Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

Clint Smith leads us on an unforgettable tour of monuments and landmarks that offer a story of how slavery has been central in shaping our nation's history, memory and financial success.

We will tour Monticello, the Whitney Plantation, the Angola Prison and Manhattan and other areas to see how slavery sustained these landmarks.

We'll see just how slavery permitted America and other countries to become economic powerhouses.

In the book, How the Word is Passed.

Let's meet my guest.

Alfred Guillaume.

Welcome, Alfred.

Thank you.

Glad to have you here once again.

Yes, thank you.

Now, this is a powerful book.

I mean, it really is.

Tell me why you chose it.

It is a powerful book, but it's also a sorrowful book because it traces the past the inglorious past.

Inglorious a heinous past that America refuses to embrace fully unless we embrace it.

We can't move forward, particularly in racial healing and understanding.

I read this book several years ago before these recent attempts to alter history.

and to ban books.

Yes.

And I felt that at this time it is probably a good time for us to discuss this book.

One Man's Personal Journey Through the Horrors of Slavery.

Visiting All the Confederate sites, a black man.

Yes.

And speaking with people who honor that Confederate past, trying to understand why.

What motivated them and correcting some of the history that they have understanding of and his sharing of his story and how painful that story was to him growing up in New Orleans.

I grew up in New Orleans.

I grew up seeing all those Confederate statues, all the streets named after Confederate generals.

And, you know, at some point, you don't even think about it.

As a child, you didn't think about it.

But as an adult, I'm becoming much more aware of what is happening in this country.

Yes.

To ignore that slavery was a powerhouse of economic development on the bodies of black men.

William and children.

Absolutely and, you know, it really does hit you when you realize this country wouldn't be what it is today without the work.

The effort of black women, men, children for 200 years, we would not be the country we are today.

And we should say, thank you.

We're sorry.

And we want to do something about it.

But everybody's afraid to say it.

And we need to move on.

Honor that past and the ways not to honor and glory, but to honor it in memory.

Yes, in memory.

And just to say, yes, it happened.

It happened.

And I am so glad you suggested it.

It is one of the best books I've ever read.

And we're going to enjoy cooking some foods of the period.

Let's talk about what we're making today.

Well, today we're making crab cakes with Remoulade sauce, and we will have bananas.

FOSTER And later.

Yes.

And a sip of white wine.

of.

Course.

Cooling in the freezer.

I hope it's not freezing.

No, it's not freezing.

Not freezing.

But I do recommend this book highly.

And I was at two book clubs this week, and they said, yes, we've heard about this book.

And it is it is amazing what you finally realized, that this country wouldn't be what it is without all the burdens of the slaves.

And one remark about the book is that there's a lot of sadness in it, a lot of pain, but it's written.

What a beautiful lyric voice.

Yes, the language and the metaphors are just extraordinary.

This is a very fine book.

And he brings you in the moment.

And that is so critical.

It is.

I almost feel like I went through Monticello with him.

They have two tours at Monticello.

One is for people that just want to know about furniture and and, you know, in the history of other people want to know more now that they know or have heard of Sally Hemings.

Yes.

Who They will not even say that she was the mistress of Thomas Jefferson.

I mean, they've changed.

I've been there twice.

And when I was there the first time, there was no mention of Sally Hemings.

Right.

The second time I went, they finally said, okay, we'll let all of her descendants be buried with the Jefferson's in the same cemetery there at Monticello.

And I was very moved both times.

And so we went up.

We've gone on the tours of the of the locations that speak truth to power and wisdom and history.

And so I wanted to get started.

Let's go.

Before I burn my I. I made my butter here with my brown sugar.

And I have some cinnamon in here.

I haven't put it in yet.

Yes, I have.

See, it's been a while.

And let that cook a little bit.

Tell us what you're going to do.

I'm going to make the.

The crab cakes, all the ingredients I have here.

I've done the Remoulade sauce ahead of time, and it's simply mayo mustard, ketchup and horseradish with spiced with a little bit of cayenne pepper just to make it a little flavorful.

