Gullah Gourmet Review

As Featured on Food Network!



The Gullah Culture:

The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Low Country region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Historically, the Gullah region once extended north to the Cape Fear area on the coast of North Carolina and south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on the coast of Florida; but today the Gullah area is confined to the South Carolina and Georgia Low Country. The Gullah people are also called Geechee, after the Ogeechee River near Savannah, Georgia. The term Geechee is most com-monly used in Charleston, South Carolina.

The Gullah are known for preserving more of their African linguistic and cultural heritage than any other African American community in the United States. They speak an English-based creole language containing many African loanwords and significant influences from African languages in grammar and sentence structure. The Gullah language is related to Jamaican Creole, Bahamian Dialect, and the Krio language of Sierra Leone in West Africa. Gullah storytelling, foodways, music, folk beliefs, crafts, farming and fishing traditions, etc. all exhibit strong influences from West and Central African cultures.






About The Gullah Gourmet Company:

In 1993 I had a small Gourmet Basket Shop in the famous tourist area of the downtown Charleston Market. As you know, Charleston is very well known for its flavorful cuisine. We would have many tourists come in that would have tasted Shrimp & Grits in one of our wonderful restaurants, and they would want a recipe to take home. At the time we carried all of the local cookbooks and none of them had recipes for that, so I knew that would be a great first product. I wanted it to be unbreakable, yet eye catching, taste as if the finest chef in town had prepared it, and be easy because I am not a cook. I wanted the background of the bags to look like newspaper print because when I was younger and you went into a seafood house to purchase fresh seafood they would wrap it in newspaper for you to take home. I also wanted to incorporate the Gullah language on the back of the bags. Gullah is a language that is a mixture of Elizabethan English and African that is spoken rapidly, in a rhythm, and is rather difficult to understand. Of course, it had to be modified, because if it were true Gullah, most people would not understand it and not be able to prepare the product. As a child I would love to listen to the Gullah language, and all of the stories and the songs still ring in my head. The language is still spoken on the outer islands around our area. It is almost a lost language, and I wanted to try to keep it alive and pay homage to the colorful culture and people. In other words, when someone buys a package of Gullah Gourmet, I not only want them to take home the flavor of Charleston, but also a bit of the culture. We went to work on this new venture in 1994 with four products and have been so blessed the whole way through. Now, fifteen years later, we have thirty-two bagged products, twenty-four bottled and jarred products, a variety of canned seafood, aprons, and T-shirts. We are proud to say that we have been featured on the Food Network many times, the first of which was the Food Finds program. The most recent production was with Paula Deen's sons, Jamie and Bobby, on their show Road Tasted. Our products are now known worldwide and are award winners for taste as well as packaging.

My Review:

When I received my box of goodies to review from The Gullah Gourmet I was really excited to see that it contained all of my favorites. It had She Crab Soup, Shrimp and Grits, Fried Green Tomatoes, Hot Crab Dish, Peach Cobbler and Sweet Cornbread Mix. Even had a little toy blue crab tucked in it!

Last night I fixed the She Crab Soup, Shrimp and Grits and the Peach Cobbler. All was really yummy and thankfully I have enough left for my lunch today. I will fix the Fried Green Tomatoes and the Cornbread tonight!

Here is what the She Crab Soup Bag looks like.



And here is the finished She Crab Soup!



Here is what the Shrimp and Grits bag looks like.



And here is the finished Shrimp and Grits!



Here is what the Peach Cobbler Bag looks like.



And here is the yummy finished Peach Cobbler!





To visit their website and find out more about their products or to order, please go to: http://www.gullahgourmet.com

If you are ever in Charleston, SC, please be sure you go by and visit them!



These products were awesome and I rate them a 9.75 out of 10!

Disclosure: While I was sent tasting samples, all opinions presented here are entirely my own.