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ORAL HISTORY
Denise Ravenel
Denise Ravenel was born in Charleston, South Carolina, but she considers Edisto Island (a sea island about an hour south of the city) her spiritual home. She grew up on the island, cooking alongside her grandmother, Emily Meggett. Though she moved to nearby Hollywood, South Carolina, in 2004, she drove daily to her grandmother’s house to cook with her until Ms. Meggett passed away in 2023.
Emily Meggett’s Gullah Geechee Home Cooking: Recipes from the Matriarch of Edisto Island, published in 2022, includes a chewies recipe that she attributes to Denise. It’s one of the rare recipes in the volume attributed to someone else, and the book’s commercial success is bringing chewies to a new audience. Denise learned the recipe from another community member and then adapted it for her own version. She regularly makes chewies both for family and friends, for occasions when she helps feed the homeless in North Charleston, and when she assists her daughter Khadejah Ravenel on her catering food truck.
