Jessica B. Harris (1948-present) is a journalist, cultural historian, and author. She has published twelve books about the foods and foodways of the African diaspora.
Jessica B. Harris (1948-present) is a journalist, cultural historian, and author. She has published twelve books about the foods and foodways of the African diaspora.
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.
History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.
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.
Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Liz Smith, Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Lindsey Kratochwill, Adesuwa Agbonile, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Ale Tejeda, Sara Schleede, Abbey Delk, and Alex Jhamb Burns. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.
Original theme music composed by Miles Moran.
Follow Wonder Media Network:
Hi, I'm Chef Kia Damon.
I'm a Florida born chef, writer, host and recipe developer. I served as an executive Chef of New York City restaurant Lalito at the age of 24 and became Cherry Bombe magazine's first Culinary Director at 25. Since leaving I've founded Kia Feeds The People, a budding mutual aid effort. 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’s Womanican is a journalist, cultural historian, and author. She has published not one, not two, but TWELVE books about the foods and foodways of the African diaspora. Her work emphasizes why food is important to understanding history and ourselves.
Let’s meet Jessica B. Harris.
Jessica was born in Queens, New York in 1948. Her father, Jesse Brown Harris, came from the “hardscrabble south” and moved to New York as a child during the Great Migration of the 1930s. Her mother, Rhoda Alease Jones, was born in New Jersey to a Baptist minister father. The couple had Jessica after nine years of marriage. Though Jesse and Rhoda both hailed from big families, Jessica was an only child. She was, as Jessica would later put it, their “chess piece” on the “board game of the American dream.”
The Harris family put Jessica’s education front and center, especially in exposing her to art and culture. Her mom would throw elaborate theme parties and decorated their home in vibrant colors and pieces of art made by friends.
As a child, Jessica attended the United Nations International School. Her classmates were the children of diplomats and Nobel Prize winners. Through her education and her interactions with her classmates, Jessica started to get a taste for the world outside of Queens, New York. She yearned to experience different cultures, learn more history, and find her sense of place in the world.
That sense of rebellion mostly passed through Jessica in high school. Rather than going to a private high school like her parents wanted, Jessica auditioned for and got into the drama department at the public High School of Performing Arts.
She graduated when she was 16, and pretty much left theater behind– but her penchant for storytelling ran strong. Jessica’s time at Bryn Mawr College, coincided with the height of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Inevitably, she became more politically conscious.
At the same time, Jessica was also spreading her wings as an adult. She took her first solo trip in the late 1960s to Paris. There, she spent her time seeking out small neighborhood restaurants, touring caves and drinking red wine in Champagne, and learning the art of the French omelet.
After her sojourn, Jessica returned to New York City — this time drawn into the bright lights and bohemian glamor of lower Manhattan. In 1969, she rented an apartment in an old tenement building in the Village and started pursuing her doctorate at New York University. Jessica became interested in the Black Arts Movement, and wrote reviews of books and art exhibitions as well as articles about international politics and the African diaspora.
Her dissertation focused on French-speaking theater in Senegal, so in 1972, Jessica took her first trip to sub-Saharan Africa to conduct research. There, she found– in the food, in the people, and her short time abroad– a way to combine her love for all things French and her growing love for African culture.
Back in New York, Jessica got a job as the book review editor and later travel editor for Essence Magazine. At her job, she brushed shoulders with the likes of Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison. She also started to learn more about African food and its connection to the food she ate growing up in her Black community in Queens.
Successful as she was, journalism was a side gig for Jessica. She was also a teacher for the SEEK Program, a program designed to get African American and Hispanic students in New York into the City University system. It was through SEEK that Jessica met Sam Floyd, an intellectual more than ten years her senior. Sam introduced Jessica to literary giants like James Baldwin and Maya Angelou. Jessica called his house at 81 Horatio Street“Club 81,” because his living room often served as an impromptu salon. Writers and academics passed through, reciting poetry, debating philosophy, or acting out snippets of plays. Wine flowed and plates filled with Sam’s home cooking.
It was at Club 81, in the company of friends, that Jessica came to truly love cooking. She learned the basics from landmark cookbooks, and fixed recipes this way and that on intuition. She lived by Sam’s mantra: if you can afford it, buy it. Always offer your friends the best that you can, and accept what you’re given with grace.
Then, in 1981, the AIDS epidemic found its way to the city. As Jessica watched the city lose its zeal, this festive chapter of her life came to an end. She and Sam had broken up, but remained in each other’s lives. He was by her side as she grieved the death of her father. Only a year later, Sam himself passed away of AIDS.
In 1985, Jessica published her first cookbook: “Hot Stuff: A Cookbook in Praise of the Piquant.” She continued to publish several more cookbooks throughout the 1990s, covering everything from Brazilian cuisine to Kwanzaa traditions to Creole fusion.
For 50 years, Jessica taught as a professor of English at Queens College before retiring in 2019. She is now professor emerita. That same year, her cookbooks were inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame. In 2020, she was awarded a James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award — a huge honor for those in the culinary world.
In 2021, Netflix adapted Jessica’s 2011 book, “High on the Hog,” into a four-part documentary series, tracking the history of African American cuisine, from open air markets in Benin to backyards in Texas. Another season is currently in progress.
These days, according to her Instagram bio, Jessica is enjoying a “retirement renaissance.”
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.
As always, we’re taking a break for the weekend. Talk to you Monday!