Turkey is off the table

With Thanksgiving less than one week away, it seemed like the perfect time to talk turkey—or lack thereof—with food historian Deb Freeman, host of the new VPM docuseries, Finding Edna Lewis. Our conversation, edited for clarity and condensed, follows.

Hanna Raskin: To start with some gratitude, thanks for playing along with the Thanksgiving theme. With this being a harvest holiday, it seemed like a good time to talk about seasonal eating and Edna Lewis’ commitment to it. So, rather than just assuming our readers know all about her and her philosophy, can you elaborate on it?

Deb Freeman: Absolutely. Edna Lewis was a pioneer of that farm-to-table, seasonal approach to eating that you see everywhere now. Her cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking, shone a light on how folks in—not just the South, but particularly in Virginia—really ate. These are dishes that are dependent upon what is available, what’s the freshest, what’s at its peak. That cookbook was a gateway into a way of eating, and made Americans think differently about Southern food.

Raskin: And, as you said, it isn’t just Southern food—although now that Ms. Lewis has become so well known, at least in our circles, everyone wants a piece of he, so she’s a Southern cook, an American cook, a Black woman cook. Of course, she was all those things, but very much a Virginia cook. Do you want to talk about the regionalism of her work?

Freeman: Virginia gets the short end of the stick. When it comes to Southern states, you always think about South Carolina and North Carolina, or any number of states, but Virginia…really, we need to do a better job of marketing what was created and perfected here: American fried chicken, and Brunswick stew, and macaroni-and-cheese, and, in my opinion, most importantly, American barbecue.

They all have their origins here in Virginia. And it’s always been very important for me to illuminate that. So, it really was a joy to learn about Edna Lewis’ life and say, ‘Oh my gosh, she has laid out this roadmap of what Virginia food is, a snapshot of Virginia food at a moment in time.’ We can all learn from that.

Raskin: Let’s return to Thanksgiving for a moment. Edna Lewis told Molly O’Neill that, in her personal history, Thanksgiving didn’t mean turkey.

Freeman: Yeah, in her mind, the holiday was manufactured by Butterball, and all these other outside forces; it didn’t seem real. I mean, her family was shipping turkeys off to the north [for Thanksgiving sale.] But she’s not letting the media dictate what’s on the table.

From her perspective, propaganda didn’t affect the people in Freetown. It was all about ‘How are we going to use what’s right in front of us and prepare it beautifully?’ And what’s really beautiful now are the quail and the peasant.

Raskin: I don’t know if you’ve seen the reports, but they say this Thanksgiving could see the fewest turkey dinners in almost half a century. Nobody can afford it. A typical Thanksgiving meal costs 42% more than it did in 2019, which is significant. So, if folks are coping with that, rather than buy a Butterball turkey, how can they model their holiday menus after what Edna Lewis might have made?

Freeman: I think a Cornish hen would be lovely. Then, you’re still giving that turkey vibe. Any of those smaller kinds of birds, even a roast chicken. (Editor’s note: Go easy on the squab.) She has recipes for all of these things.

And I don’t think people should feel bad about not wanting to spend the money on a turkey. That wasn’t really a thing until the 1940s, which leads back to what Ms. Lewis was saying: This is kind of an outside thing that’s been pushed on us. Having a turkey, that’s not the point. The original point of Thanksgiving when it became a national holiday was to unite the country, which is really interesting given the times that we’re in.

It’s not about the food, it’s about joining with your family. That’s more important than the meal itself.

Raskin: Knowing that, I won’t ask you for a menu, but can you say anything about your holiday plans and whether your work on the series has shaped them in any way?

Freeman: It has. I’m actually rethinking whether or not we’re going to do a turkey. I have not done her roast chicken recipe, so I’m going to be doing that for the first time. The work that I’ve done on the documentary has made me rethink how I can cook more beautifully, more elegantly, and more sensibly.

Raskin: That’s such a good example to end on because, as you said, every high-end restaurant owes something to Edna Lewis. But it sounds like there is still more to learn.

Freeman: Absolutely. Every step on this journey making this film, I’ve learned something completely new.

Raskin: Anything you might want to share with us?

Freeman: For me, what’s most memorable is how she held on to Freetown no matter where she was. If she was in Charleston, or she was in New York, wherever she was, everything returned to the Freetown ethos. Even as her recipes evolved and she incorporated other things into her menus, you could still see the Virginia focus. It’s really lovely that no matter where she was, she brought Virginia with her.

The first seven-minute episode of Finding Edna Lewis debuted in July on the VPM Culture YouTube page, with a new episode set to post each month through February 2025.