If you can't make it to Virginia, you can still try your hand at these plantation eats:

• Vegetable or palm oil, or lard, for frying
• 1/2 pound chicken, fish or stew beef cut into cubes (optional)
• 2 to 3 tomatoes or 1 large can tomato sauce
• 1 or 2 onions, chopped
• 1 or 2 dried red peppers
• 1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 to 5 tablespoons peanut butter
• Salt and pepper
• 8 ounces fresh or frozen spinach or collard greens

If using meat, season and fry until tender. Drain and set aside.

Combine tomatoes, onions, pepper and garlic in a blender or food processor. Blend the mixture until it is liquified. Pour enough oil in a large pot to just cover the bottom. Add tomato mixture and fry over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, then lower the heat to medium and cover with a lid. Stir mixture frequently. Add spoonfuls of peanut butter to taste and stir until dissolved. Add seasoning to taste.

Cook for another 10 minutes, adding enough water to make the dish into a stew or soup. Cook for another 5 minutes and then add the greens to the stew. (Make sure there is enough water to cook the greens.) Add meat, season stew to taste and cook greens until tender. Serve with rice.

-- Harold Caldwell, Colonial Williamsburg

• 2 cups black-eyed peas
• 1 or 2 dried red chili peppers, chopped
• 1 or 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• Salt and pepper
• Vegetable or palm oil or lard for frying

Soak the peas in 4 cups water for at least 2 hours, or overnight. Place peas, onions, and spices in a blender with enough water to make the batter into a paste or liquid form. Season to taste.

Heat oil in a deep skillet to about 350 degrees. Beat the batter with a wire whisk or wooden spoon for a few minutes. Make fritters by scooping up a spoonful of batter and using another spoon to quickly push it into the hot oil. Deep fry the fritters until they are golden brown on both sides, about 5 to 7 minutes, turning frequently. Drain on paper towels and serve.

Serves 4 to 6.

-- Harold Caldwell, Colonial Williamsburg

• 2 to 3 handfuls of fresh okra, sliced into rounds, or 1/2 package frozen okra
• 2 or 3 whole crabs, or 3 to 6 legs, washed well
• 5 or 6 clams in the shell, rinsed
• 5 or 6 shucked oysters, rinsed
• 1 or 2 dried red chili peppers, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 or 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• Salt and pepper

Put okra in a pot with enough water to cover the okra. Cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add seafood and peppers, garlic and thyme and cover with lid. Reduce heat and simmer on low until all ingredients are cooked. (A low simmer will allow for the natural flavor of the seafood to season the gumbo.) Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve in large bowls over rice.

Serves 2 to 3.

-- Harold Caldwell, Colonial Williamsburg

• 1 chicken, cut into 4 parts
• 1/4 cup bread crumbs
• 1 teaspoon chopped parsley
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups white wine
• 1 medium onion
• 1 shallot
• 1/2 cup golden raisins or grapes
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 3 egg yolks

Lightly coat cut chicken pieces with bread crumbs and parsley. Place under broiler on medium or grill for 15 minutes, until the outside is brown but the meat is still pink by the joints.

Place chicken in a stewpot with broth, wine, onion, shallot, grapes or raisins and the lemon juice. Simmer for 1 hour over low heat, then remove chicken. Whip the egg yolks and gradually add some sauce while stirring, making sure not to cook the egg yolks. Add mixture into the rest of the sauce and heat gradually until it thickens. Pour over the chicken and serve.

Serves 4.

-- The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Mr. Clouet was a French chef at the White Hart Tavern in England. This recipe is prepared from "William Verral's Cookery Book" (1759).

• 1 1/2 pounds salmon cut into 1 1/2 inch steaks (about 6 pieces)
• For shrimp stock
• 1 stalk celery
• 1 onion, cut in quarters
• 1 carrot
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Shells of 1/3 pound shrimp
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 anchovy
• 4 cups of water
• For hot marinade
• 1 shallot, minced
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 1/2 stick butter
• 1/2 lemon sliced
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt pepper and parsley

To make shrimp stock: Fry the celery, onion, and carrot in the butter until soft. Add the shrimp shells, water, lemon juice and anchovy. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes. Strain and set aside.

To make the warm marinade, saute the shallot and onion in the butter add in the lemon slices and bay leaves and salt and pepper. Heat each salmon filet briefly in the lightly simmering marinade for about 2 minutes a side. Once they are all heated in the marinade finish cooking the salmon stakes on the grill for 5 minutes. Cover with the shrimp sauce and serve.

-- The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

These porridge-like dough balls are to Western and Central Africa cooking what mashed potatoes are to traditional European-American cooking. In West Africa, they're made with yams.

• 2 to 4 pounds of yams (use large white or yellow yams or equal parts yams and plantain bananas
• 1 teaspoon butter (optional)

Place yams in large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil and cook until the yams are soft, about 30 minutes. Remove pot from heat and cool yams with running water. Drain. Remove peels from yams. Add butter.

Put yams in a bowl and mash with a potato masher, then beat and stir with a wooden spoon until completely smooth. This might take 2 people: 1 to hold the bowl and the other to stir.

Shape the fufu into balls and serve immediately with meat stew or any dish with a sauce or gravy. To eat it, tear off a small handful with your fingers and use it to scoop up your meat and sauce.

-- "The Congo Cookbook" by Ed Gibbon (Ed Gibbon, 2008)

Gumbo is actually an Americanization of the African word for okra.

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