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An award-winning chef and author spent the pandemic years painstakingly gathering the ingredients for a new cookbook about West African-inspired cooking. Todd Richards hunkered down in Atlanta to map the roads to “Roots, Heart, Soul: The Story, Celebration and Recipes of Afro Cuisine in America.”
“I’m giving Africa credence to its influence on the food in America. I really wanted to give people a background story about how brilliant this food is,” says Richards, the culinary director of Jackmont Hospitality.
The James Beard-nominated restaurateur is recognized for delivering exceptional contemporary Southern cuisine at the Krog Street Market stall Soul: Food & Culture. The chef’s newest cookbook takes readers to times and places that link West Africa to what we eat today.
“The inspiration was telling the story of our cuisine prior to soul food.”
Following Roads to Roots, Heart, Soul
It took Chef Richards and co-author Amy Paige Condon about three and a half years to complete the work on “Roots, Heart, Soul.” He wanted to taste the food that would inspire the writing, so the chef headed west.
“The first thing I wanted to do before I started writing was to eat. I wanted to eat in a pathway working backward,” states Richards.
The Roots, Heart, Soul author would follow roads to African-influenced foods in the Wild West, the Deep South and beyond. Travel restrictions prevented him from going to West Africa. Instead, he ate and researched dishes in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Jamaica.
The Atlanta chef also followed the trail of African diaspora cooking to New York, Chicago and New Orleans. Richards explains why trips to some of these familiar places were different. “You find so many things when you focus on understanding how something got there. Why is hibiscus so treasured? You find that out by going to Jamaica and focusing on that one ingredient.”
The restaurateur’s approach in the kitchen also differed from how he developed recipes for “Soul: A Chef’s Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes,” winner of the International Association of Culinary Professionals 2019 award for Best American Cookbook.
“For this book, I did most of the cooking myself, compared to Soul, where a lot of the cooking was done in a test kitchen,” notes Richards. “I wanted to build the process a little differently because this was a lot more foreign to me than what was in Soul.”
Research for Roots, Heart, Soul produced a cookbook rich in history, culture and stories. It celebrates West African-inspired cooking from the Middle Passage to the Caribbean and North America.
Richards focused on modern concepts in developing the 100 recipes, including Jamaica’s grilled whole snapper with mango slaw, Haiti’s soup joumou (peppered beef and pumpkin soup), the Dominican Republic’s beach spaghetti, Mexico’s sweet and spicy grilled chicken tenderloin, the American South’s hoppin’ John with turnip greens, New York’s she-crab soup and Chicago’s smoked baby back ribs.
“I want to give reverence to where these dishes came from, not only in the sense of admiration but also with a sense of sophistication,” Richards continues. He applies this motivation throughout the cookbook.
The section of Roots, Heart, Soul on the migration of African Americans takes the chef on a deeper exploration of his own family’s food journey. “My parents got to Chicago through Alabama, Ohio and Louisiana. They brought a lot of these dishes with them to the North, but they still were able to adapt them to the ingredients that were there,” says Richards.
“That gives credence and appreciation to what we came through as slaves and how we still brought our traditional foodways and adapted them in the Americas.”
Connecting with Experts on West African-Inspired Cooking
Chef Richards’ creativity and expertise is spearheading the success of 12 chef-driven restaurants at international airports from Atlanta to Los Angeles. He has won acclaim for overseeing Jackmont Hospitality’s development of One Flew South, Ludacris’ Chicken and Beer and Native by Nyesha.
Yet, he connected with experts knowledgeable about West African influences on cooking to make Roots, Heart, Soul what he wanted it to be. “People think you are a chef and can cook anything. Yes, I can cook anything, but knowing the stories behind food takes a lot of understanding,” Richards acknowledges.
Choosing experts such as Haiti’s Stephan Berrouet Durand, Brooklyn’s Jackie Summers and Colorado’s Adrian Miller gave the cookbook author deeper insights into how economic conditions and colorism impact the recognition of dishes and their creators.
Richards gives the example of the Dominican Republic tending to get more credit for dishes similar to Haitian specialties. “When I look at New Orleans and how Haiti doesn’t get enough credit for its influence on New Orleans. Everyone says French and Louisiana, but Haiti greatly influenced New Orleans.”
Richards’ cookbook also touches on the seldom-talked-about West African influences on Mexican cuisine, especially in Veracruz and other coastal areas.
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“I don’t think anyone ties Mexican food to West Africa. But look at the peanuts and squashes used, and the moles directly influenced by West Africa,” the chef maintains.
The stunning photographs by Clay Williams document the paths Richards took to connect us to West African roots and Black culture through food. The chef takes us to Chicago, where his parents taught their children to explore different cuisines.
“It was nothing for us to get tacos from Avenue K and 110th Street, or burritos or anything out of that community, and bring them home and eat them with some leftover collard greens,” says the Roots, Heart, Soul author. “My family was never afraid to do cross-cultural things because we understood what delicious food is.”
