Why hello there! And welcome back to Kitchen Catastrophe, where one man has been real bad on getting Thursdays sorted out this year. I’m your Basically-Back-Down-To-Weekly Buddy, Jon O’Guin, and today’s recipe is a super-simple dish…assuming you can get ONE kind of tricky ingredient, that has a very vital place in conversations about this week. If those tantalizing crumbs don’t tempt your palate, just jump ahead to the dessert and get cooking. For everyone else, let’s dig in. (editor’s note: This was definitely SUPPOSED to go up Tuesday afternoon, but Jon took his new migraine medication and passed out, losing the afternoon.) 

Digging into some Rocky Ground

Today’s dish is in honor of Juneteenth, a holiday being celebrated this weekend that I suspect many of my readers have only recently heard about, if at all, and probably still have some questions about. And while I am not a person of color, I’ll be happy to handle some of the basics, in order to get everything explained, and help others avoid having to cover the same ground to get people up to speed. Because this may be an uncomfortable discussion: some of this history is bummer territory. As the saying goes, “If reading history does not make you uncomfortable, then you are probably not reading the real history.”

Man, if you thought what happened to Isaiah Bradley in Falcon and the Winter Soldier was bad. The dudes he’s based off of didn’t even have the bonus of getting superpowers!

Juneteenth is the celebration of the ending of slavery in the United States. As with so many American holidays, it’s one of those “the date is technically wrong, but the idea is valid” situations (see July 4th, President’s Day, ETC):  Juneteenth refers to June 19th, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Texas and declared the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the last of the slaves in the Confederate South. It would take 6 more months to free all the slaves in the NORTH, since the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t technically free ANY slaves “in America”: it only applied to states in the Confederacy. Both Delaware and Kentucky still practiced slavery until the 13th Amendment was ratified that December. And, if you want to be extremely technical: A: Native territories at the time technically weren’t required to abolish slavery and B: we never actually fully abolished slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment reads that we have abolished it EXCEPT as punishment for a crime, which is why we can legally justify not paying prisoners for their labor and make them work 12 hour shifts, and ALSO a reason we kind of followed up freeing Black Americans by making a bunch of ways for us to arrest them.

So Juneteenth isn’t technically “the day slavery ended in America”. It’s the day slavery ended in the CONFEDERACY, and the celebration is in honor of all those freed from slavery. It’s like…The Veteran’s Day of Slavery. Which is a real bummer of thing to think about. As of right now, the only states that don’t recognize the holiday are the Dakotas and Hawaii, who… I mean, I kind of get Hawaii sitting this one out: their relationship with slavery is…even more fraught. (editor’s note: While Jon was incapacitated, the Senate voted to make it a national holiday, so I guess Hawai’i has to get on board now. Assuming the House votes it in.)

Alright, so now you know what Juneteenth IS. What are you supposed to DO? That’s easy: TEACH PEOPLE TO VOTE, and have a Barbecue/Picnic. Early celebrations were used to help teach the new freedmen how to vote, but over time, it became a time for barbecues, swimming, church activities, etc. Another big component of it was RED.

RED, THE BLOOD OF ANGRY MEN

Yes, “red”. IN particular, “red drink”, either from hibiscus or kola, was a common refreshment at such get-togethers, as was red velvet cake, red corn (and red corn whiskey), and, as more options opened to them, drinks like strawberry or cherry lemonade or “red fruit syrups” (mixtures of fruit, vinegar, and sugar reduced down)

This was for a number of reasons. As Title Jon alludes to, many chose to view the color as symbolizing the blood of those who suffered under slavery. Traditional uses of color theory in African communities also make red a color of life and death, and spiritual power. Further, drinks like hibiscus were…I mean, listen to this:

Roselle Hibiscus flowers are believed to originate in Africa, and are made into tea and cooked in food there. They were then exported to the Caribbean, where they flourished, to the degree that the Mexican name for Hibiscus is flor de Jamaica, “Flower of Jamaica”,  often shortened to just Jamaica. It has become the national symbol of Haiti. Indeed, the value of the flower is such that it has been carried along trade routes both east and west, appearing in European, Arabic, Southeast Asian, Australian, and South American cuisine. In Victorian flower language, the Hibiscus represents “Glory/Perfection”.

I think technically it’s a different kind of Hibiscus. There’s like, 30 of the bastards.

That is all symbolism 101 stuff right there. Like, offensively on-the-nose. Hell, did I mention it has MEDICINAL properties? Light consumption of Hibiscus tea is connected with a mild reduction in blood pressure (like, dropping by 7/3. Not a lot, but enough if you’re in a fringe position.)

Whip it up

So, once I read most of that, I knew that I wanted to try making something hibiscus connected for the holiday. Especially because I see them all the time, and have a long history of with Agua Frescas like Jamaica, Tamarindo, and Horchata. And the recipe was fairly simple (Seven ingredients, one of which is “water”? Sign me up!) Of course, the instant I made this call, I couldn’t find ANY hibiscus in the stores I was checking. I ended up having to buy organic tea bags from Walmart and tearing them open for the crushed flowers.

The harvest is tangy this year.

