Vertamae Smart Grosvenor (born 1938 in Hampton County, South Carolina) is a Culinary Anthopologist / Griot food writer and broadcaster, raised in the South Carolina lowcountry.
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Grosvenor has been a long-time contributor to Public broadcasting in the United States. She is a regular contributor to NPR's Cultural Desk. She is also the host of Seasonings, a series of holiday specials on food and culture. From 1988 to 1995 she was the host of NPR's documentary series Horizons. In 1990 she won a duPont-Columbia Award for "AIDS and Black America: Breaking the Silence". In 1992 the National Association of Black Journalists issued her an award for her segment "South Africa and the African-American Experience".
Grosvenor is the author of Vibration Cooking, also known as The Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl. The cookbook, originally published in 1970, is an autobiographical culinary cookbook, and documents her accession from the dusty roads of South Carolina to the bright lights of Paris, Italy, and other European countries, and later, to the Black Arts Movement of New York City. Through her experiences, Vertamae uses the universal palate of adventure to introduce the reader to people, places, rituals, and international culinary delights.
Vibration Cooking focuses on lowcountry cooking and Geechee (or Gullah) cooking. The book emphasises spontaneity in the kitchen. Grosvenor shows the reader how to cook by "vibration," rather than precisely measuring ingredients, and how to "make do" with ingredients on hand. She captures the essence of traditional African American techniques. Her book uses the hearty, simple, healthful, basic ingredients of lowcountry cuisine, including shrimp, oysters, crab, fresh produce, rice, and sweet potatoes. The first edition is now a classic-cookbook collectors' must-have.
In addition to Vibration Cooking, Grosvenor is the author of "Thursdays and Every Other Sunday Off: A Domestic Rap". She has been a contributing editor to Elan Magazine and Essence Magazine, and has written for Village Voice, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
Grosvenor is the mother of two children: Kali Grosvenor-Henry, a poet, essayist and author of "Poems by Kali", (Doubleday 1970); and Chandra Ursule Weinland-Brown, an actor, visual artist, and poet).