Nationally Renowned Chefs Are Coming to Philly to Celebrate Black Cuisine

Chef Chaz Brown / Photograph courtesy of Oxtail Collective

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Hercules Posey was an enslaved man, held by George Washington at his Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia where he worked in the kitchen. He was also, by all accounts, a very, very good cook.

“A celebrated artiste,” according to the memoirs of Martha Washington’s grandson. “As highly accomplished a proficient in the culinary arts as could be found in the United States.” And on Sunday, August 30th, from noon to 5 p.m., the Forman Arts Initiative will be celebrating the life and legacy of Hercules Posey with their first ever event celebrating the upcoming opening of their new campus at 2201 North American Street in Kensington. It’s called “The Hercules Posey Celebration,” presented by the Oxtail Collective, and it’s going to be a really big deal.

FAI is bringing together more than a dozen chefs from across the country (and the Caribbean) for a single day of tastings, talks, demonstrations, and conversations meant to focus on Posey’s contributions to history — politically, culturally, and culinarily. This was a man who defined cuisine in his era; who cooked for presidents and statesmen, diplomats and the enslaved; who would later escape Mount Vernon and live as a free man in New York. And this is the perfect moment to be celebrating him because Posey is one of the nine enslaved people mentioned in the exhibits at the President’s House that have been the focus of so much attention (and so many lawsuits) for the past several months.

The day will begin with a panel discussion, hosted by PBS Newshour co-anchor Geoff Bennett, on Posey’s life and impact, featuring culinary archivist Ramin Ganeshram, Omar Tate and Cybille St. Aude-Tate (from Honeysuckle), and Chaz Brown (ex of Le Bec-Fin, Nobu, and the Fatty Crab), who has hosted back-to-back Oxtail Collective events in partnership with the Forman Initiative over the last two years while also working as an exec chef for the Garces Group.

After that, there will be four hours of tastings and shopping, called “The Oxtail Collective Culinary Experience & Market,” which will feature everyone from Yun Fuentes of Bolo and Frankie Ramirez from Amá, to Martel Stone of Dogon in Washington D.C. and Bintu Ndaw-Young of Bintu Atelier in Charleston, South Carolina. And the Forman Arts Initiative will also be using the event to introduce chef Chad Williams of Friday Saturday Sunday as their newly minted culinary advisor.

Throughout the event, there’ll also be Gullah Geechee cuisine cooking demos from chefs BJ Dennis and Valerie Erwin (from the old Geechee Girl Rice Cafe), conversations with Dr. Tonya Mathews from the International African American Museum in Charleston, and music from Caribbean soca-soul artist Mia Taylor, starting at 4 p.m. And throughout, the focus will remain on Posey, considered by many as America’s first celebrity chef, and how food can act as a vehicle for history — no matter who wants to see that history erased.

Registration for the early events (including a morning meditation that starts at 11 a.m., and the discussions hosted by Bennett) can be done here. That part is free. Oxtail is just looking for a rough headcount. Tickets are required for the culinary experience part of the day’s activities will run you just north of $90 a head, and you can find those here.