Tasty and Delicious: A Chance to Sample Bread From All Over the World
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Savory and crusty empanadas filled with meat and vegetables, mouthwatering crunchy quinoa crisps, deep-fried akara fritters.
These are just some of the historical and culturally diverse breads that will be made and served at the upcoming Global Grains: Celebrating Bread from Africa to the Americas culinary event this Saturday at Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow.
The event is sponsored by Historic Hudson Valley, the Tarrytown-based nonprofit educational and historic preservation organization. Post COVID, Historic Hudson Valley embarked on new and innovative programming to appeal to local diverse communities in and around Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown.
“We are always looking to grow in new ways and to engage with the community,” said Nicole Wallace, its education director. “We are trying to innovate and bring history more into the present. That’s how history becomes relevant to people.”
The family-friendly event will feature local chiefs and bakers cooking and serving assorted bread dishes. René León, chef and owner of Leon’s Latin Café in Thornwood, will make empanadas and quinoa crisps. His restaurant is known for Latin and Mexican food.
“There is a very large Latin and South American community currently living in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown,” Wallace noted. “René León is a well-known chef and he will make several grain-based dishes such as empanadas.”
Culinary historian Pam Nyambi will make akara fritters that uses mildly-flavored fried black-eyed pea dough. Black-eyed peas accompanied enslaved Africans onto the ships that took them to North America.
Wallace said that in 1750, Philipsburg Manor was home to 23 enslaved Africans.
“It was a working plantation where they were required to grow and harvest food that would be shipped to the city,” Wallace said. “They made bread that was taken on voyages and was part of the slave trade era.”
Recreating biscuits eaten on ships in the 18th century will be the cooks from Hudson Oven of Croton-on-Hudson. Voila Afrique will offer samples of eba, a popular starchy vegetable that is an African staple.
The Lenape, the indigenous tribe that lived in the Sleepy Hollow area and the greater Hudson Valley, were known to eat frybread, which is made with flour, salt, fat and water, formed into a flat dough bread that is deep-fried in oil, shortening or lard. Buffalo Jump NYC, a food vendor that celebrates Native American food culture, will be making that delicacy.
The event will also feature family-friendly activities including hands-on crafts such as salt dough, paste paper, book decorating and grain collages using assorted and colorful grains such as corn, lentil and wheat.
Tarrytown’s Warner Library staff will lead engaging bilingual English and Spanish story-time sessions for youngsters.
“We purchased books from the Sleepy Hollow bookstore for the event,” Wallace pointed out. “And the Warner Library will be bringing books from their collection that are about breads reflecting different heritages.”
All signage, programs and flyers will be in English and Spanish and there will be interpreters available to assist families. Tours of the manor house and grist mill will be available throughout the day.
Wallace said the event brings together many community businesses and organizations that Historic Hudson Valley would like to continue working with in the future.
“Our long-term hope is to develop relationships with these partners and continue to work with them and the communities they serve,” she said.
Global Grains: Celebrating Bread from Africa to the Americas is from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 13 at Philipsburg Manor, located at 381 N. Broadway in Sleepy Hollow. Tickets are $14 for adults and $12 for seniors and young adults (18 to 25 years old). Children under 17 and Historic Hudson Valley members are admitted for free.
For tickets and information, visit www.hudsonvalley.org.
Abby is a local journalist who has reported on breaking news for more than 20 years. She currently covers community issues in The Examiner as a full-time reporter and has written for the paper since its inception in 2007. Read more from Abby’s editor-author bio here. Read Abbys’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/ab-lub2019/
