OP: A Date with a Dish

Hermitage Press, Inc., 1948. Hardcover. Very Good, missing jacket. First printing. Freda De Knight (1909–1963) was not only the first food editor of Ebony magazine, she was also the first Black food editor for a major publication in the US. Her first and only cookbook, A Date with a Dish, was published in 1948.  De Knight, raised in South Dakota by adoptive parents who happened to be caterers, writes a book reflective of the middle class Black diaspora for whom dishes like arroz con pollo, gumbo, stuffed peppers, meat loaf, spaghetti, barbecue, crab and tomato bisque, roast capon, and kitchari all had a place on the table—an important statement rejecting the notion the Black food was specifically or only southern in nature. A chapter called The Collector’s Corner—which includes brief biographies and recipes from Black cooks around the country—was removed for the 1962 and subsequent editions (at which point it was also retitled The Ebony Cookbook). It is a special honor, then, to offer