Between the summers of 2025 and 2026, the Joyner Institute for Gullah and African Diaspora Studies, with its sister institute, The Athenaeum Press at Coastal Carolina University, shepherded a collaborative of students, community members, and faculty to explore Gullah foodways, focusing on Georgetown County and the surrounding region.

The resulting product is this narrative, a sampler box of materials by Gullah makers, and a digital platform. Each of these products is evidence of the underlying methodology of the project, captured in its Gullah title: Cock Hunnah Yeez and Nyam Up de Good Bittles, translated as Listen with Intention and Eat the Good Food.

This work was generously supported through a pilot grant from the Mellon Foundation, and the latest in a long line of community-university collaborations and storytelling initiatives. This past year, a core group of students and makers collaborated on the narrative and research underpinning this project, supplemented by shorter-term modules from six other courses ranging from photography to user experience design to literature. Each researcher took on a chapter, and the narratives were collectively edited by the leadership team. Each component is dependent on the other, and this draft is living.