Commemorating Juneteenth: Juneteenth Recipes for Celebrations

Often the foods you’ll find at a Juneteenth celebration are symbolic: There’ll be dishes that represent prosperity (collard greens, black-eyed peas), and red foods and drinks (such as hibiscus-tinged punch) that have been served at special occasions throughout the African diaspora. "The color red is the embodiment of spiritual power and transformation," writes historian Michael Twitty on his website, Afroculinaria, who also wrote this story about the occasion. When people gather to observe the day, there's also almost always barbecue, whether in the form of pulled pork, ribs, chicken, or all of the above. This collection of Juneteenth recipes comes from Epi contributors and from some of our favorite cookbooks by Black authors; for more from these chefs, click the links to the cookbooks—there are many more great recipes where these came from.

From Oprah Daily:
The Traditional Foods of Juneteenth Carry a Rich History, Dating Back Centuries
The enslaved brought customs from Africa to the U.S. that we still see today.

According to culinary historian and food writer Michael Twitty, the use of red dates back "to the enslaved Yoruba and Kongo brought to Texas in the 19th century."Twitty goes on to write, "enslavement narratives from Texas recall an African ancestor being lured using red flannel cloth, and many of the charms and power objects used to manipulate invisible forces required a red handkerchief." "In West Africa, the color red is a symbol of strength, spirituality, and life and death."

Toast with red soda and red punch.
Barbecue cherry-glazed ribs.
Bake red velvet cake
Eat watermelon: Rev. Dr. Ronald Myers, the head of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, even called it “one of the oldest traditional foods on Juneteenth.”