BIO

Dr. Kelley Fanto Deetz is the Vice President of Collections and Public Engagement at Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee, and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of African American Studies at the University of California Berkeley. She holds a B.A. in Africana Studies and History from The College of William & Mary and an M.A. and Ph.D. in African Diaspora Studies from the University of California at Berkeley.

Deetz is a public historian dedicated to researching the history of enslaved Africans and African Americans, elevating their stories, and amplifying the need for acknowledgement and reconciliation. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book, Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine, which was named as one of the top ten books on food of 2017 by Smithsonian Magazine and later inspired a poem by Alice Walker.

You can find her most recent work in Audible’sThe Great Courses on the history of sugar, and her contribution to the cookbook California Soul, with celebrity and OWN-TV star Chef Tanya Holland and author Alice Walker. Her work can be found in Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The Conversation, USA Today, and in several podcasts and lectures on YouTube.

BOUND TO THE FIRE

Dr. Deetz will be sharing her research that led to her book, Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine. In grocery store aisles and kitchens across the country, smiling images of “Aunt Jemima” and other historical and fictional black cooks can be found on various food products and in advertising. Although these images are sanitized and romanticized in American popular culture, they represent the untold stories of enslaved men and women who had a significant impact on the nation’s culinary and hospitality traditions. This lecture draws from archaeological evidence, cookbooks, plantation records, and folklore to present a nuanced study of the lives of enslaved plantation cooks from colonial times through emancipation and beyond. She reveals how these men and women were literally “bound to the fire” as they lived and worked in the sweltering conditions of plantation house kitchens. These highly skilled cooks drew upon skills and ingredients brought with them from their African homelands to create complex, labor-intensive dishes such as oyster stew, gumbo, jambalaya, and fried fish. Deetz’s work helps restore these forgotten figures to their rightful place in American and Southern history.