Explore the African Diaspora With 10 Recipes From Dr. Jessica B. Harris’s Travels

wdc tv news staff June 3, 2025

9 6 minutes read

Dr. Jessica B. Harris has been part of the fabric of Food & Wine for decades, melding her boundless curiosity and itchy traveling feet with the deep scholarship and teaching that has been her hallmark through 19 books — one of which was adapted to become the acclaimed Netflix series High on the Hog. Harris shares on an upcoming episode of the Tinfoil Swans podcast that she grew up in New York City as the daughter of artists — her father a talented draftsman and her mother a jewelry maker — who had to defer their dreams to make a living in a society that didn't care to make a place for Black people with these aspirations.

They encouraged hers, though, and she attended an arts high school and went on to major in French at Bryn Mawr. A junior year abroad with Sarah Lawrence fully ignited the Francophilia that had been kindled by periodic adolescent trips to French restaurants with her parents, and while writing her post-college dissertation, she became the travel editor for Essence magazine.

Harris became a denizen of the world at large, finding particular pleasure in exploring the culinary diaspora of Africa as reflected through dishes and ingredients from around the world. In the February 1991 issue of Food & Wine, she reflected on the women of her family, including her Grandmother Harris who hailed from “hardscrabble Deep South,” her Grandma Jones who “had more patrician origins and harked back to the kitchen of Virginia plantations manned by house slaves who turned spits, put up preserves, and served elegant meals,” and her dietitian mother who honored both of these traditions.

“Fate has placed me at the juncture of two African American culinary traditions: the plantation Big House and the rural South,” Harris wrote. She went on to follow countless pathways from that origin point, exploring her Southern roots in a 1994 menu featuring Pecan-Coated Pork Chops along with spinach spiked with baked sweet potatoes, hot sauce-spiked spinach, and gingersnaps with ice cream.

Harris traveled to the Caribbean for a September 1996 feature on chicken dishes including Puerto Rico's Asopao de Pollo and Guadeloupe's Chicken Colombo — a dish she explained “is a legacy of indentured servants who came from coastal India in the last century” and “has taken a bit from the French and a bit from the African to become truly Creole.”

And she has shared recipes and essays with Food & Wine along the way — notably a 1996 exploration of Kwanzaa traditions and another on her mother's Apple-Pineapple Pie, a 2022 reflection on her decades spent entertaining friends in Martha's Vineyard, the 2019 curation of an exceptional package called “The Original Innovators,” honoring the contributions of African American people to American cuisine, and a May 2022 essay delving into her life spent eating on the road.

These recipes share some of the bounty of Harris' life so richly lived and far-flung. You are sure to find a new favorite to expand your horizons — and book a ticket to somewhere delicious.

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Mom's Citrus Meringue Pie

Greg DuPree

In 2018, Food & Wine named Harris' pie as one of the 40 best recipes the publication has ever published. It originally ran as part of a menu she developed for the February 1991 issue, called “Heirloom Recipes From a Southern Family: A Big-Flavored Meal in the African-American Tradition,” and followed a feast of fresh ham with rosemary-pear marinade, pear chutney, her mother's three-cheese macaroni, marinated cucumber salad, rutabaga and potato puree, and hoecakes, as well as a cool drink of lemon and orange juices, sugar, and a touch of grenadine. The Prebaked Orange Pastry Shell works with either lard or vegetable shortening and takes on a piquant punch from fresh orange juice.

Sweet Potato Oven Fries

Matt Taylor-Gross

In the December 1996 issue of Food & Wine, Harris shared a taste of the African diaspora in a story about Kwanzaa, writing, “To some 13 million Americans of African descent, December 26 is not just the day after Christmas. Instead it marks the beginning of Kwanzaa, a week of feasting and reflecting on seven principles of particular importance to the African-American community. Each day, a candle is lit to invoke one of these principles, beginning on the 26th with unity and ending on January 1 with faith.

Because Kwanzaa is such a young holiday — it was created in 1966 by Professor Maulana Karenga — its culinary traditions are still evolving. Christmas calls for a ham or a turkey, and potato latkes signal Hanukkah, but there is no set Kwanzaa menu. And since the holiday lasts a week, every meal can't demand a day in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Kwanzaa is a time for creativity, for foods that helped the African people survive on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Her menu also included Caribbean-inflected Roast Chicken with Mango Rum Glaze, store-bought pecan pie with ice cream, and dilled green beans. The sweet potatoes, she noted, are a nod to “the African-American diet in the South.”

Dilled String Beans

Matt Taylor-Gross / Food Styling Barrett Washburne

The beans in Harris' Kwanzaa feast are simply sautéed in butter and dill until browned, then seasoned with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.