Sally Seymour

Sally Seymour (died 3 April 1824), was an African American pastry chef and restaurateur.[1][2] Seymour built up an elite culinary business in Charleston, South Carolina and was one of a few African American business owners at the time.[3] She influenced food styles in Charleston through her restaurant and the numbers of chefs she trained.

Sally Seymour
Died(1824-04-03)April 3, 1824
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Pastry chef, restaurateur
Years active1795 - 1824
Known forBeing the matriarch of an African American culinary dynasty in Antebellum Charleston, SC.
ChildrenEliza Seymour Lee, William Seymour

Life

Seymour was a slave of Thomas Martin, who was the father of her children. In the 1780s Seymour oversaw Martin's house and kitchen. She received training as a pastry chef by Englishman Adam Prior, one of only two French trained chefs in Charleston.[4][3]

In 1795, Thomas Martin manumitted her, and she took the name Seymour or Seymore. She established her own pastry bakery in Charleston, and was able to buy it in 1802. She had several pupils among the free people of color in the city. A former slave, became a slave owner herself, and used slave labour in her staff: she had between six and nine slaves working in her kitchen at any time between 1805 and 1824.[5] Two of these enslaved persons were an African American woman named Chloe, purchased for $400 in 1802, and an African American man named Felix, purchased for $800 in 1814.[6]

The types of food she learned from Adam Prior were cakes, hot meat pies, sweet pies, trifles, jellies and confectionery, her food became more popular than her teachers.[4] Seymour was very successful: in 1817, the St. Cecilia Society held their meeting in her establishment.[1] Thomas Grimké, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Thomas Pinckney convened the Mutton Chop Club every fortnight at Seymour's restaurant.[4]

Described as a matriarch of a dynasty of pastry chefs and restaurateurs in Charleston, part of the legacy of Seymour was the African American chefs she trained, which included those who were kitchen slaves of planters, free black women and her own children Eliza and William.[1][3][4] Some of the people she taught included Camilla Johnson, Eliza Dwight, Martha Gilchrist, Cato McCloud, and the Holton sisters who became rivals of Seymour's business.[4] Seymour's teaching influenced the food of Charleston for vegetables to be cooked in a French style of balanced flavor as highlighted in the cookbook, The Carolina Housewife, by Sarah Rutledge.[4]

She left her business to her daughter Eliza Seymour Lee when she died in 1824, who was also a noted pastry chef. Eliza Lee expanded the business.[1]

See also

References
  1. Myers, Amrita Chakrabarti (2011). Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston. Univ of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-3505-0.
  2. David S. Shields, The Culinarians: Lives and Careers from the First Age of American Fine Dining
  3. "Charleston's African American Culinary Dynasty · Nat Fuller's Feast: The Life and Legacy of an Enslaved Cook in Charleston · Lowcountry Digital History Initiative". ldhi.library.cofc.edu. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
  4. "Charleston's First Top Chefs | Charleston Magazine". CHARLESTON SC |. 2013-11-12. Retrieved 2022-02-01.
  5. David S. Shields, The Culinarians: Lives and Careers from the First Age of American Fine Dining
  6. Kroger, Larry (1985). Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860. North Carolina: McFarlan & Company, Inc.
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