Paula Deen I Did NOT Dress Up Black Chef Like Aunt Jemima

[The Straight Story]

Paula Deen is calling BS on a former chef who claims Deen made an African-American employee dress up like Aunt Jemima ... claiming the chef is crying racism in a pathetic money grab.

The woman behind the allegations is Dora Charles -- who ran Deen's kitchens for 22 years and helped open Paula's famous Lady & Sons restaurant in Georgia.

Charles spoke with the New York Times -- and claimed Deen wouldn't just use racial slurs in the kitchens, but wanted to dress up her employees as humiliating stereotypes.

Among the allegations, Charles says Deen tried to make her ring a dinner bell for restaurant customers ... something Charles felt was racially charged.

"That's a symbol to me of what we used to do back in the day," Charles said.

Charles also claims Deen tried to make another black female employee, Ineata Jones, dress up in an "old style Aunt Jemima outfit" while flipping hoecakes at a dining station.


http://www.tmz.com/2013/07/25/paula-deen-chef-aunt-jemima/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. I call BS on it, too

This would have come out LONG ago. Someone smells green.

[snappyturtle]

3. It took 22 years to come public with all this abuse? I'm

beginning to wonder a bit.....

I think that Paula having admitted her remarks may have encouraged Charles to
push a little harder...better story for her?

[joeybee12]

22. Unless the other employee, Jones, makes the same claim, I call BS...

22 years? I'm sure Deen is a diva, but if you put up with it for 22 years it probably wasn't awful.

[bunnies]

2. while flipping hoecakes!

I dont want to know what those are made of.

[kestrel91316]

4. They're corn pone, made with cornmeal.

[bunnies]

5. Really?

Theres a food called hoecakes? How on earth did I never hear of that? Must be a southern thing?

[kestrel91316]

6. Cornbread of a sort, baked on a hot hoe blade out in the fields traditionally.

It's a southern thing because it's a remnant of slavery.

[arely staircase]

13. we call it "hot water cornbread" in this part of world. nt

[TexasProgresive]

7. How the Hoe Cake (Most Likely) Got Its Name1

http://www.historiclondontown.org/files/Hoe-Cake-Etymology-web.pdf

[KittyWampus]

11. That was so interesting and well written. A joy to read. THANK YOU

[DonRedwood]

8. 1 part hoe, 2 parts cake?

Ohhhhh....I fear some backlash for using hoe on here...but I couldn't resist!

Glad to see the bunny back!

[bunnies]

9. :)

Ive learned that you actually cook the cake on a hot hoe. Who knew!

Just read your OP about the "family" reunion. You are a much bigger person than I, Don. Welcome back!

[Igel]

12. It's a regional thing.

Although I knew what they were and I'm from Maryland, which stopped being Southern after the Civil War when Baltimore shifted its economic gaze northward. Must have been from neighbors that moved up from the South.

Just like Texas tortillas are sort of like flour tortillas, but with milk and oil (and additional leavening), so hoecakes are sort of like johnnycakes but with some sort of milk and with leavening.

Derived from "hoe", as in the farm implement, not "ho", the pronounciation of "whore" found in most American English dialects that lack a coda [r]. I have run into a number of mostly urban kids, though, that have no idea what a hoe is.

[bunnies]

16. I probably never would have linked farming tools to cooking...

until I joined this thread. I honestly thought it was a typo. Learn something new every day, I guess.

And Im not surprised at the kids not knowing what a hoe is at all. My last employer actually still uses pagers to send messages to the merchandisers, and we work in a lot of grocery stores which means we're around a lot of young people. Most of them had literally no idea what a pager was. They looked at it like it was from another planet. It was pretty amusing.

[Aerows]

14. I live so far in the Deep South

I didn't even have to look that one up - I knew exactly what they were LOL. I don't like them, though. They don't go well with grits.

[bunnies]

15. ewww. Grits.

Those things have no taste whatsoever. And that texture! Oh, the texture. How on earth do you eat those things?

[Aerows]

17. With cheese and Tabasco

They are scrumptious

[bunnies]

18. Cheese!

I spent a whole year in NC and nobody ever suggested cheese. That just might have changed everything. Why didnt I think of that?!

[Aerows]

19. Cheese and Tabasco

is the only way to eat grits. It elevates them to delicious, I promise.

[bunnies]

20. I'll definitely try them again with your advice.

Its been about 20 years since I had 'em. Who knows, I might love them now. Especially with cheese and hot sauce!

[Aerows]

21. You might find that you like them :)

I put sharp cheddar in mine and I use *only* Tabasco. Other hot sauces don't have the unique flavor, and it is specifically what I use when hot sauce is called for in red beans and rice, and of course, grits. It's very different from generic hot sauce.

[bunnies]

23. mmmm. red beans & rice.

Love red beans & rice. Ok. Im convinced. Tobasco it is!

[Aerows]

27. If you like red beans and rice

add a severe dollop of Tabasco to them, and enjoy. I love red beans and rice, considering that on Monday in New Orleans, I knew that was exactly what I was eating for lunch. It's pretty much the official Monday lunch of the city .

[bunnies]

28. lol. I'd weigh 500 lbs if I lived down there.

Seriously. Authentic creole food everywhere? I'd never stop eating. Never.

[Aerows]

30. It's actually very good for you

And you can't eat too much because it is too darn hot. I wish I lived up north. I'd deal with the snow to be able to exercise outdoors without needing a gallon of ice water to keep from dehydrating!

I weigh about 110 right now, and I am TRYING to put on weight.

[bunnies]

31. lol.

Good point about the heat. It was in the high 90's all last week and I basically lived on fruit. Too hot to cook. Too hot to eat. Never too hot for a nice frozen drink though! Im not overweight but I have to starve myself to keep it that way. I envy your "problem".

Oh... and you can have the damn snow. I hate the stuff.

[nolabear]

24. And shrimp. Cheese grits with shrimp is amazing. NOT instant grits though.

Those things are nasty. Good grits are heaven.

[Aerows]

25. Oh Lord

Instant grits? Grits cook soon enough on their own time and taste good. Nobody needs grits fast enough to eat instant ones, eww. That's like being in a hurry to eat a sandpaper sandwich.

I suspect that is why so many people think grits are awful, because they've eaten that abomination known as instant. NOT THE SAME.

[Skwmom]

10. From the complaint filed in March of 2011

Paula Deen stated, “Well what I would really like is a bunch of little niggers to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts and black bow ties.....but the media would be on me about that”

African-American staff persons are required to use the back door entrance ... They were prohibited from using the front entrance..... They are required to use the restroom that is in the back of the restaurant... White staff was allowed to use the customer bathroom.

Comments by Bubba Hiers (Paula Deen’s brother) “ I wish I could put all those niggers [in the kitchen] on a boat back to Africa. He said to a vendor who traps wildlife...”you also got a bunch of coons in the kitchen you can trap.” He said to his African-American security guard and driver, “don’t you wish you could rub all the black off you and be like me?” The security guard responded, “I’m fine the way I am,” whereupon Mr. Hiers replied that “you just look dirty, I bet you wish you could.”

Regarding the sexual harassment of an African-American kitchen staff by a white staff person Hiers physically and violently shook him (the witness) and stated, “fuck your civil rights...you work for me and my sister Paul Deen.”


http://www.atlawblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Jackson-v.-Deen-et-al.-Complaint.pdf

[nolabear]

26. Boy, they very liberally switch from "made" to "tried to make."

I have no idea what actually went on but I can't help but note that the headlines say she did it and the stories say she wanted to do it, or suggested it.

[AsahinaKimi]

29. Back in the day....

She was still considered a racist.