There were many things covered in episode one of The
African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross,
in which I am inspired to write about.
In this posting, I will discuss my thoughts about the conversation about
food and food traditions between Professor Henry Louis Gates and Culinary Historian
Michael Twitty.
Episode
One: The Black Atlantic (1500-1800)
I loved watching this segment which opened with Professor
Gates and Mr. Twitty walking towards the garden as Mr. Twitty began the
conversation saying that the garden “signifies
crops that enslaved African Americans would have grown.” Professor Gates’ response that “the most enduring expressions of any
culture is food” and about people being able “to access the world of ancestors by tasting it” perked my interest
and I began to think about food and cooking traditions in my own family. In my immediate family (my three sisters and
I), food and cooking traditions were primarily passed down to us from our
maternal grandmother. Although the time
period for episode one of Many Rivers to Cross was from 1500-1800, my thoughts
about food traditions and cooking focused on what this meant to me during my
lifetime.
Grandma’s
Cooking
 |
| Emma Johnson Thornton, my maternal grandmother |
In 2011, when my grandmother Emma died, I wanted her funeral
program to include more information about her beyond vital facts about birth,
marriage, or death. One of the things I
did as I prepared to write her funeral program was to talk to three generations
of my family about their memories of her.
This included her children (my aunt and uncle), my sisters and first
cousins, and some of the great-grandchildren of my grandmother. The common theme and memories from all three
generations was about the foods she cooked.
As a result, I included this statement in the narrative of her funeral
program.
She will be
remembered for her cooking of homemade biscuits, crackling corn bread, butter
fish, chicken and rice, collard greens, stewed tomatoes, raisin cookies, and
lemon meringue pies.
One of my favorite memories of my grandmother’s cooking
is her homemade biscuits. (click here
for that story)
Grandma’s
Spam Soup
In another part of the food conversation, Michael Twitty mentioned
to Professor Gates that he had found a reference which quoted the wife of a
former Virginia governor to have said “No
one bakes a ham better than a big, fat negro Mammy”. Rather than taking offense to this, Mr.
Twitty and Professor Gates put the comment in a positive and complimentary
perspective as they stood near the stalk of sorghum.
Twitty: But somehow we got our hands in the sugarcane.
Gates: And our ancestors blackified it:
Twitty: We blackified it--we took everything and made
it better, made it more soulful…
This part of the conversation about putting the “blackified”
or “soul” touch on food ignited my memories about my grandmother’s creative
cooking methods and her spam soup.
Grandma’s family was poor and she also grew up during the Great
Depression so I’m sure she learned some of this cooking creativity from her
mother and other ancestors. I remember
one cold winter when food in the house was low and Grandma made a large pot of
homemade soup. Typically she included
some type of meat in her soup such as chicken, turkey, or beef. However, she did not have any meat in the
house and no money to even buy meat from the store. The closest thing she had to meat was a can of
spam which someone had given her. So
along with her blending various types of fresh and canned vegetables to make
the soup, Grandma cut the spam into chunks and threw them in the pot. Talk about delicious!
In episode one, Professor Gates talked about
slave cooks “crafting a distinct African
American cuisine.” Well, I must say
that my grandmother’s spam soup, biscuits, and other meals were definitely “distinct African American cuisines.” In the Bible, Jesus performed a miracle
when he used two fish and five loaves of bread to feed a large crowd of over five
thousand people. During my lifetime, I
witnessed my grandmother working quite a few meal
miracles as she took what little she had to make a tasty meal.
My
Cooking and Eating Practices Today
In the last two years, I have had to radically change my
cooking and eating practices to improve my health. Although my cooking methods are drastically
different from my grandmother and other ancestors, I have learned through
studying various recipes and by trial and error how to get some of the tastes
of the past without the high salt, sugar, or fat that would have been used by
my ancestors to “craft their distinct
African American cuisines.
For more information about Culinary Historian Michael
Twitty:
- African American Foodways with Michael W. Twitty
- Interview of Michael Twitty by Bernice
Alexander Bennett of Research at the National Archives and Beyond Blog Talk
Radio Show
