There was an interesting article about this in the NY Times a few months ago. Edna Lewis's answer is that, yes, innovative black chefs - she mentions James Hemming, Thomas Jefferson's cook at Monticello - adapted European recipes and techniques to local ingredients, to create a distinctively Southern cuisine.

A case can be made for the continuing influence of this tradition, at least on high-status American food trends. In the 1940s Lewis ran a small, quirky restaurant in New York, based around fresh, local, high-quality ingredients. This restaurant, and her cookbook - "The Taste of Country Cooking", published in the 1970s - inspired a legion of chefs, most notably Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse.