Red-braised pork is a Hunanese dish that is inseparably bound up with the memory of Chairman Mao; many restaurants call it “The Mao Family’s red-braised pork”. The people of Mao Zedong’s home village of Shaoshan actually recommend the dish as a “health food”. Mao’s nephew, Mao Anping, had this to say: “Men eat it to build their brains and ladies to make themselves more beautiful.” To prevent imitations, official guidelines have been issued to restaurants across China instructing them how to cook Mao Tse-tung’s favorite meal . Restaurants which do not follow the correct procedures will not be allowed to title themselves as “authentically” Hunanese. One of the least fiery dishes in the entirety of Hunan cuisine, the pork is cooked with sugar, cinnamon, chilis, and star anise. Vegetarian variations of the recipe utilizes garlic gloves, deep-fried bean curd, preserved mustard greens and water chestnuts as main ingredients. This version is from Fuchsia Dunlop’s Revolutionary
Less than 3-hours north of West Palm Beach — approximately 6 miles north of Orlando — sits the town of Eatonville . Settled in 1880 by newly freed slaves, Eatonville was incorporated in 1887 and was the first town to be organized, governed and incorporated by African-American citizens in the United States. “ Of the more than one hundred black towns founded between 1865 and 1900, fewer than twelve remain today .” Considered home to American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston , the Eatonville visited by my cousin and I bears no resemblance to the one Hurston grew up in. Our trip along Kennedy Boulevard took us to the the St. Lawrence AME Church, founded in 1881 and the first African-American church in the area. Its present location was erected in the early 1970s and sits almost directly across from Gordon’s Be Back Fish House . Also along Kennedy, you’ll find the Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts . Born January 7, 18