And onions and parsley.

And that's within.

So it has a heat.

It has a little bit of heat.

A little bit of I before one of my shows.

Creole cooking is a blend of the spices.

So the heat will not attack you, but you can feel it warming your body.

Yes, that's what we want.

And I love once you learn to love spices, most food is bland.

I have found out I mean, I learned about spicy food in Thailand.

And and then I met an Indian woman who cooked with a lot of spices.

And she said in America, she takes her hot pepper sauce with her whenever she goes to a restaurant or to someone's home.

So you're going to start chopping.

Or you start chopping and we get to the crab meat.

I got about a pound of crab crab meat in here.

You can use the white or the dark, but I like the white dark dark a little.

It can be a little tasty sometimes, but overpowering so the white meat.

It will be very good And want to mix it up and blend it here and then I'm going to add the onions.

We'll cut up some onion.

While you're cutting up there.

I just want to mention that we're actually we're met, Alfred, I said I'd like to learn about the literature of Louisiana.

So we've been doing a different book from Louisiana throughout time on dinner.

That's correct.

That's correct.

But this is this is still somewhat in that vein, because this author is also from Louisiana.

Yes.

He is.

He is.

We're trying to stick to a Louisiana theme.

And I've enjoyed it thoroughly.

I mean, the the books are so interesting and they depict the history and has time has moved on.

Such colorful characters, too.

I do like that.

And you're from.

New Orleans right.

I'm from You Are New Orleans born and raised, as they say.

And you know the music, you know the food.

And so I as I say, I'm really glad that you suggested this book.

And I'm being so careful not to burn my brown sugar.

I'm going to turn it up a little, but I don't know, chopped onions and tablespoons of onions that I want to put in this dish.

I have to cut finely because I want the onions to blend in with the dish.

You do it beautifully.

I still can't get onions chopped very well with that method.

I don't know what to do.

But I think what I learned from watching Julia Child, though.

She was something, wasn't she?

Yes, indeed.

So this this dish is served at several restaurants in New Orleans.

I think Brennan's serves it.

And there is a palace cafe in the court of two sisters.

And if I have any questions here about what I'm doing, I will ask you, because I'm sure you've made it many times.

I've made it many times.

So I've got to be careful what I do here.

Well, you know.

I'll just say it's a good twist.

You can make it with an Indiana twist.

That's it.

Exactly.

There's always is a reason or an excuse.

So we're going to go the first thing we go to is Monticello.

And we do hear the tour.

There's some white people in the tour and there's some African-American people.

And the thing is, you have our author who stays around after the tour and he talks to some of these people, their reactions.

And when they hear about Jefferson and Sally Hemings, the one of them as well, that really takes the shine off of Jefferson, doesn't it?

And I think there's some people still don't know the story, but it is to me it's just amazing.

You was such a brilliant man and he wrote the you know, there was important documents.

Well, he was a man of his time.

Yes, exactly.

At the time, I the common thinking was that black people were not as intelligent and not fully human.

And so that was the way they could justify the slavery.

And the church leaders said that to they justified it by saying God said so, gosh, I'm going to get in trouble.

But it it's I don't know why it would be so hard to say this was a mistake.

I just know.

I just if you don't educate the populace, then they are inferior.

Yes, that's right.

People that aren't.

Educated.

So that was a purposeful way to keep blacks in slavery also.

And well.

You know, the churches would have to say they were sorry to what they did.

Well, one of the things that concerns me now about the teaching of African-American history is that they want to ban books, but they also want to rewrite the story.

Yes.

it did.

You know that blacks learn a skill while they were safe.

Can you imagine.

That they did that?

Sure.

They learned the skill.

I think you taught something that was a skill forced upon them.

Yes.

And they don't have the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives.

Well, we had such a moment of hope.

well, we have a moment to sort of work our way into the next segment.

How are you doing here?

I'm doing just fine.

I'm putting all the things together.

Put bell peppers.

Bell peppers.

I'm cut some.

I'm cutting some celery.

