Prospect Park Alliance presents a Pinkster celebration in the yard of Lefferts Historic House, an 18th century Flatbush farmhouse that serves as the park’s historic house museum, in timing with the completion of a multi-year restoration. Chief Baba Neil Clarke, the Pinkster Players & friends, will lead this family-friendly event, featuring music, history, performances, storytelling, demonstrations, games and FOOD related to this historic celebration of enslaved and free Africans in New York…

About Pinkster

“Africans enslaved in Brooklyn celebrated Pinkster for almost 200 years. Chief Baba Neil Clarke along with other cultural leaders revived this almost forgotten tradition as a way to commemorate the culture and history of Africans in New York. Pinkster is the Dutch word for Pentecost, a spring holiday celebrating the founding of the Christian church. This was the only time each year when Africans enslaved in New York were legally allowed to gather with their families, play music and dance in public, and trade goods. In doing so, enslaved Africans preserved their cultures and built new rituals. Over the years, they transformed Pinkster into a festival of African culture, one of the oldest in what became the United States. However, in 1811 New York began outlawing this important centuries-old holiday, forcing African New Yorkers to preserve its traditions in private. Revivals of Pinkster have been growing in popularity since the 1970s and the Alliance hosted its first Pinkster at Lefferts Historic House in 1990.” ~ Prospect Park Alliance

FOOD for Pinkster

“Throughout the African diaspora during the New World colonial period several dishes began appearing that are still eaten today. Using inexpensive, ingredients from dry storage, easy to make, delicious, nutritious and hearty dishes that could been enriched with bits of meat or fish would have been a part of Pinkster . Ingredients were portable ( i.e. light to carry) and the finished dishes were wonderful things to share. Culinary gifts originally cultivated by Indigenous/Native American peoples and now available worldwide, ingredients native to the Americas like Maize (Corn) dried and ground would be made into a thick mush and used as a bread or porridge also known as Coo-Coo or ‘Turned Corn Meal to many. Red Beans (Kidney Beans) native to the Americas appear in soups, stews , on their own or starring in dishes, like the beloved “Red Beans and Rice”. Dandelion greens [the long, shark-tooth looking leaves of the common plant that produces the ubiquitous yellow flower] were brought to the New World by Europeans grew plentifully as an early spring green for edible and medicinal uses, were easily picked and readily adapted by enslaved and free Africans, including those traveling along miles of grassy roads to Pinkster gatherings. Dressed with apple cider vinegar, one of the products of hundreds of apple trees planted in New York.” ~ TFG edited/adapted excerpt; researched & written by Lavada Nahon, Culinary Historian-Independent Scholar.

Come see & enjoy a historic cooking demo & intel by Historic Cooking Instructor, Lavada Nahon AND sample versions of the featured ingredients in dishes prepared by Culinary Creative/Caterer, LisaRoxanne Walters. Yours Truly/The Food Griot will share Lefferts House Food History highlights as curated by Historian & Scholar Dylan Yeats of the Re-Imagine Lefferts Initiative. Join us to time-travel, TASTE and get inspired to CREATE your own Pinkster FEAST! Happy Pinkster!

RSVP ON EVENTBRITE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/pinkster-celebration-tickets-630147667637