Menu
In my previous article, I highlighted individuals who revolutionized the American palette.
We don’t realize how much food we consume is thanks to African Americans. It’s not just fried chicken and watermelon. A lot of hearty Southern cooking was originally imported African cuisine, with a twist. Some of our traditions around food and food service have a dark past, too. Please enjoy these few examples of foods and traditions that are rooted in Black history:
Though its genealogical origin is in the warmer climates of Asia Minor, The modern version of the banana that we enjoy in the United States comes from West Africa. The Transatlantic Slave Trade carried more than human cargo. Captors also brought goods and foods, and the banana plant was a major staple that was brought to Caribbean shores. The first bananas were likely more like plantains. Splicing and conditioning the various plants that they had on hand developed the fruit that we recognize today across all parts of the Americas. Banana pudding is not an exclusively Black American invention, but it is still a major dessert in Soul Food. You can visit Shayla J’s for her banana pudding.
Okra is another plant that traveled to the Americas through the Transatlantic slave trade. It is native to the horn of Africa and spread across the continent. Okra was cultivated as far east as Ethiopia, north as Egypt and Morocco, and as far west as Cameroon and Angola. Record of its use as food dates back to the 13th Century, hundreds of years before widespread European colonization of Africa. Besides the most common modern ways of cooking okra, the leaves were used in medicine to make a poultice for inflammation and aches, much like aloe. The seeds were used as a coffee substitute. The fibrous mucilage in the pod is used to thicken sauces and soups. The Angolan word for okra, “ki ngombo”, is how we get the word “gumbo”, a West African/Louisianan dish whose staple ingredient is okra.
There is a difference between yams and sweet potatoes, though mainstream American supermarkets rarely care to differentiate. Yams were a staple food in West Africa. They are a starchy, rough tuber that can grow up to 115 centimeters in length. The word “yam” claims its root in the Fulani word “nyami”, which means “to eat”. Igbo consider yam the King of Crops. Sweet potatoes are native to the Western Hemisphere and are smaller, softer, and thinner skinned than yams.
The mix-up of yams vs sweet potatoes is rooted in the transatlantic slave trade. Slavers would pack yams from Africa to feed their human cargo. Upon landing on western shores, yams were not as readily available, but Central American sweet potatoes were. Enslaved Africans made due with the indigenous sweet potato, often calling them yams, as they initially appear similar in look and texture. Eventually sweet potatoes would become a major Southern crop. Enslaved Black people would make “candied yams”, puddings, and the ever-important sweet potato pie with them. True yams are as diverse in use as sweet potatoes, but you would be more likely to find them in a West African grocery store.
Collard and Kale greens are native Mediterranean plants that eventually were cultivated in Western Africa over thousands of years and then transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Western Hemisphere. Both greens are nutrient-dense “superfood” leafy plants that are relatively easy to grow and can survive both harsh summers and bitter cold. For this reason, they were two of the few crops that enslaved Black folks were allowed to grow and harvest for themselves.
After emancipation, Collard and Kale greens would continue to be a major comfort food for African Americans, and they would be the target of ridicule by the mainstream. Regardless, Black folks from the Louisiana bayou to the coast of Ghana enjoy greens in multiple forms. In America, many Black families eat Collard Greens on New Year’s Day for good economic fortune, as folded greens resemble dollar bills. In the early 2000s, Kale would eventually be “discovered” by influencers as a superfood, which would rocket the price of it and misappropriately get it labeled it a “white people food”.
Chitlins are a dish that people love or hate (I hate them). They are the cleaned out intestines of a pig. Enslaved people were not allowed to consume certain cuts of meat. There was a hierarchy when it came to pig consumption; the enslaved would be allotted the feet (trotters), stomach (maws), and the intestines (chitlins). Wealthy white people would eat the legs and back portion of the pig. This culinary pyramid is how the term “high on the hog” came about.
Though in America Black people were making do with what they were allowed to have, a lot of the cooking style is rooted in West African preparation, as they valued every part of the pig for consumption. Chitlins could be slow cooked or fried and were usually cooked with vinegar, hot sauce, onions or greens. After slavery ended, chitlins were still part of the Black southern diet. The dish was also used in the Jim Crow era as code that a venue was safe for African Americans to be. Some of these venues would eventually make up the Chitlin Circuit, a network of places where Black musicians and entertainers would regularly tour to perform.