I then had to do some internet scouring, which also dug up some issues that some might take with my sourcing. This recipe comes (mildly modified) from Marcus Samuelsson’s “The Rise”, a cookbook dedicated to Black cooks across America (and the world) and the food they make. If you’ve heard of it from anything other than buying it, it’s probably from a scandal that arose with it: See, Marcus Samuelsson is a very interesting chef with an eye for International flavors, and a wild personal journey, being born in Ethiopia, and adopted at an early age in Sweden, where he studied to be a chef before coming to America. Which is an amazing journey…and one that slightly alienates him from other Black communities. There have been several critiques for his Harlem restaurant Red Rooster for being a very upscale chicken place so thoroughly saturated with celebrity to make it impossible for actual Harlemites to get tables or WANT to get the food. A similar issue comes from a dish in his book in honor of Gregory Gourdet, a Portland-based chef of Haitian descent, Soup Joumou, or Independence Soup. Namely: Marcus made it, according to Haitians, very wrong. Like, Soup Joumou is a mixture of marinated beef and squash or pumpkin, pasta, potatoes, and cabbage. The recipe in the book is for a pureed pumpkin soup with coconut milk, candied nuts, and a chili oil drizzle.  It contains no beef, potatoes, pasta, or cabbage.

For comparison, imagine I told you I was going to make Chicken Noodle Soup, and instead gave you Tikka Masala over Noodles. Now imagine that Chicken noodle soup was a food that had been specifically denied to Americans by the British, and that it became a symbol of our freedom once we gained control of the country. THAT’S the degree of mess-up we’re dealing with.

I mean, LOOK at that. Really look at it. Zoom in. Because I did NOT put in the effort to make the photo credit bigger, and I want you to handle it.

When the recipe was shared on Bon Appetít, it was exposed to the online Haitian community, who flipped their SHIT over it, and Marcus’s co-author of the book, who was credited with helping make the recipe, came out and specifically disowned having anything to do with it.  Which is just a great example how easy it is to screw up attempting to honor a culture when you don’t put in the time to understand it. (In Marcus’s defense: 150 recipes honoring over a dozen chefs, you’re going to have a couple misses. Of course, I feel like I’d have double-checked with said chefs what they felt the “need-to-hit” points of the recipes were.)  Anywho, my point is that if this recipe somehow accidentally includes ingredients that would vastly offend the Black community, I, as an ignorant White man, will immediately blame the accomplished Black chef for leading me astray. (I kid, of course. I’ve double checked that this is okay, and if somehow I missed it, that’s definitely MY fault.)

What was I doing? Oh yeah, kind of wasting time. Like I said, this is a SUPER easy recipe, once you can get your hands on hibiscus tea. Like, the other ingredients are: lime zest, lime juice, ginger, water, and sugar. Most of the steps of the recipe are “wait”. Like, first, you combine about 8 bags’ worth of hibiscus tea with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil, take off the heat, cover, and let steep for 10 minutes.

While that’s happening, zest one whole lime, and juice it. Then peel and grate a hefty knob of ginger (about 2”), and measure out ¾ cup of granulated sugar.

The lime was the most interesting part of that to look at, so here you go: A cup of sweat and some grass clippings.

The next bit is a little fiddly, and it’s because we didn’t put in the time/effort to get whole flowers: with real flowers, you can strain them out of the now-tea with a slotted spoon. Since we used crushed up flowers, you gotta pour the mixture into another bowl through a fine mesh strainer. Press the leaves dry, and toss them.

Pour the tea back into the pan, add all the other ingredients, and heat up, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved. Then turn off the heat, and just let the mixture steep until it comes to room temp, about 20-30 minutes, depending on how hot you got it, and how hot your house is. Pour through a fine mesh strainer into a 9” square container, and boom, you’re…mostly done in terms of effort, about a quarter of the way done in terms of time.

It’s so reflective! And so mysterious!

Pop that bad boy in a freezer, and come back every 20 minutes or so to stir the slowly-forming ice crystals with a fork, scraping them into flakes. The first couple won’t have a lot going on, but within an hour or so, you’ll be in “this looks like I spilled a slurpee” territory.

Oops all Slurpee.

Now, I went for another hour, and then got impatient, because my mother was trying to go to bed, so we served it a little softer than technically intended, with a grind of black pepper on top for EVEN MORE ZEST.

This was the wetter of the two pictures, but it had the better color balance.

The result is…quite nice, with a slight note that the Black pepper is weird, in my opinion, but that might be that my pepper was supposed to be a little more finely cracked. Hibiscus naturally tastes rather tart, kind of like cranberries, so combined with lime and sugar, it’s nicely tart. The ginger adds a little warmth, but it’s not imposing. Everyone gave in a general shrug and a nod kind of approval: it’s tart, sweet, cold, and clean. So if you want to dip your toes into the Juneteenth traditions, I’d recommend it, and honestly, I think I’d recommend it as a nice summer dessert option outside the holiday connection.

FRIDAY: I UPLOAD WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LAST THURSDAY’S POST, THAT I DIDN’T FINISH UNTIL SUNDAY NIGHT.

MONDAY:  MAYBE SOME CHICKPEA BREAD. OR NOODLES? LOOK, I GOTTA SIT DOWN AND TAKE STOCK OF SOME STUFF.

Recipe

Zesty Hibiscus Granita

Makes about 2 ½ cups, roughly 5 servings

Ingredients

2 cups water

8 hibiscus tea bags, torn open and poured out. (roughly 1 oz tea)

The zest and juice of 1 lime (roughly 1 tbsp juice)

One 2” piece of ginger, peeled and grated

¾ cup granulated sugar

Freshly cracked black pepper, for topping.

Preparation

1. Add tea to water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from the heat, cover, and let steep 10 minutes.

2. Remove tea leaves from the tea, pressing to remove as much liquid as possible, and discard. Add remaining ingredients. Return to medium heat, stirring until sugar is fully dissolved. Remove from heat again, and let steep until returned to room temperature.

3. Pour into a 9 inch square pan through a fine mesh strainer. Press to remove liquid, and discard. Place pan with steeped mixture into freezer, stirring/scraping with a fork every 20 minutes, making sure to move ice crystals inward as you stir, until mixture is roughly the texture of shaved ice.

4. Portion into servings, top with black pepper, and serve.