There was no way for Georgia-based chefs Tia and Matthew Raiford to know that the brief relationship they began and ended 25 years ago while attending the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, New York, would ever become what it is today. During their not-so-brief break, the two chefs continued to cheer each other on from afar until a chance collaboration in 2019 rekindled their connection. Tia and Matthew tied the knot a few years later, but their wedding day brought more together than just family and friends. It also brought together their extensive collection of well-loved cast iron.
“We married our cast iron when we got married,” Matthew says. “Some pieces came from people we know, and other pieces we’ve collected ourselves. People, like Tia’s mother, still give us cast iron, even though we’re up to well over 100 pieces between us, but we’ve got it all at this point—Griswold, Wagner, Lodge, Austin Foundry, and others.”
Each chef built up their portion of that vast trove over the course of impressive careers in kitchens around the world. For Matthew, he dreamed about becoming a trained chef as a teenager in Georgia, watching his father, a former master baker, dish out everything from homemade petit fours and puff pastry to intricate European and Gullah Geechee dishes.
“I wanted to go to the Culinary Institute of America immediately after I graduated high school,” Matthew says. “My dad made it clear that wasn’t an option for me at the time, so I joined the military. What’s funny is that he said if he knew about my skills and what I was capable of, then he would’ve made me go to culinary school instead.”
Tia was raised in the Northeast but always held on to her family’s Alabama roots. Her grandparents relocated the family to New York during the Great Migration and passed down their Southern heritage through food.
“EVERYTHING WE ARE DOING TODAY IS GOING TO BETTER THE NEXT GENERATION.”
“The people in the neighborhood we were living in were predominantly Black or Italian,” Tia says. “I was cooking hearty staples like collard greens and stews with my mother by the time I was seven. There was that heavy Italian influence as well, so we were also making Bolognese and pestos. She made me always eager to learn how things complemented each other, and that eagerness to learn eventually made me realize the [CIA] was the only school for me.”
A fateful meeting at the institute entwined Tia and Matthew’s futures. However, fruitful careers after graduation postponed that fate.
Matthew earned recognition as a 2018 James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef Southeast, but taking the reins of his family’s sixth-generation farm alongside his sister, Althea, was probably the biggest undertaking of his career. At the time, the parcel in Brunswick, Georgia, known as Gilliard Farms—named for Matthew’s ancestors who acquired the original farmland after their emancipation from slavery—was hardly being farmed at all.
“I grew up in big cities and lived in big cities my entire life,” Tia says. “However, moving [to Georgia] reconnected me to my family’s deep Southern history. I’ve moved around a lot in my life, but now, I live on land that [Matthew’s] family has been on since the 1800s. I’ve finally planted my own roots and found what Matthew calls a sense of place. I feel his family’s history here. I also feel a purpose to prepare this place for the next six generations.”
Those preparations include a return to organic farming methods and improving the land’s sustainability with only the most nutritious and viable crops. One of those crops happens to be the delicious sweet potatoes hand-harvested for the Sweet Potato–Olive Oil Cake the couple shared with us.
“It’s one of our favorite cakes to make,” Matthew says. “We’ll use things like a sugar-free whipped cream to cut down on the sweetness and to be healthier, but it’s all about using what you have. We harvested the sweet potatoes; we’ll have our own olive oil from the olive trees we’re growing now.”
If it seems like this husband-and-wife team never takes a day off, that’s because they don’t. Since joining forces (and cast iron collections), Matthew has authored his first cookbook, Bress ’n’ Nyam (Countryman Press, 2021), which translates to “bless and eat” in Gullah Geechee. They’ve also launched Strong Roots 9, a line of health and wellness products using what’s harvested at Gilliard Farms. Then, there’s the recent collaboration with nearby Simple Man Distillery—a pink Gullah Geechee Gin, made using botanicals grown on the farm, that became a Good Food Awards finalist for 2023. “Everything we are doing today is going to better the next generation,” Tia says. “We hope it even improves life for generations after that so they continue the work that started here six generation ago.”
- Cake:
- ¾ pound sweet potatoes
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1¾ cups firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- 1½ teaspoons Himalayan pink salt
- 1⅓ cups extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon orange zest
- 1 medium orange, juiced
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ¼ cup bourbon
- Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
- Topping:
- 1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
- 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar (optional)
- 2 teaspoons bourbon (optional)
- ½ teaspoon orange zest
- Preheat oven to 350°. Place a 10-inch seasoned cast-iron pan in preheated oven.
- For cake: In a large saucepan, cover potatoes with water. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; cook until tender when pierced with the tip of a paring knife, 20 to 30 minutes. Drain and peel potatoes; transfer potatoes to the work bowl of a food processor and process until smooth.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, allspice, and salt, and set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sweet potato purée, olive oil, eggs, orange zest and juice, vanilla, and bourbon. Add flour mixture to potato mixture, stirring just until combined but not overmixed. Carefully pour mixture into preheated skillet. Place skillet on a baking sheet.
- Bake on middle rack of oven until a wooden pick inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 50 minutes to 1 hour. Let cool completely in pan. Dust cake with confectioners’ sugar.
- For topping: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat cold cream at high speed until soft peaks form, 3 to 4 minutes. Add confectioners’ sugar (if using), bourbon (if using), and orange zest, beating until desired consistency. Serve immediately.
We find that unsweetened whipped cream offers a nice balance to this dish, however, you can adjust the sweetness to your liking.
Follow them at @strongroots9 on Instagram or discover more of their amazing offerings at Strong Roots 9. For this recipe, take a look in our May/June 2023 issue at southerncastiron.com.
