“Dozens of AFRO readers… have kept the AFRO switchboard busy since last week’s edition published a recipe for cornbread made by Mrs. Ronald [Fanniejoe] Reid of 1306 W. Lanvale St.” – Afro-American, February 4, 1956
After The Afro-American printed Harlem Park resident Fanniejoe Reid’s cornbread recipe in January 1956, the recipe kind of went ‘viral.’
One anonymous reader wrote in to inquire about employing Mrs. Reid. “Mrs. Norma Gladden of 816 N. Calhoun St., who admitted being proud of her ‘southern cooking,’ said she had never tasted so delicious a cornbread,” wrote the Afro-American in the follow-up article. “Mrs. Estelle Owens of 3213 Piedmont Ave. said that the recipe was the chief subject of conversation at the meeting of her lodge on Wednesday night.”
The Afro-American, 1956
Reid was a trained chef who was also “a regular attendant at AFRO cooking schools.” She’d worked at a hotel in Ocean City, at Baltimore public schools, as well as taking on occasional private catering jobs. After 1956 she became known as “the cornbread lady” to readers of the Afro-American.
Reid was born Fanniejoe Nixon in Baltimore on February 15, 1912. Both of her parents, Voyd and Louis Nixon, were born in Maryland, and their parents before them. The family lived on the 700 block of Caroline Street along with Voyd’s mother and several extended family members.
Although the 1930 census lists Fanniejoe’s job as waitress in a tea room, she was also trained as a beautician and established a salon at Lafayette and Gilmor. This is presumably how she met her husband, a beauty supply salesman. Ronald C. Reid was born in Jamaica in 1906 and came to Baltimore as a child. He’d been a waiter at the famous Hotel Rennert before getting into beauty products sales. After the two married in 1930, she turned the operation of the salon over to him and she once again focused on cooking.
Fanniejoe & Ronald Reid in the Afro-American, 1935
In the 1940 census, the Reids are shown residing at 1532 Harlem Avenue with seven of Fanniejoe’s family members, plus two lodgers. These type of living situations were very common in Baltimore, where the restrictive segregated housing rules provided limited areas for even middle-class, well-connected Black citizens to live.
The immediate and robust reaction to Fanniejoe Reid’s cornbread recipe gives interesting insight into the relationship between the (primarily female) readership and these type of recipe columns (or at least those in the Afro-American). Readers tried the cornbread within a week of the article’s printing. They reached out to the paper to respond, and to Fanniejoe at home on the telephone. “I can’t get away from the phone long enough to do my meals,” she told the Afro-American.
Following the lively response to the cornbread recipe, Fanniejoe Reid was given her own column in the paper, entitled “Cooking Is Fun.” Over the next four years she regularly shared advice on cooking and hosting. She told readers “how to put appeal in Lenten Menus” with baked salmon and oyster omelets. Reid asserted that despite the French reputation for ragout “there are some delightful stews that have come down through our American mothers.” She shared recipes for everything from peach cakes to salads, sweet potato pone, corn dumplings, “sumptuous sandwiches,” and Cointreau chiffon pie. When readers requested recipes, she was always ready to oblige.
Reid with schoolchildren, Afro-American, 1956
“Cooking should never be a utilitarian thing,” she wrote. “You should get fun out of the hours you spend in your kitchen.” Still, she often dispensed shortcuts for those who didn’t share in her enthusiasm for the culinary arts.
It appears that the “Cooking is Fun” column was turned over to a Betsy Patterson in April of 1960. Fanniejoe’s final column shared some hot breads, tips for scrambled eggs and muffins, and a recipe for “Glazed Pineapple Fingers,” a pineapple scone with icing. No fond farewell to readers.
Fanniejoe Reid passed away in 1973, and Ronald in 1998. Her legacy in the Afro-American women’s pages remains enshrined in the archives, and in the food of any family who ever saved a recipe from “the cornbread lady.”
Recipe:
Notes:
About 30 minutes will do it. I’ve made Fanniejoe Reid’s cornbread a couple of times. It may go without saying, but in addition to “the mixing,” the cornmeal makes a huge difference! My favorite so far has been this Hodgson Mills stuff which has a natural but not overbearing sweetness and a nice… “tooth” or whatever. Fanniejoe says its fine to leave out the sugar or adjust the salt because “a good cook always aims towards pleasing the tastes of the ones she is cooking for.”