The earliest record of cooking chicken in oil/fat comes from Scotland, but it was unseasoned. West African nations would later cook fried chicken in batter and seasoning. Due to the expense of ingredients and the labor required, it was a rare dish for special occasions, even when the dish was forcefully migrated to the States. Everyone who eats chicken loves fried chicken, yet the dish is another conduit for the derision of African Americans.
Enslaved Africans would make fried chicken the original Scottish way, but with the spices they had on hand, creating a whole new richer palette. Chickens were some to the few livestock that enslaved people were allowed to have as well. After Emancipation, Black women would cook and sell to hungry travelers at train stations, building wealth for themselves and their families. Fried chicken was an ideal option. As it traveled well, even in the Southern heat. Fried chicken stands would elevate Black families from poverty right after the end of slavery to middle class, albeit segregated middle class. Because of this success, Southern (and some northern) white folks targeted fried chicken as another object with which to negatively caricaturize Black folks, despite the fact that they loved fried chicken just as much.
When Tiger Woods won his first masters, racist golfer Fuzzy Zoeller told reporters to tell Woods not to serve fried chicken at the event. The early 20th Century saw the opening of white-owned fried chicken restaurants like Sambo’s and Coon Chicken Inn, both of which used explicitly racist depictions of African Americans to advertise their products. There was a KFC knock-off restaurant in Beijing called Obama Fried Chicken, named after the 44th Despite this fried chicken perseveres as a favorite dish for all Americans who eat chicken, and Black folks continue to innovate with the recipe, boasting different styles throughout the South.
In the United States, most of us add gratuity on a restaurant bill without thought. We do this because we know that servers often make less than minimum wage, and our tips help supplement the wages they receive. Like many customs in America, though, this necessity is born from institutional racism. Tipping originated in feudal Europe, and American travelers attempting to appear sophisticated brought the tradition to the Western Hemisphere. After the Civil war, newly freed Black men would take on jobs as porters and servers, but the companies hiring them would not pay them forcing them to rely on tips from their white clientele. This established a racialized class structure in service jobs, in which workers must please both customer and employer, often enduring derision and abuse.
Journalist John Speed bristled at tipping white men. In 1902, he said, “Negroes take tips, of course; one expects that of them—it is a token of their inferiority…Tips go with servility, and no man who is a voter in this country is in the least justified in being in service.” When a minimum wage was established in the 1930s, the restaurant industry successfully lobbied to keep server wages low, thereby making it necessary for a server to work for tips if they expect to make a living wage. This often affects people with the most volatile economic situations. Until a universal minimum wage is established in this country, Tipping is not only encouraged but necessary.
Watermelon was domesticated around 6,000 years ago in the lands now called Kenya, Ethiopia, Libya, Sudan, and Egypt. Conquest of these old empires spread watermelon to Rome, Greece, and across the Mediterranean coast. It was enjoyed as a delicacy by pharaohs and emperors and used by Greek medics as a treatment for heatstroke. Watermelon is also stigmatized as a conduit to deride Black people. Caricatures of Black folks eating watermelon in 19th and 20th Century advertisements were ubiquitous. They were nicknamed n***er apples, a phrase that can be heard in certain circles today. The instrumental version of Harry C. Browne’s 1916 song “N***er Love a Watermelon Ha! Ha! Ha!” could be heard by roving ice cream trucks up through the late 2010s (it’s instrumental was repackaged as “Turkey in the Straw”.
On the first day of Black History Month this year, 2023, food vendor Aramark had to publicly apologize for serving a meal that included fried chicken and watermelon at a Rockland County, New York middle school. This purported “lack of judgement” could have been an opportunity to teach why watermelon is such a racially charged fruit. The source of watermelon’s derisive status is racist jealously and resentment. Watermelon was a crop that enslaved Black people were allowed to grow since it was relatively easy and cheap. Upon emancipation, newly freed Black families continued to grow the crop and capitalize on their work, selling them so that they could be financially independent. This angered some white people who saw any positive development from Black people as an affront to their existence.
Suddenly, the watermelon was associated with uncleanliness and laziness. Scenes like the Watermelon Feast in “Birth of a Nation” and Universal Picture’s “Scrub Me Mama with a Boogie Beat” cemented the Watermelon stigma in the 20th century, and it has stuck in the 21st, as Aramark has proven. Despite the racist overtones that have been foisted onto it, Watermelon is a delicious fruit, a sweet source of Vitamins A and C, dietary fiber, water, and less sugar than citrus fruits, that was once enjoyed by ancient royalty and by millions of people today.