The culinary director put recipes representing his Virginia and Louisiana heritage in the cookbook published by HarperCollins. They reflect some of his fondest memories, including eating beach spaghetti on Chicago’s lakefront – a dish popular in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
“To me, it shows the connection of food. Some of these things I ate as a kid I still eat today,” says Richards. “It gives my parents’ generation the respect of talking about the food. It also gives my generation avenues to cook the same food and inspires the next generation to keep it going.”
The Roots, Heart, Soul recipe Richards cooks most often is grilled catfish with spring onions. The ham hock mofongo from Puerto Rico also tops his list of favorites from the cookbook.
“That, to me, is Afro-Latin cuisine all in one bite. That dish just warms my soul. It feels like the essence of everyone I’ve met on this journey is in that dish.”
Creating Recipes for Home Cooks
Home cooks familiar with Chef Richards’ might go right to Roots, Heart, Soul’s recipes for Southern dishes, such as the smoked cheddar cornbread fritters with red pepper honey.
However, the cookbook endorses flexibility and experimentation while promoting quality. “Restaurant-style recipes are usually more labor intensive and require quite a bit more precision in cooking. This cookbook gives you a guideline, but also allows you to have some freedom,” confirms the author.
Richards suggests home cooks try putting together dishes from different sections of his book. The recipes can be adapted based on the desired number of servings.“You can make these dishes a little smaller for a household of three or four people.”
Roots, Heart, Soul’s creator is also a proponent of recipe substitutions. “If you don’t have tomatillos, you can use green tomatoes. Veal osso buco is always traditional, especially in restaurants. In our version, it is venison. But you can use veal, venison or lamb shank.”
`The cookbook’s narratives provide some lively debates on how some traditional West African, Caribbean or American dishes are made. Richards calls the conversations entertaining. “Does banana pudding get meringue, or does it not get meringue on it? Those things make it exciting to look through the book for food recipes.”
Whether you serve your fried fish with spaghetti or put turnips in your collard greens often depends on traditions you learned growing up. “I always start with tradition to pay respect or homage to where a dish came from,” says Richards. “That is how traditions are made depending on the ingredients available in the regions where we migrated.”
The best advice the Atlanta restaurateur gives to home cooks trying out recipes from Roots, Heart, Soul is to use what they have to make delicious food. But before starting, put on some music from the cookbook’s playlist to set the right mood.
“Listening to music gives you a rhythm. If you’re chopping food, you can chop food in the rhythm of the songs or time things by how many songs you play. This is how I grew up cooking as a kid, in the kitchen with music and celebration,” Richards shares.
RECIPE: Classic Sofito from “Roots, Heart, Soul”
Strengthening Economic Futures
Chef Richards’ enthusiasm for expanding people’s appreciation for West African-inspired cooking is about more than simply knowing our history. Strengthening the economic futures of Black people in the culinary professions is one of the entrepreneur’s primary goals.
“Those things are so important to our communities, to have a recognized cuisine that actually gives us economic fortune in the future,” the restaurateur explains. “I see the effect on pricing when foods become a true cuisine. You can charge people the right price for what they are getting.”
The point Richards wants people to get from understanding the history, culture, and connections behind West African-inspired cooking is that our food should be valued, just like other cuisines that require time and attention to perfect.
“In my mind, I’m always thinking about how we help the people talked about in this cookbook prosper and move forward. It starts with what one rapper would say, ‘Put some respect on our name.’”
Jackmont Hospitality and its culinary director are doing what they can to get more respect for West African-inspired cooking and Southern-influenced dishes in the U.S. Richards will oversee the expansion of the group’s restaurants to 12 more airport locations in coming months, including to Virginia’s Dulles International and Reagan National.
The banana pudding and coconut-fried lobster tails are among the Roots, Heart, Soul recipes that will appear on Jackmont Hospitality’s menus. Richards expresses how elevating Afro cuisine could make a difference for Black chefs.
“I hope it helps the economic fortune of our communities. We can start looking at how other chefs changed things, as David Chang did when there was no Korean food on Michelin Guides anywhere.”
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Being a celebrated change agent, cookbook author and restaurant owner generates accolades and a lot of stress. Chef Richards turns to abstract painting for relaxation and mentions why he encourages other culinary creatives to try it. “It’s been a great outlet for me to have a permanent art form to work in because food is immediately consumed. You never get to see it or touch it again.”
Nevertheless, the Atlanta chef remains committed to documenting the impact of West African cuisines and celebrating how they connect people in the Caribbean and the Americas. “We left off in California. So the next one is going to take us from California to Central and South America,” Richards discloses.
“Roots, Heart, Soul: The Story, Celebration, and Recipes of Afro Cuisine in America” is already on Parade magazine’s list of the Best New Cookbooks of 2024.
“Telling other people’s stories. That’s what I enjoyed the most. It enlivens me to talk about it because I thought I knew, but now I truly know. That’s why I’m so happy about it.”
Follow @cheftoddrichards on Instagram for the latest information on his cookbook, restaurants and artwork.
