|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
As we celebrate Black History Month, we can’t let the month pass without noting how much Black people have contributed significantly to American foodways and inventions.
“There are so many foods and products that are made by Black folks, and somebody else just puts their name and label on it,” charges Diane Spivey, author of “Once You Go Black, You Never Go Back: The National and International Impact of African American Cuisine in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries” and “At the Table of Power: Food and Cuisine in the African American Struggle for Freedom, Justice, and Equality.”
There’s a wealth of history about our contributions to America’s cuisine, but some you have to really dig for. Here’s a look at just ten fun Black history food facts.
Origins
- The first Black history food fact is that many of the crops Americans take for granted originally came from Africa. “Some of the crops brought to the Americas from Africa include beans, okra (gumbo), peanuts (goobers), watermelon, yams, coffee, bananas, palm oil, and rice,” notes Spivey.
“And those crops were brought to the Americas, along with enslaved Africans to plant and harvest them.” So, don’t get it twisted! Our ancestors were brought here because of the farming and other skills they already had before they got here.
- Public schools nationwide have federally funded free breakfast programs for low-income children for decades. But did you know the Black history food fact about the Black Panther Party originating the idea? The Black Panthers’ Free Breakfast for School Children Program started in an Episcopal church in Oakland, California, in 1969 and lasted through the early 1970s.
Party members solicited donations from grocery stores and fed thousands of children across the country. It helped to increase students’ attention in school by decreasing the number of children falling asleep and complaining of stomach cramps from not having breakfast at home. In 1975, the U.S. government made free breakfast in schools a permanent program.
Pioneers
- The Hemings Brothers are a fun, family Black history food fact. When Thomas Jefferson was serving as U.S. Minister to France in the late 1700s, he took his enslaved chef, James Hemings (older brother of Sally Hemings and half-brother of Jefferson’s wife, Martha), who was only 19 at the time. Jefferson had Hemings apprentice to chefs in Paris over the course of three years, and he eventually became head chef at the embassy for the American delegation, where he cooked for European elite and international guests.
Upon their return to the United States, Hemings brought back the techniques and recipes he had learned abroad and implemented them at Jefferson’s Monticello home in Virginia. One of those recipes was for what Hemings called macaroni pie, which he eventually renamed macaroni and cheese – a staple on Black menus at home and in restaurants. Hemings became known as “The Father of American Cuisine.”
Spivey notes, “Thomas Jefferson promised James his freedom if he would train his brother Peter in the art of cookery. So he did, and he was liberated.” Peter not only learned the art of cooking, but he also learned the art of brewing. He took over the brewing and malting operations at Monticello and became America’s first master brewer. Both brothers were America’s first Black celebrity chefs. - During segregation, there were a wealth of Black-owned restaurants across the country, many of which were listed in “The Negro Motorist Green Book.” Sadly, many of those original restaurants closed as a result of desegregation and the strategic dismantling of historic Black communities. But Jones Bar-B-Q Diner is another Black history food fact, as the longest running Black-owned restaurant in the country.
The Marianna, Arkansas, eatery was founded by Joe Jones sometime in the 1910s and boasts some of the best barbecue in the country. Today, the James Beard America’s Classic Award winner is run by James and Better Jones and has been in its current location since 1964.
Inventors
- The next time you open a jar of peanut butter, know the Black history food fact that agricultural scientist and inventor George Washington Carver created that popular sandwich spread and a wealth of other food, health and household products from peanuts.
“He made peanut milk and milk flakes, peanut flour, pancake flour, malted peanuts, peanut meal, meat substitutes like peanut meatloaf and peanut sausage, chili sauce, peanut brittle, instant coffee, mock oysters, mayonnaise, Worcester sauce, peanut sprouts, peanut cooking oil, vinegar, peanut relish, peanut-chocolate fudge, peanut-popcorn bars, caramel, butterscotch, laundry soap, peanut-lemon punch, rubbing oil, iron tonic, something for bronchitis, a laxative, an oil mixed with mercury for venereal disease, cosmetics, dyes for leathers and cloths, lotions, face creams, face bleach and tan remover, peanut oil, shampoo, shaving cream, pomade, antiseptic soap, and much more,” exclaims Spivey.
The Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University) professor invented more than 300 products from peanuts, sweet potatoes and other plants. Spivey adds, “And he contributed greatly to the economic growth of the South.”