Now I have onion in there.

All right.

And then we have some garlic later.

And I want to mix it up with some eggs and without putting together the patties, I need to have them put at three 5350.

And we are taking a little break right now.

We're going to get some more of our ingredients ready.

See, I turn my back on this in a way.

Well, I know it looks good, though.

I like dark brown.

And we'll be right back.

And our book is How the Word Is Passed.

Our author is Clint Smith.

My guest is Alfred Guillaume And we're coming into the last few minutes of bananas, foster and.

Crab cakes with Remoulade Sauce All right.

So I'm going to put some in here and it might catch on fire again.

Who knows?

Really, what I'm going to do is tell you how I made the the crab cakes before.

You do that.

One second.

I'm putting in some banana liqueur and a little more of the spiced rum, and then we'll put the bananas in here.

Cook it in here, and that will be it.

Okay, Take it away.

Okay.

I've got a pound of white crawfish meat.

I've put half of the tape to taste foods of mayo, mustard, yellow mustard.

Yeah, bell peppers, onion and garlic.

And I'm going to add three eggs to it.

This is a big job here.

This three eggs.

Now, this dish was often eaten in during Lent.

My grandmothers, my maternal and paternal grandmother would cook this on Good Friday or the Fridays during Lent.

I can.

But we certainly didn't do that.

You know, in New Orleans when Lent, you couldn't even eat.

Well, that was okay with us because, you know, we loved seafood down there.

So it wasn't a big sacrifice to have seafood on the on Friday's.

And then now you're going to you're going to make cakes.

Now and you're going to put that cook them in here and then put them in the oven.

Right.

So it looks kind of moist.

How are you going to do that?

So in a minute, I'm selling a minute.

You have to add some more breadcrumbs in there.

Bread crumbs.

He see, just knows how to do it.

Just put in a little and then in how long you going to cook those.

And I'll make them cook them til they're Brown.

Until they're brown All right.

I have a and I do here.

I'm going to add I want to add just a touch of.

cumin.

Oh yes!

Give it a little kick.

And while you're doing that, I'm going to mention because you're going to talk about Whitney Plantation, but we go to New York and we find out that was the second largest slave market in the United States, New York.

New York, all places.

Right.

And Savannah was the the largest.

And they have little plaques up through the city, but there's never been much hoo ha about any of this in New York.

And we've mainly stayed in the South.

But New York was a huge slave market.

And there you go.

That looks great.

And the other one was the Angola Prison, which nobody talked about, the fact that it was built right on a plantation plantation.

And it was the convicts went in there and they lived as if it was almost as if they were slaves again.

And they walked down the field.

Was like a slave.

Boat.

And these men that are sent out to work and work details that are in prison, they earned about $0.09 an hour.

And in any case, we do visit we do visit that plantation or prison, I should say.

I'm going to clean my hands for money.

You should.

Indeed.

And I'll give you some paper towel here.

This is this is active here, here, here.

And so and then we go to Goree Island off the coast of Senegal.

And that's where a lot of the slaves were sent from Africa.

And I was in Africa visiting some of the markets, the slave markets.

But the Africans got together and said, you know, they sold their own people to the Americans and the Belgians and the French and the English.

But they apologized to all of the people in the tribes that were sent to the New world.

And so if they can do it, why can't we do it?

And tell me tell me more about Whitney Plantation.

Well, when the plantation is a new plantation that tells the story of slavery through the eyes of children I visited there and I cried and I spot because there's a wall of all the names, of all the slaves that were there and where they came from.

And went into the plantation.

There's this church and that is the clay statues of kids dressed in their raggedy clothes and and so forth.

And, you know, there's nothing special about the big house.

There is a simple house.

But as you listen to the story and think about the plantation and all of the tour guides most of them are black.

Yes, white to tour guides are there as well.

But to make the story much more authentic, the narrative is told by by black people and whats wrong about that story.

Which makes sense.

You know, as you sit there and look out at the plantation, there are this baren field.

Hot, muggy and you think how hot they worked in that field.

