It's Juneteenth, Have a Red Velvet Day
Celebrate this historic day with desserts in NYC inspired by red velvet cake.
I’ve always known that red is an auspicious color. In Hong Kong, red is the omnipresent hue of good fortune and for years I was surrounded by it, from the taxis that shuttled us around the island to the red packets filled with cash at Chinese New Year. In Pakistan, red is the celebratory color of love and fidelity. My wedding dress, which I had made in Karachi, was a rich crimson red, from head to toe.
On Juneteenth, here in America, red is the color of liberation.
Juneteenth, once a mostly Southern occasion, is now a nationwide celebration that symbolically commemorates the end of slavery in America. It is officially the anniversary of June 19th, 1865, when the enslaved population of Galveston, Texas learned that, per the Emancipation Proclamation, they were free (and had been free for two years according to President Lincoln’s 1863 executive order). Alternate names for the holiday are Black Independence Day and Freedom Day.
Juneteenth, like the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving, is a uniquely American holiday. It is a day to consider what it means to live in a country built in the dark shadow of slavery. To acknowledge the struggles that persist for Black people today and, hopefully, to reaffirm a commitment to helping America live up to its promise of freedom and equality for all (Americans, that is).
The day also embodies a few things I love about this country — an ability to look backwards critically and to try, however imperfectly, to reckon with the ugly truths buried beneath all those heroic tales of American exceptionalism. Making Juneteenth a federal holiday, which only just happened in 2021, redirects the country’s collective energy into a celebration of Black America, of Black joy and resilience.
As I learned from reading Watermelon & Red Birds by Nicole A. Taylor, a wonderful writer and the greatest champion of Juneteenth that I know, no celebration is complete without a big, bountiful spread of great food. Taylor’s Juneteenth cookbook was written “to be light with the pleasures of good food and heavy with the weight of history.” Sort of like the day itself. And red, as it turns out, is the unofficial color of Juneteenth, symbolizing the spilled blood of the enslaved as well as the African diaspora’s ancestral strength and power. A holiday cookout should therefore include an array of red foods: ruby red drinks like steeped sorrel teas; crescents of sliced watermelon, weeping with blessedly sweet juices; and of course, generous wedges of buttery, garnet red velvet cake. “Cakes are still the cornerstones of the Juneteenth table,” Taylor writes.
These days, red velvet cake’s striking hue is usually a product of red food coloring, but historically, red velvet cake got its name (and rusty red shade) from a chemical reaction that occurred when combining non-Dutch processed cocoa powder, buttermilk or vinegar, and baking soda. The cake is a ubiquitous Southern dessert, not really belonging to any one group or occasion, but because of its color, it’s now a Juneteenth staple.
So, red velvet cake was my cue for this week’s newsletter. But rather than just list a bunch of cakes, what follows is a list of red velvet-inspired sweets, from chocolates to coffee drinks (and yes, there’s a cake or two). I stayed mostly in Harlem and Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn because I wanted to feature as many Black-owned businesses as possible. If Black liberation in America begins with financial sovereignty, which I believe it does, at least materially, the first order of business is generating and holding on to wealth. “Juneteenth didn’t symbolize the end of work; it signified the beginning of working for yourself,” writes Taylor.
And even though 22% of New York City’s population is Black, just 3.5% of its businesses are Black-owned. Their success hinges on public support, but not just on Juneteenth. Supporting Black businesses isn’t a seasonal treat like chocolate on Valentine’s Day or ice cream in the summer. It’s a daily practice, a moral philosophy. It also doesn’t have to be that serious. If you’ve ever had red velvet cake, you know it’s incredible. Any day and every day.
Alright. All red velvet everything, let’s go!
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