Matthew Raiford, author, chef, horticulturalist, and owner of Gilliard Farms grew up “breaking the dirt, raising hogs and chickens, and rarely going to a grocery store”.
His 2021 cookbook Bress ‘n’ Nyam — “Bless and Eat” in the English-based creole of the Gullah Geechee people of the Carolina, Georgia and northern Florida coasts— pays tribute to the land, food, and heritage that has nurtured his family for seven generations. A 2018 semifinalist in the James Beard Awards Best Chef in the Southeast category, Raiford has been featured in the New York Times, Bon Appetit, and Southern Living.
Project
During the summer of 2022 Raiford is conducting research at the New York Botanical Garden for a new book, focused on collards:
“The thought of this research is to create a timeline of how the colewort name changed to collards by using historical, agricultural and culinary writings to then create a cookbook stepped in historical content. The first time I heard the name colewort was when I was having a conversation with Dr. Jessica B. Harris about wanting to do research on the collard and its underutilization in the culinary world and how kale became this household name. The Latin name for collards was only learned by me twelve years ago when I attended The Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS); I remember bursting out saying, ‘wait….. there are LATIN words for collards!?’ My instructor, Owen Martin, chuckled and again said, ‘Brassica oleracea var. acephala, or Collards’.”