CALAS (PRONOUNCED KA-LAS) ARE DEEP-FRIED FRITTERS MADE FROM A BATTER OF COOKED RICE INFUSED WITH WARM SPICES AND FINISHED WITH POWDERED SUGAR AND CINNAMON. Not to be confused with Creole-derived beignets, calas link directly to rice-growing cultures across West Africa. Culinary techniques such as these survived the violence of the transatlantic slave trade, taking root across the Americas and shaping the routes of Southern diasporic foodways. 

On Sundays in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Louisiana, calas became more than food; they represented strategies for self-determination and an economic resistance rooted in the ingenuity of Cala Black women. 

Under Spanish rule, Sundays functioned as a required “day off” for enslaved peoples. Black women recognized this reprieve from tending to sugarcane, cotton, indigo and rice as an opportunity to earn money, using the day to prepare and sell the very commodity they were forced to cultivate Monday through Saturday. 

“Reflecting on the forced labor these women experienced six days out of the week, to then imagine them making the choice to spend their one ‘off’ day on their feet, some with deep blue hands holding grass baskets full of hot calas on their heads; truly speaks to our pursuit of freedom, by any and all means,” says Gabrielle Eitienne.

The story of Cala women and their calas reminds us that Black relationships to land have always centered survival, care, and the ongoing cultivation of freedom. “This recipe for calas connects us back to the ways we used knowledge from the continent to access freedom,” Eitienne says. 

Connect with Calas in Your Kitchen

Makes 12-14 calas

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cooked long white grain rice, room temperature or cold
• 1 small-medium sized sweet potato, roasted until fork tender
• 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar 
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg, grated 
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Roast the sweet potatoes until tender, about 30 to 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly, then scoop the flesh into a bowl.
2. Add the cooked rice to the sweet potato and mix together. Add the eggs and continue mixing until combined.
3. In a separate bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients together, then incorporate them into the rice and sweet potato mixture.
4. Heat a cast iron skillet filled halfway with oil (deep enough for the calas to float).
5. Dip a large spoon or small soup ladle in the hot oil, and then use the same spoon to scoop the batter from the bowl. Slowly slide the firm cala batter into the hot oil. Don’t overcrowd the skillet. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes per side, or until they turn golden brown.
6. Dust the finished calas with powdered sugar and cinnamon. Set a few on your altar and enjoy.

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