My name, my legacy and the paper that started it all

…legacy is not only spoken in speeches or written in textbooks: It is simmered, stirred and passed hand to hand. Potlikker does not announce itself. It waits. Be someone who recognizes that.

That is where I left off last month. Potlikker is not waste. It is the inheritance. It is all of the things your ancestors have passed down. Every generation before you has added something to the pot, strengthening it. Last month, I asked you to reconsider what you have been taught to discard.

This month, I want to take it a step further. I want to share a little bit about my name and my legacy, and I want us to start thinking about the pieces of ourselves and our backgrounds that make potlikker.

My legacy was simmering long before I ever picked up a pen or a chef’s coat. It started in 1981. While I was in her womb, my mother was reading a local newspaper. There was an article about a young Black woman who had graduated with high honors from college, a big deal at the time. Her name was Denise Lachelle. My mother decided right then that she would give me the first name Lachelle and the middle name Denise.

Lachelle. La Shell. The shell.

I did not always know what my first name was telling me. But my whole life, I have been collecting seashells. Any time I go to the ocean, I bring them home. One day, during a prayer meditation, I was holding one of my shells, and I saw it. The pattern at the center. Once I saw it there, I saw it everywhere. The spiral. In flowers. In pinecones. In the way a fern unfurls. In our very DNA. The golden ratio. The blueprint for life and, dare I say, abundance.

It shows up in my work, too. My work keeps circling outward, from the kitchen to the land, to the community, to the legacy… each loop wider than the last. I did not design that pattern. It was already in my name. It was already in my blood.

I am Lachelle. I am the shell. To me, the shell represents protection and home. This is what I am here for: to keep expanding the blueprint so that our community can not only sustain but regenerate.

Now, the paper that carried that young woman’s name to my mother? The Spokesman-Recorder. Started in 1934. Nearly 50 years before I was born.

Years later, I was the founding chef at Breaking Bread Cafe when this paper wrote about me. That same week, I asked my mom which paper she had gotten my name from. It was the Spokesman-Recorder. It felt like I was trying to remember something that had come long before me.

Before I wanted to be a chef, before I wanted to be a mother, before I knew I would spend my life building community, I wanted to be a writer. That was my first aspiration. And here I am, writing for the very paper that named me.

But this story is bigger than my name. My father’s uncle Moe, Maurice Burton, worked near 38th and 4th, the same intersection where this newspaper sits. A few blocks away, he turned two vacant lots into one of the first community gardens in this country. He was growing freedom long before “food justice” had a name. I will tell you more about Moe next month. His story deserves its own telling. In fact, this paper has been writing about him and my family for years, long before I ever picked up a pen for it.

The paper that named me and the family that raised me were both rooted near the same corridor, decades before I was born. Now I own a kitchen at 38th and Chicago and run Frogtown Farm across the river. Nobody drew me a map. I keep arriving at places that were already waiting for me.

If you cut open a seed, you will find the spiral. The legacy was always inside it, it just needed someone to plant it. Our ancestors planted seeds, carrying them across an ocean. Moe planted seeds on those vacant lots. I was a seed in my mother’s womb when this newspaper planted the seed of my name in her mind. All seeds endure sunshine and rain. Today, we are still here. Still planting. Still growing.

This salad is a plate of that freedom. I call it an Abundance Salad because that is what we have earned. Our ancestors survived so we could be here, and now we get to cook not just to survive, but to celebrate, to gather, to share, to taste something and feel joy in it. That is what abundance means to me. Not excess. Just the freedom to finally enjoy what was fought for. We can, and we shall, overcome.

Abundance Salad Formula

Black-eyed pea salad with fire cider vinaigrette, serves 6

This is a formula, not just a recipe. That means you follow the structure, but you choose your own ingredients within each category. Every time you make it, it can be different. That is the whole point. Abundance is not about having the exact right thing. It is about using what you have with intention.

You are going to want a big bowl for this, because it can get abundantly festive.

Build your bowl

Base (pick one, about two cans or three cups cooked): Black-eyed peas, chickpeas, black beans or lentils.

Crunch (pick three to four, chopped or diced): Bell pepper (any color), cucumber, celery, corn (grilled or roasted, cut off the cob), rhubarb, okra (thinly sliced), jalapeno (leave the seeds in if you want heat), red onion, radish or jicama.

Fresh (pick two to three): Tomato, green onions, avocado, mango or roasted beets.

Herbs (pick one to three, about half a cup total, washed and chopped): Cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano, mint or dill.

Creamy (optional): Crumbled feta, goat cheese, cotija, vegan cheese, or skip it entirely.

My version today: black-eyed peas, tomato, red onion, orange bell pepper, jalapeno, cucumber, celery, okra, grilled corn, green onions, feta and a big handful of fresh herbs. But yours does not have to look like mine.

The dressing formula: Fire Cider Vinaigrette

First, let me tell you about fire cider. Fire cider is an old folk remedy… a raw apple cider vinegar infused with horseradish, ginger, garlic, onion, hot peppers and sometimes turmeric or citrus. People have been making it for generations as a natural immune booster and digestive tonic. It has a kick to it: spicy, tangy, alive. When you use it as a salad dressing base, it brings that same energy to the plate.

You can make your own or buy it. I recommend Natural Me Apothecary, a Black-owned apothecary in North Minneapolis owned by Dr. Eva Garrett. She carries fire cider along with herbs, tinctures and remedies rooted in the healing traditions I have been exploring in this column.

Quick fire cider (if you want to make your own): Fill a jar with roughly equal parts chopped ginger, chopped garlic, chopped onion, sliced hot peppers (habanero or cayenne) and a piece of horseradish root. Cover everything with raw apple cider vinegar. Add a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of turmeric if you have it. Seal it, shake it and let it sit for two to four weeks. Strain it. That is your fire cider. It keeps for months.

The vinaigrette formula: a quarter cup fire cider, a quarter cup olive oil, half a teaspoon sweetener (maple syrup, honey or cane sugar), one to two teaspoons mustard of your choice, juice of one citrus (lime, lemon or orange) and your spice or herb blend.

Spice blend (adjust to taste): half a teaspoon each of coriander and cumin, a teaspoon each of onion powder and garlic powder, half to one teaspoon smoked paprika, salt and pepper to taste.

Whisk it all together. Taste it. Adjust. That is how you learn your own palate.

Here is what you do: Combine all your salad ingredients in a big bowl. Whisk together your vinaigrette in a separate small bowl. Toss it all together, then let it marinate for at least two hours in the refrigerator. This is not optional. The flavors need time to know each other.

This dish tastes like a heartful spring, because that is what it is.

What food memory lives in your family that you are ready to reclaim? Write to Lachelle at lcunningham@spokesman-recorder.com.

Lachelle Cunningham is the founder of Healthy Roots Institute, owner of City Food Studio and executive director of Frogtown Farm. She is a Bush Fellow, a practicing herbalist and a chef who believes food is a vehicle for healing, memory and power.

What the pot remembers

Pot likker Black food history explores how the nutrient-rich broth from simmered greens represents survival, healing and ancestral legacy in Black kitchens.

by Chef Lachelle Cunningham February 22, 2026February 22, 2026