- While watching TV and munching through an entire bag of potato chips, you’ll appreciate knowing the next Black history food fact about restaurant chef George Crum, who invented the popular snack in 1853. The son of an African American father and a Native American mother, Crum was a chef at Moon’s Lake House in Saratoga Springs, New York, home to the Belmont Stakes.
A pesky patron who ordered a plate of French-fried potatoes nastily sent them back saying they were too thick and too soft. So Crum responded by slicing the potatoes extremely thin and frying them so hard until they crunched. The patron loved it and potato chips were born!
Years later, Crum opened his own restaurant, which had a basket of potato chips on every table. Unfortunately, he never patented his invention, so big business made billions from the snack. Spivey laments, “Sadly, this happened all the time with Black inventors.”
Traditions
- During enslavement, Black people were given the scraps from the pig – feet, chitlins (intestines) and ears. “But Black folks were always creative geniuses in making something out of nothing,” says Spivey. In fact, our ancestors could make even the lowliest of scraps taste like a delicacy.
So much so, that even generations after freedom, many of us still eat those foods. So here are two Black-owned restaurants that make for a fun Black history food fact: This Is It Soul Food in Houston, Texas, sells more than 5,000 pounds of chitlins on New Year’s Day alone, and The Big Apple Inn in Jackson, Mississippi, is known to have the best pig ear sandwiches, selling between 600 to 900 sandwiches a day!
- When ringing in the New Year, don’t forget the Black history food fact about how the tradition of black-eyed peas, collard greens and cornbread got started in the Black community. There are a few stories as to how it started, one being that enslaved people ate black-eyed peas on January 1, 1863 to celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation, which abolished slavery.
Black-eyed peas were brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans, who considered them a good luck charm and for warding off evil spirits. However, White slave owners saw them as throw-away food for the enslaved and livestock.
Collard greens are native to the Mediterranean and were cultivated in West Africa and brought to the Americas, as well. The crop is relatively easy to grow and can survive harsh heat and bitter cold, so it was one of a few crops that enslaved Blacks were allowed to grow and harvest for themselves.
Collard greens are also considered to be a good economic fortune, as folded greens resemble dollar bills. And cornbread is said to represent gold. And that’s why, to this day, African Americans continue the tradition of eating black-eyed peas, collard greens and cornbread to represent good financial luck in the New Year.
Stereotypes
- Many Black people refuse to eat watermelon because of the stereotype that was started during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But do you know the Black history food fact of why that stereotype was started? Watermelon originated in Africa and was brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans. It had become a cheap and easy crop that enslaved Black people were allowed to grow.
After emancipation, Black families started becoming financially independent by growing and selling watermelons, which caused white resentment toward Black economic strength. As a result, racist whites started creating caricatures of Blacks eating watermelon and the fruit started being associated with laziness and uncleanliness. “This is our fruit and we need to reclaim it,” Spivey exclaims. Today, many Black people are reclaiming watermelon and rejecting the racist gaslighting. - And talk about gaslighting – Black imagery has been used in food advertising for centuries, many of it with stereotypes. But here’s a little-known Black history food fact – the reason Black people were put on many food products was because Black people were the ones who did all of the cooking for many white people during and after enslavement, and they were known as the best cooks.
White people felt that if a Black person was cooking it, the food was definitely going to be good. “They were selling our image to say that this (a Black cook) is the tradition of fine cooking,” states Spivey. So Black images helped to really sell those products.
However, after the George Floyd murder by policeman Derek Chauvin, many companies started doing things to pacify African Americans including taking the face of Barbadian American chef Frank L. White off of the Cream of Wheat box, taking the face of Chicago restaurant maître d’ Frank Brown from the Uncle Ben box, and taking the latest Black woman from the Aunt Jemima box (the original and most famous being Nancy Green in 1893).
The thought was to remove Black stereotypes, but the result is just another example of making Black people invisible to our immense contributions to American cuisine. “When they take our faces off the boxes, they’re taking the evidence away,” Spivey says with disgust. “It’s bad enough that Black people never got the financial payment from the billions of dollars that these companies were making off of their recipes.
She concludes, “That is the reason that we must research and report our own Black history food facts, or we’ll be left out of the story of American cuisine.”
