21 Facts About Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was an American culinary anthropologist, griot, poet, food writer, and broadcaster on public media.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was active in the Black Arts Movement and performed on Broadway.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor's travels informed her cooking and appreciation of food as culture.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was known for her cookbook-memoir, Vibration Cooking: or, The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl, and published numerous essays and articles.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor produced two award-winning documentaries and was a commentator for years on NPR, serving as a contributor to its NOW series.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was in a National Geographic documentary about the Gullah people.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was raised in Hampton County, South Carolina, in the Low Country.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor grew up speaking Gullah, as her parents' families had been in the area for centuries and were part of that ethnic group and culture.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor recounted her paternal grandmother Estella Smart's way with oysters in her first cookbook, published in 1970.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor traveled to cities in Italy and other European countries.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor began to write about food and cooking as a way of expressing one's culture.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor eventually settled in New York City, where she pursued acting, making it to Broadway, where she played Big Pearl in Mandingo.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was attracted to the Black Arts Movement and its artists, including Nikki Giovanni and Leroi Jones, both of whom she refers to in Vibration Cooking.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was a commentator on NPR's All Things Considered and a regular contributor to NPR's Cultural Desk.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor produced a program on connections between indigenous people of South Africa and African Americans, South Africa and the African-American Experience.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor was the host of the radio shows Seasonings, a series of holiday specials on food, cooking, and culture, which won a James Beard Award in 1996 for Best Radio Show; and The Americas' Family Kitchen on PBS, which led to a television spinoff called Vertamae Cooks.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor has published articles in the Village Voice, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor has published under multiple names, including Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, Verta Smart, and Vertamae Grosvenor.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor writes about her own experiences of being discriminated against as a black woman and her frustrations with the oversimplification and pigeonholing of African-American cooking.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor includes a letter she once wrote to the editors of Time in response to an essay that claimed soul food to be tasteless: "Your taste buds are so racist that they can't even deal with black food," she wrote.

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor died of natural causes on September 3,2016, in the Bronx, NY at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale.