traditions his ancestors passed down to him. b.j.: so this is, um, some local blue crab, fresh in season. this is a play on some garlic crabs, but this is shrimp butter instead of garlic butter, and then you have that play of, you know, the french influence into the cuisine right here. anthony: the flavors and textures and food ways of west africa are all over southern cooking. and there are few better places to see how short the line between there and here than gullah culture. anthony: i m really enjoying this, i got to tell you. sean: this is so delicious. ashley: oh my goodness. anthony: how african is traditional gullah cooking? ashley: well, i think what happens is you change the location of the people, but you do not change who the people were. you did not change the information that they came with, with their traditions. sean: if you look at the history of american food and you ll you ll quickly see that this is this is one of the first true cuisines of
anthony: what is down-home southern cooking? where did it come from? who s responsible? well, it s always useful when asking those kinds of questions, wherever you are, to ask first, who did the cooking back then in the beginning? where did they come from? ashley: when you meet people here, you know that you re seeing a direct descendant of a slave that was here after, um, the slaves were freed. anthony: ashley greene grew up on mosquito beach on james island in charleston. her mother owns the property, which has been in her family for generations. fact of the matter is in the old south back when the dishes, flavors and ingredients of southern cooking, which is to say american cooking as opposed to european, chances are that food was grown, gathered, produced and prepared by african slaves. chef b.j. dennis has made it a personal mission to celebrate and protect the culinary