Albert Prodigy Johnson - Commissary Kitchen: My Infamous Prison Cookbook

COMMISSARY KITCHEN 2016 BY ALBERT PRODIGY JOHNSON
AND KATHY IANDOLI. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK
OR PORTIONS THEREOF IN ANY FORM WHATSOEVER.
FOR INFORMATION ADDRESS INFAMOUS BOOKS, RIGHTS DEPARTMENT,
520 EIGHTH AVENUE, SUITE 2001, NEW YORK, NY 10018.

FIRST EDITION

BOOK AND JACKET DESIGN: TISCHEN FRANKLIN

JACKET PHOTOGRAPHER: SANDY KIM

FOOD PHOTOGRAPHER: TEDDY WOLFF

FOOD STYLIST: CAITLIN LEVIN

CREATIVE CONSULTANT: ROBERTA MAGRINI

Editorial Director: Marvis Johnson

CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA IS ON FILE WITH THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

ISBN: 978-0-9971462-3-3 PRINTED IN CHINA

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM INFAMOUS BOOKS:

MY INFAMOUS LIFE

BY ALBERT PRODIGY JOHNSON WITH LAURA CHECKOWAY

H.N.I.C.

BY ALBERT PRODIGY JOHNSON WITH STEVEN SAVILE

THE WHITE HOUSE

BY JAQUAVIS COLEMAN

BLACK LOTUS

BY KWAN

SWING

BY MIASHA

CAUGHT UP

BY SHANNON HOLMES

THE GAME DONT CHANGE

BY MAZARADI FOX

WWW.INFAMOUSBOOKS.COM

The Commissary Kitchen is something weve all heard about. Whether youve been in jail, visited loved ones in jail, or just watched Goodfellas, its the incarcerated canteen filtering what those on the inside can and cant eat. Pimps like to say you control the body if you control the mind, and you better believe its a pimp that created the Commissary. But this book is about getting free. Its about the will of the men and women in these prisons to keep fighting day-by-day recreating the food on the inside,
protecting their bodies, and preserving control over their minds.

One thing that Prodigy learns on the inside is that cooking is about
preparation. I found that preparation is everything when you cook. Youve gotta hook your food up when its uncooked to taste right when it is cooked. It seems simple enough, but its something a lot of us forget. Food isnt just nourishment; its your being. Its your family, your memories, your
neighborhood, your ethnicity, your travels, and every thing in between. As you go through the pages, youll see that the life P lived on the outside, got him and his cohorts through on the inside.

Every single day was prep work for the Commissary Kitchen. Even Shook Ones, arguably Ps greatest hit, had a lil gem foreshadowing the work he was about to do in the four state prisons where he served his bid. If you ever been to Baohaus, you already know, cause Aint No Such Thing as Halfway Cooks.

Eddie Huang

First things first: this aint no conventional cookbook. Im not here to tell you about pinches of salt and shit or the right way to cook a chicken. Nah. Before I got locked up, I didnt cook at all. I was a world-touring rapper in the legendary Hip-Hop group Mobb Deep. I was offered luxuries like dining at five-star restaurants eating things I couldnt pronounce. My first day at Rikers, I was sent to the infirmary with food poisoning. Real talk though, it wasnt rotten food, but my body wasnt adjusted to the low quality chow being pumped into my system.

Thats when I realized the system tries to kill you in many ways.

Ive had sickle cell since I was a little kid, and every move I make those misshaped blood cells stay on my mind. I cant work out like you do; I cant eat like you do. I ran through four prisons during my sentence and every one of them had to have an infirmary in case I got sick. It was that serious. So spending three years in a government controlled box made me realize that the only thing I could control was how I took care of myself. It started with food.

Meals in prison are complex. You have your daily chow, but any extras come from your commissary or packages sent by your loved ones. With the exception of a few good meals, the chow was lethal. And yeah you could get a few things sent your way, but if it didnt come in a can then it probably didnt come. I had to learn to make do with what I had for survival. It saved my life.

On top of all that though, the meal prep was therapy for us. Me and the other inmates would head over to the common area and flip some meals, trying to impress each other. Sometimes it worked; a lot of times it didnt. We eyeballed for measurements, used crazy combinations for flavors, and had only a few appliances to do it all: two toaster ovens and a microwave. But we made it happen, and some of the meals I still eat to this day.

This book wont make you a better cook, but it might make you a better person. Because in a world where prisoners are treated like animals, we made our experiences there feel more human by how we prepared our food. It was all we had, reallyespecially on holidays. After all, we were somebodys brother, someones daddy. A son. This is the story of how I survived prison through the meals I ate. To the dudes I served them up with, one love. And to you reading this, take care of your bodies.

Eat up.

-P

The Rules

You cant order anything in a package from the outside if they have it in commissary already. If they got it in commissary, you cant order it in a package. Thats just the rule, because theyre trying to sell their stuff, I guess. They had rice on the commissary sheet, so you couldnt order rice in a package. They had pasta, so you couldnt order pasta. Theres just certain things that you cant get in a package if they got it in commissary. Each jail was different though. Each and every jail has different rules of what you can and cant have. Theyre all different, each one. So since I ran through four jails during my sentence, I had different cooking experiences with each, but Mid-State was where I spent most of my time. So thats where I cooked the most. They also didnt have vegetables in commissary, so I would have to order them. My wife would send me 30 pounds of canned green vegetables every month (30-35 pounds is the limit). Usually when people get packages of food, they would get snacks like Twinkies stuff that they dont have in the jail.