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CIC grad Chef BJ Dennis and CIC students prepared
the hors d'oeuvres for the reception |
On April 19th,
the CIC played a major role in a historic event, Nat Fuller’s Feast. CIC
culinary and hospitality students, as well as CIC faculty, worked tirelessly to
make it a success. It was a night to be proud of our school.
To quote the
event’s initiator, Dr. David Shields: “Nat Fuller had been the
enslaved master cook of William C. Gatewood from 1842 to 1852. In 1852, Fuller
convinced Gatewood to release him as a self-hire, that is, a self-supporting
autonomous public worker. Gatewood would receive a percentage of Fuller's
earnings. Gatewood did more than siphon off a portion of Fuller's earnings;
Periodically he would bankroll Fuller's initiatives in the game market, as a
caterer, and finally as a restaurateur.
“150 years ago Nat Fuller, Charleston's great
chef, held a banquet to mark the end of the Civil War and the beginning of
peace. He invited his longstanding white clients, some members of the
provisional government, and friends from the city's African American elite to
sit as guests at his table and to learn how to interact respectfully with one
another. It was a time of privation--rice rations were dispensed daily by the
Union Army agents to Charleston's 15,000 residents.”
The event
was covered extensively by the press. Read about it in:
et Fuller's many contacts in the world of food, including
old friends from Washington Market in NYC, supplied him with a bounty of fine
ingredients. About 80 people ate at the original. Tonight a similar number will
commemorate that dinner in Charleston and Columbia. Artist Jonathan Green has
painted a portrait of the great caterer and restaurateur to mark the occasion.
Tonight it will hang on the walls of the building that was once Fuller's
restaurant, The Bachelor's Retreat, in Charleston to remind celebrants of
Fuller's self-possession, his generosity, and his love of the arts of peace.
