Vertamae Smart Grosvenor (born 1938 in Hampton County, South Carolina) is a Culinary Anthopologist / Griot food writer and broadcaster, raised in the South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 lowcountry

South Carolina Low Country

The Lowcountry is a geographic and cultural region located along South Carolina's coast. The region includes the South Carolina Sea Islands...

.

Broadcasting

Grosvenor has been a long-time contributor to Public broadcasting

Public broadcasting

Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...

 in the United States. She is a regular contributor to NPR

NPR

NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...

's Cultural Desk. She is also the host of Seasonings, a series of holiday specials on food and culture. From 1988 to 1995 she was the host of NPR's documentary series Horizons. In 1990 she won a duPont-Columbia Award for "AIDS and Black America: Breaking the Silence". In 1992 the National Association of Black Journalists issued her an award for her segment "South Africa and the African-American Experience".

Writing

Grosvenor is the author of Vibration Cooking, also known as The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl. The cookbook, originally published in 1970, is an autobiographical culinary cookbook, and documents her accession from the dusty roads of South Carolina to the bright lights of Paris, Italy, and other European countries, and later, to the Black Arts Movement of New York City. Through her experiences, Vertamae uses the universal palate of adventure to introduce the reader to people, places, rituals, and international culinary delights.

Vibration Cooking focuses on lowcountry cooking

Lowcountry cuisine

Lowcountry cuisine is the cooking traditionally associated with the South Carolina Lowcountry and the Georgia coast. While it shares features with Southern cooking, its geography, economics, physics, demographics, and culture pushed its culinary identity in a different direction from regions above...

 and Geechee (or Gullah

Gullah

The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands....

) cooking. The book emphasises spontaneity in the kitchen. Grosvenor shows the reader how to cook by "vibration," rather than precisely measuring ingredients, and how to "make do" with ingredients on hand. She captures the essence of traditional African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 techniques. Her book uses the hearty, simple, healthful, basic ingredients of lowcountry cuisine, including shrimp

Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

, oysters, crab

Crab

True crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" , or where the reduced abdomen is entirely hidden under the thorax...

, fresh produce, rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

, and sweet potatoes. The first edition is now a classic-cookbook collectors' must-have.

Personal

In addition to Vibration Cooking, Grosvenor is the author of "Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off: A Domestic Rap". She has been a contributing editor to Elan Magazine and Essence Magazine, and has written for Village Voice, The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, and The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

.

Grosvenor is the mother of two children: Kali Grosvenor-Henry, a poet, essayist and author of "Poems by Kali", (Doubleday 1970); and Chandra Ursule Weinland-Brown, an actor, visual artist, and poet).

Publications

• Grosvenor, Vertamae. Vibration Cooking: The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl. Ballantine Books, 1992. ISBN 0-345-37667-6.
• Grosvenor, Vertamae. Vertamae Cooks Cooks in America's Family Kitchen. KQED Books, 1996. 0-91233388X.
• Grosvenor, Vertamae. Vertamae Cooks Again. Bay Books, 1999. ISBN 0-912333-91-X.
• Grosvenor, Vertamae. Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off: A Domestic Rap.