Taig's Gift The Kulture Keepers Cookbook: Recipes and Stories that Celebrate Chatham County's Black Museums

By Deborah Johnson-Simon, Taig Goins, Jr. and Gwendolyn Frazier Smith

Learn about eight Chatham County, Georgia Black museums through the eyes of seven-year-old Taig and his grandmother, a museum anthropologist. Taig and his grandmother will teach you to think like a museum anthropologist too while you explore the stories of these Black museums and 80 delicious recipes that kids and their family will love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781387396788

Book preview

Taig’s Gift

The Kulture Keepers Cookbook

Recipes and Stories That Celebrate Chatham County’s Black Museums

Story Told by Taig Goins, Jr.

Written by Dr. Deborah Johnson-Simon

Designed by Gwendolyn Frazier Smith

Edited by Jennifer C. West

Taig’s Gift The Kulture Keepers Cookbook: Recipes and Stories that Celebrate Chatham County’s Black Museums

Author: Dr. Deborah Johnson-Simon

Author: Taig Goins, Jr.

Editor: Jennifer C. West

Artist: Gwendolyn Frazier Smith

© 2022 African Diaspora Museology Institute. All rights reserved.

Published by African Diaspora Museology Institute.

ISBN: 9781387396788

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Note: The term we are espousing here, culture with a K, comes from the word kultur. It is noun, often capitalized, that means culture sense. When we were using cultural anthropology and museum anthropology to research this book, we realized that our sense of Black Museum Anthropology was heightened. It also donned on us that for the purpose of this book and the naming of a new kid’s club dedicated to the Kiah Museum in Savannah Georgia, culture would be spelled Kulture. Adding the e to the Kultur would demonstrate we were exercising our extreme sense of our very own African American museum history and culture. Those who are Kulture Keepers are those individuals and institutions that celebrate African American history and culture via their beliefs and behaviors that have been passed down to them for generations through the ways that they eat, how they worship, the language they speak, the art they create, the material collections in their buildings and homes, as well as curate exhibitions for their museums.

Imprint: Lulu Publishing

African Diaspora Museology Institute

P.O. Box 5261

Savannah, GA 31414

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Dr. Calvin Lycurgus Kiah and Virginia Jackson Kiah who started the Kiah Museum in Savannah, Georgia, and their love for children, the arts, education, and Kulture Keeping. May this book inspire the next generation to learn more about culinary arts and black museology.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the staff of the Asa H. Gordon Library at Savannah State University and the Friends of the Kiah Museum. Extra special thanks to the Kiah Historical Marker Committees of which the Kiah Kids Committee allowed us to work on this cookbook to help raise awareness about not only the Kiah Museum but all the black museums in Chatham County who will need the Kiah Kids to help them keep the history and culture of Georgia.

Our Key Informants and Kulture Keepers

Kim Dubois –the Beach Institute

John Girard, Jr. –First African Baptist Church

Patricia Beaton- First Bryan Baptist Church

Imani Mtendaji- King Tisdell Cottage

Justice Dilworth-Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum

Randy Thomas- Pin Point Heritage Museum

Ann Ogden- Asa H. Gordon Library at Savannah State University

Our amazing editors

JoAnn Robinson James, Joyce Hart., Tina Hicks, Dr. Queenchiku Ngozi, and Jennifer West

This could have not been done without the assistance of Mr. and Mrs. Taig Goins, Sr. Much Love and appreciation.

Abundant gratitude to an amazing artist and designer Gwendolyn Frazier-Smith

Forward

Taig Goins, Jr. was two years old when I met his grandmother, Dr. Deborah Johnson-Simon.  I have observed their relationship blossom.  We call her Dr. D and those of us in Savannah know him as her little boss man. Dr. D is a museum anthropologist. I am a Savannah native. I work with seniors at the Golden Age Centers in Chatham County. Dr. D came to us in 2016 to ask our assistance with a project she was working on with the students in her anthropology classes at Savannah State University. Her passion was to learn the story of the Kiah Museum and to save it from the wrecking ball.  None of us knew anything about museum anthropology and couldn’t understand how we could help. She always wanted to learn to quilt and that became our common ground. Through quilting, shared meals, and Black museology conversations we formed the Friends of the Kiah Museum. Like Taig describes in this cookbook these exchanges had the Friends thinking and dreaming like museum anthropologists.  Over the years we have shared the joys and sorrows of our lives raising our children, loving, and teaching our grandchildren while all the time we are learning from them. Well, open this book both young and old and learn about eight of the Black museums in Chatham County.  Get excited about the 80 recipes that have become the favorites of Taig and his grandmother and the Friends. This is relevant because African American museums are rarely the focus of our museum studies. They are the keepers of our history and culture. However, in this rare cookbook we learn that it is not wrong to spell culture with a K. 

Tina Hicks

Friends of the Kiah Museum, President

Leader Chatham County Kiah Kids Kulture Klub (the 4K’s)

This is my Story

My name is Taig, and I am seven years old. I live in McDonough, Georgia with my parents. I am the youngest of four children. My other three siblings are adults who live on their own. My grandma lives in Savannah. When I was five, my grandma came to stay with us to help me get ready to go to kindergarten while my parents worked. She has always called me her little man and she enjoys taking me with her to museums. We have learned about the things that are in museums, the people who work there, and how the museums and the people living near them help each other.

During our times together, my grandmother and I have done all kinds of things that would help me appreciate my history and culture as an African American — cooking, doing art, reading stories, and writing our own stories too.  I would share those things with the kids at my school.  I’ll never forget the summer when I was five years old.  Grandma said I was big enough to help her with her very special project.

I would like to share my black history story with you.  Well, it is more of a black museum story when I think about it.  You’re probably wondering what kind of black history can this kid share?  I get it, but I do have something interesting to tell you.  I want to share all my favorite stories about black museums and black leaders in Chatham County, Georgia.

Grandma says it’s important that I think and feel like a real anthropologist, so she lets me help her prepare lessons for her students at Savannah State University. As long as I can remember, my grandmother has found ways to sneak in something about anthropology or black museums into our conversation.  We talked about these things when we had our cup of tea or coffee with lots of creamer.  This was our special time in the morning when everyone else was sleeping.  One day