And then after, you know, the day the huts are there.

I call them huts, but these houses or the slave's land is just wood basically in their beds which are straw you know, doesn't protect much from the elements because well you know how can you take from the elements when their homes and and the board of the building they're like outhouses.

yes, they are like outhouses.

Right.

Well, I think I will.

I don't need to put that in beca banana liquor and I have also some rum in here.

And not so far.

Yes.

I'm so far.

Anything can happen.

Though, right?

Anything can happen with that.

That is perfect.

What you have.

That's true.

I coloring.

Well, I'm glad you said that.

So how are you doing?

I'm fine.

I'm just fine.

One thing about this book is he visits Branford Cemetery in Virginia, and it comes at a time when they have a ceremony honoring the Confederate soldiers.

Yeah, and he speaks with some of the people there have.

What does the professor mean to them And and and why they there he did it nice and brown like that, saying look at that one.

Yeah.

Anyway, so what he learned from people he encounters is that they believe a story that fictitious.

yeah.

About that is created solely.

to perpetuate the glory of the Confederacy.

And one gentleman he speaks to says, Look, my grandfathers, my great grandfathers fought in this war and my grandfather wanted more.

And so that's the heritage I'm proud of.

These were patriots.

Yeah.

My I said, how could they be patriots?

They were traitors to the country.

Well, and people, people have to look at it that way.

I, I think it's, it's, it's real.

It's like we're living in two realities here.

I'm going to let this cook a little longer.

We have about a minute.

There you go.

You see it right there?

That beautiful.

Yeah.

Can you see it?

Yes.

Look at this.

I, nice and brown and I gonna let them cook a little bit more.

And you're going to put that in the oven?

Yeah, that's right.

That's correct.

For how long?

about 10 minutes.

About ten.

Minutes.

I want to get that.

We have about a minute to unpack this.

Anyway.

Perfect time.

This is the great, great.

The rum hot sauce is done.

This is ready to go in the oven.

My opinion is Foster just needs ice cream and a little bit of runny whipping cream.

We don't worry about that.

I'll put it on a baking sheet, and then we're all done.

Okay, so we'll.

We'll get this in the oven, and you're going to put it on that tray there, right?

Okay.

And we'll just take a short break.

We'll be right back.

And we're back and we just have a few minutes to entice you to our Yes.

Should we say New Orleans meal or what.

New Orleans meal.

Yes.

And now we're going to put some French vanilla ice cream on top, which is my favorite kind of vanilla ice cream.

I hope that doesn't work against your plan here.

Alfred, To lose weight.huh?

You're not going to lose weight with this dish., That's for sure.

No, that's right.

You don't have it very often in your life.

So in any case.

And so what I'm going to do is add the Remoulade Sauce Yeah.

To the crab cakes.

Right.

And in the meantime, we're going to say go down to New Orleans and enjoy some of this wonderful food there.

And that sauce will be just perfect on it.

Right.

And here's our dessert.

And I can't remember what it's called bananas.

Foster!

I'm thinking that there's a must be a composer.

Well, I've enjoyed the food.

I thoroughly suggest.

I mean, I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I suggest you read it.

It is right here.

And the remarkable thing about the book is Whitney the Plantation.

When I visited, I imagine imagined myself as a child and the plantation.

And then I begin to cry.

yes.

Because of all the suffering of those young children and and slavery.

Well, it certainly made a lot of people wealthy.

I can't say another word for it, and there is nothing to excuse it.

But in any case, I want you here any time we have important subjects to discuss.

All right.

African history.

Yes.

However, history is all part of the American story.

Yes, we have quite a story.

Thank you for joining us.

And now for thank you for.

And thank.

You.

The book and the food.

I thank you.

Wonderful and happy.

Travels.

Happy travels me.

I leave for France for six weeks.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, six weeks.

that's why we're having French vanilla ice cream.

So in any case, remember, good food, good friends, good travels, make for a very good life.

We'll see you next.

time.

Yeah.

This WNIT Local production has been made possible in part by viewers like.

You.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice, A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.