Kardea Brown's Shrimp and Grits Starts with Bacon

Your Mama’s Kitchen

Higher Ground

Relationships, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

American chef and T.V. host Kardea Brown tells her family’s stories of Edisto Island and the Gullah Lowcountry in South Carolina. Kardea talks to Michele about the unique culture of the Lowcountry and how Gullah cuisine and farming has historical ties to West Africa. Plus, Kardea shares how her ancestral history continues to drive her purpose and her cooking show, as she works hard to preserve old traditions from being erased. On top of mentioning her delicious cheesecake recipe, Kardea officially shares with us her recipe for Shrimp and Grits, done Gullah style!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Your Mama's Kitchen is brought to you by Rivian.
0:08.8	When slave owners did not want certain scraps in certain parts, they call it low on the hog,
0:16.2	certain parts of the meat that they did not want, they would give it to the slaves along rice, to keep them, you know, satiated throughout the day to work on the fields.
0:25.7	So that's why, to this day, rice is still very much an important part of our meals because that's all we knew.
0:32.9	That's all our ancestors knew.
0:43.7	Hello, hello, and welcome back to your mama's kitchen.
0:49.5	This is a place where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grew up in as kids. And not just the food, but all the stuff that happens there.
0:53.0	The homework, the arguments, the
0:55.1	important conversations, the big fish stories. Our guest today is Cartier Brownsmith. She's a New York
1:01.7	Times best-selling cookbook author. She's got another cookbook on the way. She's co-hosting a kid's show
1:07.5	called Championship baking. It's actually Kids Championshipaking, and that's on the Food Network.
1:13.5	You may know her from another show she does on the Food Network called Delicious Miss Brown, and it features fresh, seasonal, and food that really relies heavily on the bounty from the sea, because that speaks to her culture.
1:29.2	The show is hosted on Edisto Island.
1:31.8	She has strong and deep family roots there.
1:35.4	And so we're going to talk a little bit about food, a little bit about family,
1:39.2	and a little bit about her family's history in this conversation.
1:42.4	Cardier, thanks so much for being with me.
1:44.6	Thank you for having me. This is so exciting to talk about all things, food with someone who
1:50.2	wants to listen. Yes, I do want to listen. And I'm glad we're talking about the food from the
1:55.0	low country. And Charleston, in particular, you live in Charleston now. That's one of my all-time
2:00.4	favorite cities. I never miss if someone invites me to Charleston. The answer is always yes.
2:05.2	Oh, yeah. Because I love the people and I love the food and I love the vibe and I really love everything about that city. So let's start where we always start on the show with your mama's kitchen. You grew up with two people in the kitchen, your mother and
	...

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