So here's Rossia on her favorite pie from her book, Sweet Land of Liberty.

The one that really stands out to me is one of the first pies, one of the first topics that I ever wrote about professionally, which is the navy bean pie, um, which I think is such an incredible story.

Um, it is the pie that the Nation of Islam made that was quintessential to their kind of political ideology, the reasoning, you know, the kind of ideology being creating a new Black identity free from any white influence or white identity.

And so navy bean pie became a symbol of this movement, the navy bean being a pillar of Elijah Muhammad, the Nation of Islam leaders', um, kind of prescribed diet for members of the Nation of Islam.

And so the navy bean pie in many instances replaced the sweet potato pie, which did have ties to the era of enslavement and this legacy there.

And so the navy bean pie became a symbol of this new Black identity and incredibly popular, um, in Black, uh, communities, particularly in the Nation of Islam.

And Muhammad Ali was incredibly fond of it.

Is it sweet? [laughs]