This Restaurant in Seattle Has Food With Roots

by Paula Hayeson Unsplash

Soul food is traditionally associated with the American south.

It’s also associated with African Americans from the southern United States. It’s a form of fusion, with influences from West Africa, North America, and Western Europe.

This type of cuisine reflects ingredients available during a time of oppression and hardship and shows how creative people can be when faced with a limited list of ingredients. 

When West Africans were taken from their homes and forced to travel to North America, they brought their food traditions with them.

Much of America’s culinary history was created from corn, rice, peas, and pork. These are ingredients associated with Southern food.

Some people think this food is unsophisticated because it’s basic fare. That’s not the case. It’s comfort food at its finest.

It’s a cuisine with a history that should be celebrated and enjoyed. 

Junebaby does exactly that.

They are a southern restaurant in Seattle, Washington's Ravenna Neighborhood.

Their website boasts an entire page dedicated as an encyclopedia of soul food. 

Traditional names of dishes include a short description of the ingredients. The etymology of several familiar words links them back to the history of this tradition. 

One example is: 

“Coffee- Word derived from kaffa, region in Ethiopia. It is a brewed drink made from the seeds of berries from the coffea plant that has been roasted. Coffea is native to tropical Africa and Madagascar.” Junebaby

It also includes a list of 5 things everyone can do to support the Black community and to raise awareness of systemic oppression, privilege, and the role you and your communities play in upholding systems of white supremacy.

Chef Edouardo Jordan creates and serves soul food with a modern touch. He brings light to the dark history of the origins of the foods and presents it to his customers.

His absolute best dish is the shrimp gumbo. It could also be considered a prime example of what is special about JuneBaby. Its delicacy fully displays the talents of this chef. 

• Gumbo is a dish enjoyed by people of all classes. It’s the most widely known and could be said to be the most popular dish from the south.
• The name comes from a West African word for okra, suggesting that gumbo was originally made with okra. They called it “ki ngombo”, or, in its shortened form, “gombo”.
• Shrimp gumbo ingredients vary widely from one chef to the next and from one part of the country to another.
• Some cooks use filé (dried and ground sassafras leaves) as a thickener instead of okra. It’s also considered an addition that improves the flavor. This thickener may have been a contribution of local tribes. 
• Roux is sometimes used in gumbo as a thickener. The roux used in gumbos is much darker than its French origins. A roux is a cooked combination of flour and oil, and sometimes water. It takes quite a lot of practice to cook the roux well enough to remove the flavor of the flour, without burning it.

JuneBaby also offers several take-home products that include hard-to-find rice varieties, jams, red peas, and sorghum syrup.

Their website boasts a cooking page that provides details on how to use their Cornbread Mix and Ancient Grain Pancake Mix. 

The dry ingredients read like a trip around the northwest: Oregon grown buckwheat flour, Washington grown einkorn flour, Oregon grown red flint cornmeal, poppy seeds, flaxseed, millet seed, sugar, salt, buttermilk powder, baking soda.

They also provide quite an extensive list of batched cocktails, including ones with unique names such as ‘Deep in the Quiet Woods and Lucinda’s Hot Toddy’.

It’s creative and it’s fun. Not a restaurant to miss!

Find JuneBaby at 2122 NE 65th St, Seattle, WA 98115, 206.257.4470

**Call first for Covid restrictions, which we all hope will be lifted soon.

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