The legacies of American slavery can be found in something as ordinary and ubiquitous as food. Dillard University in New Orleans is one of the Regional Collaboration Partners in CIC’s Legacies of American Slavery. The project team at Dillard is focusing on the theme of cultural creativity — especially food but also music and tourism. It is hard to imagine a better place than New Orleans — the home of Louis Armstrong and Dooky Chase — to explore this theme!
Food historian Zella Palmer, the director of Dillard’s Ray Charles Program in African-American Material Culture, has carefully selected for us a few books on American slavery, American foodways, and the African American experience. This is not an exhaustive bibliography but a good starting place for scholars, students, or other curious readers who want to learn more about the intimate relationship between slavery and cookery.
In the space between two holiday seasons that traditionally involve a lot of food, it’s a good time to think about the complicated origins of many popular dishes. (Plus, books make good holiday presents.)
The books are listed alphabetically by author. The “purchase” buttons are for convenience only — we don’t make a penny of commission on sales.
Jessica B. Harris, High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2012)
From the Publisher: “From chitlins and ham hocks to fried chicken and vegan soul, Harris celebrates the delicious and restorative foods of the African American experience and details how each came to form such an important part of African American culture, history, and identity. Although the story of African cuisine in America begins with slavery, High on the Hog ultimately chronicles a thrilling history of triumph and survival. The work of a masterful storyteller and an acclaimed scholar, Jessica B. Harris’s High on the Hog fills an important gap in our culinary history.”
Joseph R. Haynes, From Barbycu to Barbecue: The Untold History of an American Tradition (University of South Carolina Press, 2023)
From the Publisher: “Award-winning barbecue cook Joseph R. Haynes sets out to correct one of the most common barbecue myths, the ‘Caribbean Origins Theory,’ which holds that the original southern barbecuing technique was imported from the Caribbean to what is today the American South. Rather, Haynes argues, the southern whole carcass barbecuing technique that came to define the American tradition developed via direct and indirect collaboration between Native Americans, Europeans, and free and enslaved people of African descent during the seventeenth century. Haynes’s barbycu-to-barbecue history analyzes historical sources throughout the Americas that show that the southern barbecuing technique is as unique to the United States as jerked hog is to Jamaica and barbacoa is to Mexico.”
Jori Lewis, Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History (The New Press, 2022)
From the Publisher: “Slaves for Peanuts deftly weaves together the natural and human history of a crop that transformed the lives of millions. Author Jori Lewis reveals how demand for peanut oil in Europe ensured that slavery in Africa would persist well into the twentieth century, long after the European powers had officially banned it in the territories they controlled. Delving deep into West African and European archives, Lewis recreates a world on the coast of Africa that is breathtakingly real and unlike anything modern readers have experienced.”
Carolyn Q. Tillery, The African American Heritage Cookbook: Traditional Recipes & Fond Remembrances from Alabama’s Renowned Tuskegee Institute, (Kensington Publishing Corp., 2005)
From the Publisher: “For more than 100 years, the small Southern town of Tuskegee, Alabama, has been a mecca for African Americans. The Tuskegee Institute [now Tuskegee University and a CIC member institution], founded by former slave Booker T. Washington in 1881, grew from a fledgling school to become a major center of American progress and education. This unique narrative cookbook traces the history and heritage of Tuskegee through reminiscences, vintage photographs, poetry, journal entries, and more than 200 recipes for delicious appetizers, entrées, side dishes, breads, beverages, and desserts that reflect the diverse and mouthwatering flavors of Southern African American cuisine.”
Psyche A. Williams-Forson, Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs, (University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
From the Publisher: “Psyche A. Williams-Forson examines the complexity of black women’s legacies using food as a form of cultural work. While acknowledging the negative interpretations of black culture associated with chicken imagery, Williams-Forson focuses her analysis on the ways black women have forged their own self-definitions and relationships to the ‘gospel bird.’ Williams-Forson considers how black women arrive at degrees of self-definition and self-reliance using certain foods. She demonstrates how they defy conventional representations of blackness and exercise influence through food preparation and distribution. Understanding these complex relationships clarifies how present associations of blacks and chicken are rooted in a past that is fraught with both racism and agency. The traditions and practices of feminism, Williams-Forson argues, are inherent in the foods women prepare and serve.”
Plus a lagniappe!
Zella Palmer, “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” 64 Parishes (March 1, 2017): LINK.
Palmer highlights the remarkable life and culinary contributions of Nellie Murray, a prominent figure in the New Orleans food scene. Murray, known as the “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” revolutionized Creole cooking and played a crucial role in preserving African American culinary traditions: “Nellie Murray defined herself against a segregated and often unjust background; her strength and tenacity to rise above low expectations for African Americans and for women is a true testament to her humanity.”
Zella Palmer, Recipes and Remembrances of Fair Dillard, 1869-2019 (University of Louisiana Press, 2019)
From the Publisher: “[This] is a compilation of research and recipes related to Dillard University, one of New Orleans’s historically black colleges and universities, and one that is central to the history of the Civil Rights Movement, education, and the cultural identity of the city. This cookbook shares over eighty years of international and indigenous New Orleans Creole recipes collected from the community, friends of the university, campus faculty, staff, and students, providing readers with a glimpse into the rich food culture of African-Americans in New Orleans.” Note: We shared a recipe from this cookbook back in February 2023 to help celebrate Mardi Gras.
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