The black-eyed pea is a native ingredient in West African cuisine. Despite the name, it is actually a bean in the cowpea family. The crop traveled with its human cargo to the Western Hemisphere, where it became another food that enslaved people were allowed to grow, as it was considered low brow food and feed for animals. They were looked down upon so much that during the Civil War, the Union Army would raid the Confederate Army’s food supplies during take everything that they considered edible with the exception of black-eyed peas.
At this point, the Confederate Army had to eat whatever they could find and only ate the beans out of necessity. After the war, black eye peas were eaten in celebration of emancipation. They are another dish traditionally served on New Years day in order to bring good luck for the new year. Black-Eyed Peas are also the name of a hip-hop group whose first underground album was better than all there subsequent albums combined.
Jambalaya is a Creole/Cajun rice dish traditionally filled with chicken, andouille sausage, shrimp, okra, celery onion, bell pepper, tomatoes, and garlic, all cooked in one pot in spices and oil to taste. This dish pulls from French, Spanish, Indigenous, and West African traditions in cooking. Though there is a direct connection between the American jambalaya and West Africa’s jollof rice. Jollof is a rice dish full of various meats and vegetables cooked in one pot. Its main ingredients vary from region to region, as Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal all have different versions of the same dish.
Either way, the intent of these rice dishes is to make a hearty meal that will fill up a family. Jollof is traced to the 1300s era empire of Wolof (modern Senegal). When the transatlantic slave trade brought people from Africa’s western coast to the shores of Louisiana, the survivors brought the concept of their dishes here too. Making d0 with the ingredients they had on hand, jambalaya was born. The earliest record of the dish is the 1840s, but it likely existed in different forms since the 1700s when the first Africans were brought to Louisiana.
Oxtail, once literally meaning tail of an ox, is now a term that means any cattle tail. Its place in Caribbean cuisine comes from colonizers and slavers’ desire to feed their human captives as cheaply as possible. Just like with hogs, cuts of meat from the body of cattle were valued, but body parts like the tail were considered throwaway parts, so those parts went to the enslaved Africans. Because oxtails have so many bones in them, they are rich in gelatin. The meat is usually slow cooked or braised with seasonings and vegetables. Its gelatinous quality made it popular as a soup stock or as a stew. Oxtail has become famous a signature of Jamaican cuisine. Once considered a cheap and low-brow, it is now a rare expensive dish in the parts of the world that looked down on it.
Red Beans and Rice was a Louisiana Monday soul food tradition that spread throughout the African Diaspora in America. Considered a “common bean”, the red kidney bean is a favored food due to its high fiber and protein content. The ease of cooking red beans contributed to it being a Monday staple. Servants would slow stew the beans all afternoon and night while doing their chores and laundry for the week.
Preparation is a long but easy process; one need only to put the beans in a pot of stock or water and season with cayenne, salt, pepper, thyme, paprika, onions, and sometimes a meat like hambone or chicken. By the end of the day, the meal was ready. The dish came to US shores thanks to refugees of the Haitian Revolution, both white slavers and free Black people (affranchis or gens de couleur libres). They brought with them the food of Haiti, red beans being a major comfort food. Today we can find the dish in any soul food restaurant.
Chicken and Waffles only become widely popular in the 21st century, but its roots go back to the kitchens where enslaved Africans toiled. A decent kitchen would house a “wafer iron”, and cooks would mix rice and flour batter to make the breakfast confection. These were thinner and crispier than the Belgian waffle to which we are accustomed. They would pour a sweet or savory sauce, jam or gravy, over the wafer and pair it with a baked or fried meat.
In the 20th Century, Joseph Wells, of Harlem’s Wells Supper Club introduced the more modern version of Chicken and Waffles in the 1930s. The dish was so popular that Jazz musician Bunny Berigan composed an instrumental song called “Chicken and Waffles”. 1975, Roscoe’s House of Chicken and Waffles opened in Los Angeles, further popularizing the dish with the mainstream. Its popularity exploded when Gladys Knight opened Gladys Knight’s Chicken & Waffles restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. By the next turn of the century, Chicken and Waffles became a ubiquitous commodity at any brunch spot.
Ethiopia is the birthplace of both humanity and humanity’s favorite morning beverage, coffee. A legend tells that an 11th Century goat herder named Kaldi noticed that his charge would get overly energetic after eating berries from a certain plant. He brought the plant to an abbot who made a tea out of the berries, and he became more alert. The monks thought the plant was the “Devil’s work” and cast it into a fire, which inevitably roasted the beans. The aroma from the beans inspired the monks to give the brew one more chance, and from there a drink was born.
