Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl: Julie Dash’s Celebration of Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor

Julie Dash, acclaimed director of Daughters of the Dust, is at work on Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl, a seven-part documentary that illuminates the extraordinary life of Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor — chef, journalist, actor, and cultural trailblazer. The series traces her journey from a rural Gullah Geechee community in South Carolina to the heart of international cultural and political movements, painting a portrait of a woman who embodied art, food, and resistance.

From Geechee Roots to Global Journeys

Born on April 4, 1937, in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, Vertamae was deeply shaped by her Gullah Geechee heritage. This cultural grounding informed her entire career, anchoring her explorations of what she later called “Afro-Atlantic Foodways.”

At 19, she left for Paris, joining a vibrant community of artists, writers, and Black expatriates. “I had a basic knowledge of food preparation. I could remember every family recipe – the culinary traditions, both ancient and new, passed down to me by my father,” she recalled. “Not knowing, over the years, my cooking skills would prove to serve me well.”

In the cafés of the Left Bank and at the legendary Beat Hotel, Vertamae rubbed shoulders with literary giants like Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs. She befriended bookstore owner George Whitman, who later supported her first publishing venture, Left Bank This Month. Food became her universal language, her way of entering spaces, shaping conversations, and sustaining creative lives.

Cooking as Liberation

Her most famous work, Vibration Cooking: Or, The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl (1970), was both cookbook and memoir — a radical text that challenged how America thought about Black food and Black women.

Critics quickly labeled it “soul food,” a term that by then had become marketable shorthand — a way to package Black cooking for mass consumption. Vertamae rejected the term, arguing that it flattened complexity, erased West African continuities, and ignored the global dimensions of the Black diaspora. Instead, she insisted on “Afro-Atlantic Foodways,” a term that captured the migrations, histories, and cultural exchanges embedded in every dish.

For her, food was not nostalgia or trend. It was survival, pride, and political consciousness on a plate. Long before today’s food writers linked cuisine to identity and justice, Vertamae was carving out that space, showing that cooking itself could be a form of liberation.

The Artist Among Artists

Vertamae’s life was nothing short of cinematic. She danced as a Moon Goddess with Sun Ra’s Arkestra, married artist Robert Grosvenor, and moved easily between the kitchen and the avant-garde stage. She worked as an actor, wrote journalism, and became a beloved cultural commentator for NPR, where her voice appeared on Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Cultural Desk from 1995 to 2013.

Through her NPR commentaries, she disarmed listeners with warmth and wit — whether explaining the cultural significance of okra or sparring with politicians on the meaning of tradition. Posthumously, she has been recognized as the “Unsung Godmother of American Food Writing” by Vice’s Munchies.

Julie Dash: A Trailblazing Visionary

Julie Dash broke through racial and gender boundaries with her Sundance award-winning film (Best Cinematography) Daughters of the Dust. She became the first African-American woman to have a wide theatrical release of her feature film.

The Library of Congress placed Daughters of the Dust and her short film Illusions in the National Film Registry, preserving them as national treasures. Dash holds MFAs from both UCLA and the American Film Institute, and her 1991 masterpiece was recently ranked #60 in Sight & Sound’s 100 Greatest Films of All Time. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and the Directors Guild of America.

Her groundbreaking career positions her as the ideal filmmaker to bring Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor’s story to the screen.

Dash’s Vision

Dash’s documentary will tell Vertamae’s story in her own words and through those who knew her best. Like her landmark cookbook, the series will be punctuated by recipes, music, and stories — drawing on photographs, films by artist friends, and Vertamae’s remarkable archive of NPR commentaries.

But this is more than biography. At a moment when questions of food sovereignty, cultural appropriation vs. appreciation, and the reclamation of Black culinary narratives dominate public discourse, Dash’s project lands with urgent resonance. Who tells the story of Black food — and how — is a question of power.

Dash’s filmmaking style — lyrical, sensory, richly textured — is uniquely suited to this story. In Daughters of the Dust, she evoked the Gullah Geechee world through image, sound, and silence rather than linear plot. With Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl, she brings that same sensibility to Vertamae’s life: recipes as poems, memory as archive, food as film language. It is precisely the kind of filmmaking that can honor Vertamae’s refusal to be boxed in by cliché.

Legacy of a Geechee Girl

Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor’s life traversed continents and art forms, yet always circled back to her roots. She turned kitchens into classrooms, meals into stories, and recipes into acts of cultural affirmation.

By preserving and amplifying Vertamae’s story for a new generation, Julie Dash’s Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl ensures that her radical legacy endures. For artists, cooks, and thinkers today, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor remains an essential guide — a vibrant reminder that culture is not just inherited; it is something we actively make, taste, and live every day.