Most rappers, well, at least the hardcore rappers, usually use their time on the street and in jail as like a badge of honor to strengthen their street cred and thus sell more albums. But one rapper’s time in jail was influential in an entirely different way.
Albert “Prodigy” Johnson, one half of the influential hip-hop duo Mobb Deep, who created ’90s hits like “Shook Ones, Part II”, “Quiet Storm” and more, discovered a new talent after he was sentenced for illegally possessing a firearm in 2007.
His new book, Commissary Kitchen: My Infamous Prison Cookbook, is written by Prodigy and journalist Kathy Iandoli.
In the cookbook, Prodigy describes how his lifelong battle with sickle cell made him hyper-conscious of what he ate while incarcerated.
“I couldn’t afford to get sick in prison,” he writes. “My sickle cell is no joke, so I couldn’t eat poorly or not exercise. And everything in jail is designed to do the exact opposite.” This is just a hint of what sets Commissary Kitchen apart from other books in the genre — it’s about Prodigy’s experience of prison as much, if not more than, about the food itself. Unlike most cookbooks, there will also be an audio version read by Prodigy — recipes included.
While the prison menus did change, he writes that there was only one green vegetable that made it onto his cafeteria tray — green beans — and it was served only once a week. Even though he tried to eat healthy, cookbook readers will see his book a little different. “It’s not all healthy stuff,” Prodigy told NPR in an interview. “There’s a lot of butter and seasonings — it’s as healthy as I could get in the prison system.”
Just because inmates have access to the prison cafeteria doesn’t mean that they have enough to eat. Prison meals are often so cheaply made, badly prepared and sometimes unsuitable that they’ve incited riots, caused starving inmates to fight and riot.
In his NPR interview, Prodigy says that the prison “day room” — a common area of sorts — was where inmates did all of their cooking. “In the building I was in, there was about 30-40 inmates in that particular dorm, and we’d all have to share one microwave and one toaster oven and take turns cooking there,” he says.
Only correctional officers can access refrigerators. But despite this, Prodigy managed to make curry gravy, macaroni and tuna salads, baked seafood with vegetables and sweet potato pie – all recipes that are available in the book.
In addition to wanting to eat better food, there’s another reason cooking is such a popular pastime in prison: it’s therapeutic. It’s medically proven that some experience less stress and improve quality of life/relationships by being in the kitchen. Any chef will tell you that he or she feels right “at home” no matter how calm or chaotic the kitchen. The same is true even in the prison kitchen.
“It’s just relaxing and you almost forget where you’re at for an hour or two,” Prodigy says. “It helps people get along, too. Sometimes if you’ve got a group of people in there that are cool with each other, we’d order a chicken [from the commissary] together or make a dinner.”
The most important part of prison cooking, Prodigy writes, is the seasonings. Luckily, he was able to get his hands on spices like Goya Sazón and Adobo, as well as garlic, onion and curry powders. Of course, ramen seasoning packets were popular behind bars, but because each packet contains about 1,000 mg of sodium, Prodigy had to get creative and use something else.
Prodigy credits the success of his prison recipes to an inmate from the Virgin Islands who had been a chef on the outside. Prodigy and others gave this inmate food to cook, and soon the chef started explaining how to do things like debone canned fish or create a sauce.
“He was showing me different techniques and eventually I started making up my own recipes and cooking them,” Prodigy writes. “I found that preparation is everything when you cook.” He says that even people on the outside heap on spices when food is done cooking rather than during the prep stages, when you can get the best flavor.
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