Don’t Overlook the Georgia Oyster
Plenty of cookbooks touch on the topic of family history, or cooking rituals that have been passed down from generation to generation. But not many families are like Matthew Raiford’s. The James Beard Foundation Award–nominated chef lives and works on the farm in Brunswick, Georgia, that was originally established by his great-great-great-grandfather Jupiter Gilliard in 1874, just a few years after emancipation from slavery.
Living on the farm for the past decade has meant stumbling upon family recipes, records of harvests past, 19th-century cookbooks, and even grocery ledgers from the early years of the farm. These documents became a jumping-off point for Raiford’s new cookbook, Bress ’n’ Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Far...
