womanica, we’re celebrating Tastemakers - the Black chefs, cooks, and food historians who created new foodways and preserved important culinary stories of the past. The impact of chefs like Pig Foot Mary, Mama Dip, and Georgia Gilmore stretch far beyond the culinary scene - uplifting their local communities and inspiring those who came after them.
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Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.
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Hello! I'm Chef Kia Damon. I've served as an executive chef and I was the first culinary director for Cherry Bombe Magazine. I'm the founder of Kia Feeds The People, and co-founder of Auxilio Space — two organizations focused on combating food apartheid. I’ll be your guest host for this month of Womanica.
This month, we're talking about Tastemakers. We're celebrating the Black chefs, cooks, and food historians who created new foodways and preserved important culinary stories of the past.
Today, we’re talking about a woman who celebrated Black American chefs and home cooks as Ebony magazine’s first ever food editor. Her book “A Date With a Dish” was one of the first cookbooks written specifically for a Black audience. It remains a treasured heirloom in many Black families today.
Please welcome Freda DeKnight.
Freda was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1909. Her father died when she was two years old, and her mother moved the family to South Dakota. They lived in a farm house with Paul and Mamie Scott, a couple who operated a successful catering business.
Freda’s mother was a traveling nurse and often left Freda and her sister in Paul and Mamie’s care. Under their roof, Freda came to admire and respect the culinary arts. They always offered her insight into how they developed recipes and cooked their dishes. They were the first people to inspire her own dreams of being a tastemaker.
Freda studied home economics at South Dakota Wesleyan College. After graduating, she moved to New York. She worked a variety of odd jobs, including teaching sewing to high schoolers and serving as an office worker for a dance school. She also met and married pianist René DeKnight of the Delta Rhythm Boys.
Freda landed her editor position at Ebony through a stroke of luck. While visiting Chicago, a wealthy couple invited her to a dinner party. But an hour before dinner, the hosts got a call: their caterer had broken a leg and couldn’t make it. They panicked, but Freda lept into action. She ran out to buy groceries and whipped up an impressive feast at lightning speed. The party was a hit– and one of the guests in attendance just so happened to be publisher John H. Johnson, who had just launched Ebony magazine. He was so impressed by Freda’s skill and poise in the kitchen that he offered her a job as a columnist.
Freda became Ebony’s first ever food editor in 1946. She traveled across the United States, tracing the culinary traditions and beloved recipes of Black American families. She published her discoveries in her monthly column “A Date with A Dish.” Freda treated readers to practical cooking tips and regional recipes, always accompanied by mouth watering photographs. She sourced recipes from professional chefs, home cooks and celebrities alike.
Freda’s column eventually spawned a cookbook in 1948. “A Date With a Dish” became a national bestseller– and one of the first major cookbooks written by a Black American for a Black audience.
In her columns and her cookbook, Freda aimed to break long held stereotypes about the food that Black Americans prepared and enjoyed. She scoffed at the idea that Black cooks could “adapt themselves only to the standard Southern dishes” Freda demonstrated that a Black American chef was just as likely to find inspiration in Spanish, French, Italian or East Indian cuisine. By collecting recipes from Black cooks across the US, Freda helped expand the nation’s understanding of African-American cuisine– and presented a nuanced, attractive vision of that cuisine and its cooks to the world.
Freda continued to work over the next decade, growing in her new position as the Home Service Director at the Johnson Publishing Company. She developed recipes for advertisers, gave cooking demonstrations on TV, and even became involved in the fashion world. In 1957 she helped launch Ebony’s Fashion Fair, an annual event that celebrated Black contributions to haute couture.
In 1960, Freda had surgery for cancer. She continued to travel for work, but as her illness advanced, she grew steadily weaker. She died in January, 1963. She was 54 years old.
All her life, Freda celebrated the greatness of Black chefs. As she wrote in the preface of “A Date With a Dish,” “Years ago...some of our greatest culinary artists were unable to read or write. But their ingenuity, mother wit and good common sense made them masters in their profession.”
All month, we’re talking about tastemakers. For more information, find us on Facebook and Instagram @womanicapodcast.
Special thanks to co-creators Jenny and Liz Kaplan, for having me as a guest host.
Talk to you tomorrow!