The Ebony Test Kitchen, Where Black Cuisine Was Celebrated, Is Reborn
The New York Times
The vibrant room is the centerpiece of a new exhibition in Harlem focused on the African American food experience.
When Charlotte Lyons first stepped into the Ebony test kitchen in Chicago after becoming the magazine’s food editor in 1985, one thought ran through her mind: “Whoa!”
Here, amid the psychedelic waves of orange, green and purple that swirled along the walls, Black cuisine was freed to be experimental and futuristic. For Ebony readers, the magazine’s food was a central element of Black identity and pride.
When the kitchen was built in the early 1970s, it heralded the magazine’s place in the culinary pantheon, a legacy that began a quarter-century before with Freda DeKnight, an exalted cook and food editor who paved a path for future generations of Black women in American food media.