How much of that telling is true is unknown, but it is certain that coffee was first discovered and cultivated by the Galla tribe of Ethiopia. From there, trade with Yemen and the then the Umayyad Caliphate would spread the from the horn of Africa to the Arabian peninsula and eventually to Southeast Asia. When Europeans were introduced to coffee, them met it with apprehension and then admiration.
Coffee traveled to the Americas via the slave trade, and enslaved people would be compelled to cultivate it throughout Central and South America. Despite its deep African, Arabian, and South American roots, the Western coffee industry is overwhelmingly white, and non-conscientious venders acquire their beans from factory farms that have grown little from the time of slavery.
Racist imagery has been used in advertising since the invention of the printing press. Chicken Inn used a large, red-lipped smiling dark skinned caricature of a man as their logo. Grocers and farms would depict cartoonish versions of Black children eating watermelon with mouths the size of the fruit to hawk their produce. It was not until 2021 that Land O’ Lakes stopped using a non-descript Indigenous woman as their mascot.
Though caricatures of people of color were common, the most egregious depictions were those of real people who played the role of mascot without being properly compensated. The man who used to be on the front of Cream of Wheat boxes was a Barbadian-American chef named Frank L. White. His image was used, and an advertising agent created the backstory of “Rastus”, a lazy cook who heavily used a broken dialect. White posed for a picture in 1900 for fifty cents, and Cream of Wheat made millions from it.
Uncle Ben was on the eponymous rice boxes for over 70 years. According to the parent company Mars, he was an elderly Negro waiter who used to be an enslaved Negro cook known for the high quality of his rice dishes. The truth is that “Uncle Ben” is two people. The name Uncle Ben comes from a Black Texas rice farmer named Ben, whose family name is lost to history. The image on packaging is Frank Brown, maître d’ at an exclusive Chicago restaurant. So not only was a likeness stolen, but a name too.
The most infamous real “mascot” is Aunt Jemima. The name Aunt Jemima comes from an 1875 minstrel song called “Old Aunt Jemima”. Pearl Milling Company founders Charles G. Underwood and Chris Rutt thought it would be good marketing to use a “mammy” caricature to hawk their new pancake mix. The mammy is a well-worn trope of an older heavyset servile Black woman who dotes on her white “owner”/employer. After the company changed hands to RT Davis, multiple people were hired to depict the character, most famously Nancy Green. Her 1893 appearance as Aunt Jemima at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition cemented the company’s product as a staple for breakfast. Despite what some think, Nancy Green neither made the pancake recipe, nor did she make any profit from sale of it.
Today, Cream of Wheat removed “Rastus” from their boxes, Uncle Ben is now Ben’s Original with no sign of Frank Brown, and Pepsico retired Aunt Jemima and rebranded as the original Pearl Milling company. All this happened in the last 3 years, and racist imagery in advertising is not exclusive to food brands.
Teressa Belissimo of Buffalo, New York’s Anchor Bar gets credit for inventing Buffalo wings, but it was in fact a Black man named John M. Young. The first appearance of chicken wings in Buffalo was courtesy of John M. Young . Young is African-American entrepreneur who opened his first restaurant in 1963 on Jefferson Avenue and Carlton Street. He served his wings uncut, breaded, deep-fried, and served with his secret, tomato-based Mambo Sauce.
The Bellissimo and Young families were friendly as they were in the same industry. Teressa Bellissimo had the idea to cut the wings in half before frying and the first to serve them with celery and blue cheese dressing. But the original concept is Young’s. Bellissimo would go on to trademark the Buffalo wing, and the Young family says the lack of marketing and the failure to secure a trademark is the reason John Young’s name is not recorded as the originator of the wing today. Regardless, John M. Young’s restaurant, John Young’s Wings n’ Things, is still regarded as the true birthplace of the Buffalo wing.
(he/his/him) Chris Thompson is an engineer, writer, comedian, and activist who made Rochester, New York his home in 2008. In addition to his role as Contributor for 540Blog he currently writes and regularly posts on his own on Instagram and Twitter at @ChronsOfNon. His blog is www.chroniclesofnonesense.com.
mailing address P.O. BOX 10011, Rochester, NY 14610 • info540westmain@gmail.com