MONDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2025
Tune into my informative @ThePittsburghDish podcast feature on Instagram, where I go into the 5 W’s of how Tara-Peri Chicken began, how it has evolved, and where we are going!
This was such an enjoyable interview—expounding upon what has driven me to create such a unique concept in Pittsburgh based on my very specific genealogy and multiethnic heritage, my family, my influence on the local culinary landscape and the global impact of our parent company as well as this subsidiary.
Many thanks to The Pittsburgh Dish for truly caring about local businesses and for taking the time to hear from business owners, chefs and culinary artisans in our own words.
I can assure you this interview is unlike anything you’ve heard before.
FOLLOW: www.instagram.com/ThePittsburghDish
LISTEN HERE ⬇️ www.pittsburghdish.com/episodes/episode/78e034d1/sizzling-stories-of-heritage-and-flavor-with-tara-jones
Via Ancestry.com, our family has learned so much and connected with relatives throughout the Southern U.S. states and from around the world.
A portion of my Black family is documented via census records, Dawes rolls, deeds, photos and payments for their land as being indigenous to the Southern U.S.; they did not arrive here via the transatlantic slave trade.
It’s a tangled web determining who arrived from Africa as slaves and which of my indigenous Black ancestors intermarried with them, but at least I have the origin of peri-peri chicken (Mozambique and Angola) in my blood. 😛
I don’t just carry a family tree; I carry a responsibility. 🌳
As a Foundational Black American (FBA) and member of the most prominent lineage societies in America, I see my ancestry as a living archive. My role is to protect this intellectual property by turning it into something that transforms where God has planted me.
I am my business plan.
Ancestry.com insists in its latest update that I’m more English, Celtic, Gaelic, German, Nordic and French than Southern European.
My Husband, Part 107 Drone Pilot, STEM educator, robotics instructor and AI keynote speaker, John “Zagi” Jones
King Edward I “Longshanks” and Queen Eleanor of Castile, Spain, my verified paternal ancestors
Portrait of me by revered late artist, art professor, printmaker and photographer, Michael B. Platt, in his Washington, D.C. studio.
American art critic Donald Kuspit wrote: “All of Platt’s works are aesthetic masterpieces, ingeniously integrating figuration and abstraction, light and shadow, planes of color and incisive line.”
Numerous private collections have Platt’s art in their permanent holdings as do the Corcoran Museum; the Smithsonian Museum of American Art; the Library of Congress’ Prints and Photographs Collection and its Rare Books and Special Collections; the Schomburg Research Center in Black Culture of the New York Public Library; the Yale University Art Gallery; the Harris Poetry Collection of the Rockefeller Library of Brown University; the David C. Driskell Center Collection of the University of Maryland and the Hampton University Art Museum.
Do explore the life of this great man, whose art and positive impact on our society are priceless. What he said and did were necessary.
King Edward I “Longshanks,” my birth father Dee, and the Chef
Descent from a King
Direct descendants of King Edward I tend to have inherited his eyes, most markedly, his lazy eye (which I have had since birth). It has been reported that about two million people alive today share this particular direct lineage from this King of England.
The Father of Portugal is my paternal ancestor by way of my aristocratic 3rd great-grandparents, David Norwood and Nancy Farrar, both of whom directly descended from Afonso I.
Afonso I, also called Afonso Henriques (byname “Afonso The Conqueror," or in Portuguese, "Afonso o Conquistador”), was born in 1109/11 in Guimarães, Portugal and died on Dec. 6, 1185 in Coimbra. He was the first king of Portugal and conquered Santarém and Lisbon in 1147, then secured Portuguese independence from León in 1139.
Interestingly, my mother also has Portuguese ancestry, as she is a direct paternal descendant of Colonel John McDowell, a royal European descendant.
My paternal great-grandmother, Nettie (Baldwin) Bynum
My paternal grandfather, J.D. Bynum
My paternal grandmother, Sarah Mae Elizabeth (Fitzgerald) Bynum
My 3rd paternal great-grandparents (standing), David Norwood and Nancy Farrar; she of the French Dr. Rene LaForce and American settler William Farrar (My distant paternal great-grandfather) bloodlines, and both direct descendants of King Edward I and Queen Eleanor of Castile, Spain—with Nancy's parents (seated), Reverend Thomas B. Farrar (son of Trephenah LaForce and Peter Farrar) and Alcy Ann Edwards, of Chatham County, North Carolina.
David and Nancy’s son, Jefferson H. Norwood, had ten children with Fannie Perry Baldwin, my “mulatto” 2nd paternal great-grandmother. The couple were indicted, found guilty and fined $500 ($19,000 today) for their “illicit” relationship, which was publicized in the local Pittsboro, North Carolina newspaper, The Alamance Gleaner, in 1886.
Fannie Baldwin, a midwife and herbal healer, was known for her cooking, and her biscuits were particularly famous in Chatham County, North Carolina. She was said to have a special talent for baking light, fluffy biscuits that were always in high demand. Today, her biscuits and other recipes are remembered as a part of Chatham County's culinary history.
My Father, Dee Bynum
My Mother, Stacey Harris, aka The Diabetic Pastry Chef
My Maternal Jackson Great-Grandparents
My Maternal Harris Great-Grandparents
My Maternal Harris Grandparents
My grandmother’s kitchen is where my life began.
Via @FoodIsMySavior_Pgh on Instagram
Yelp Review
Nextdoor App Recommendation
Out of the many foods we offer, our bestseller is by far our PEACH COBBLER. There is SO much excitement surrounding this cherished Southern specialty!
Nextdoor Review in Mt. Lebanon
Yelp Review
Google review of catered downtown law firm luncheon
We do it all