October 9, 2009

Clean thoroughly and scrape it. Put it into a stove-pan with sufficient cold water, a pod of red pepper and salt. Baste frequently to make it crisp. Cook well done. Serve cold.
—Church of the Epiphany (Danville, Va.). Key to the Pantry: Choice, Tried Recipes. Danville, Va: Boatwright Bros, 1898.

February 14, 2009

As noted in the earlier post, the diet of slaves varied widely depending on where they lived, the type of plantation they lived on, and even the years they lived. Here are some excerpts from books written by former slaves detailing their diets.

“The food of the slave is this: Every Saturday night they receive two pounds of bacon, and one peck and a half of corn meal, to last the men through the week. The women have one half pound of meat, and one peck of meal, and the children one half peck each. When this is gone, they can have no more till the end of the week. This is very little food for the slaves. They have to beg when they can; when they cannot, they must suffer. They are not allowed to go off the plantation; if they do, and are caught, they are whipped very severely, and what they have begged is taken from them.”
—Peter Randolph, Sketches Of Slave Life: Or,Illustrations
Of The ‘Peculiar Institution.’ Boston: published for the author, 1855.

“Slaves every Monday morning have a certain quantity of Indian corn handed out to them; this they grind with a handmill, and boil or use the meal as they like. The adult slaves have one salt herring allowed for breakfast, during the winter time. The breakfast hour is usually from ten to eleven o’clock. The dinner consists generally of black-eyed peas soup, as it is called. About a quart of peas is boiled in a large pan, and a small piece of meat, just to flavour the soup, is put into the pan. The next day it would be bean soup, and another day it would be Indian meal broth. The dinner hour is about two or three o’clock; the soup being served out to the men and women in bowls; but the children feed like pigs out of troughs, and being supplied sparingly, invariably fight and quarrel with one another over their meals.”
—Francis Fredric, Slave Life in Virginia and Kentucky; or, Fifty Years of Slavery in the Southern States of America. London: Wertheim, Macintosh, and Hunt, 1863.

“The supply of food given out to the slaves, was one peck of corn a week, or some equivalent, and nothing besides. They must grind their own corn, after the work of the day was performed, at a mill which stood on the plantation. We had to eat our coarse bread without meat, or butter, or milk. Severe labor alone gave us an appetite for our scanty and unpalatable fare. Many of the slaves were so hungry after their excessive toil, that they were compelled to steal food in addition to this allowance.
During the planting and harvest season, we had to work early and late. The men and women were called at three o’clock in the morning, and were worked on the plantation till it was dark at night. After that they must prepare their food for supper and for the breakfast of the next day, and attend to other duties of their own dear homes. Parents would often have to work for their children at home, aftereach day’s protracted toil, till the middle of the night, and then snatch a few hours’ sleep, to get strength for the heavy burdens of the next day. “
—Thomas H. Jones, The Experience Of Thomas H. Jones, Who Was A Slave For Forty-three Years. Boston: Bazin & Chandler, 1862.

“The slaves got their allowance every Monday night of molasses, meat, corn meal, and a kind of flour called “dredgings” or “shorts.” Perhaps this allowance would be gone before the next Monday night, in which case the slaves would steal hogs and chickens. Then would come the whipping-post. Master himself never whipped his slaves; this was left to the overseer.

We children had no supper, and only a little piece of bread or something of the kind in the morning. Our dishes consisted of one wooden bowl, and oyster shells were our spoons. This bowl served for about fifteen children, and often the dogs and the ducks and the peafowl had a dip in it. Sometimes we had buttermilk and bread in our bowl, sometimes greens or bones.”
—Annie L. Burton, Memories of Childhood’s Slavery Days. Boston: Ross Publishing Company, 1909.

January 13, 2009

Edna Lewis (1916-2006) was one of the best known and best loved Southern chefs of the 20th century. Born the granddaughter of former slaves in Freetown, Virginia, she was a sucessful chef and author (The Edna Lewis Cookbook (1972), The Taste of Country Cooking (1976) and In Pursuit of Flavor (1988).

Lewis moved to New York City from Virginia during the Depression. She met John Nicholson, an antiques dealer who in 1949 decided to open a restaurant on 58th Street, on the East Side of Manhattan called Café Nicholson. Lewis became the cook, winning over patrons with cheese soufflés and roast chicken. Café Nicholson became an instant success among bohemians and artists. The restaurant was frequented by William Faulkner,  Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Richard Avedon, Marlon Brando, Gloria Vanderbilt and Marlene Dietrich.

Lewis’ books had a profound influence on many Southern chefs, and her life was the subject of an excellent short film, Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie. The film follows her life among sub-alternate cultures such as growing-up in the former-slave community of Freetown to working as a typist for the Communist Party in pre-WWII New York City.

The film features interviews with chefs, writers and scholars about Lewis’ life and legacy, and is an excellent introduction to Southern food.

To see Fried Chicken and Sweet Potato Pie, click here. You’ll be glad you did.

January 5, 2009

The food provided to plantation slaves varied widely depending on several factors: time period, location, what food the plantation produced, and the owner’s economic situation all came into play.

Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave and abolitionist, wrote in 1845: “The men and women slaves received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork, or its equivalent in fish, and one bushel of corn meal.”

In The Life of Josiah Henson (1849), Henson, who was born a slave in1789 in Charles County, Maryland, wrote: “The principal food of those upon my master’s plantation consisted of corn-meal and salt herrings; to which was added in summer a little buttermilk, and the few vegetables which each might raise for himself and his family, on the little piece of ground which was assigned to him for the purpose, called a truck-patch.”

On coastal plantations, like those in the South Carolina Lowcountry, broken or dirty rice was plentiful and was a staple of the slave diet.

Archeological evidence from excavations of slave cabins at Ashland Plantation in Louisiana shows that in some cases slaves added to their diet by fishing and trapping. The bones of opossums, raccoons, rabbits, wild birds and fish such as freshwater drum, gar, catfish, sunfish, and mackerel have been found at the site.

In Flowerdew Hundred: The Archaeology of a Virginia Plantation, 1619-1864 (1993), James Deetz detailed archeological findings of food remnants from slave cabins at Flowerdew Hundred plantation on the James River near Hopewell, Virginia. Deetz found the foods most often eaten by slaves at Flowerdew Hundred, based on the amounts of identifiable remains, were pork, catfish, various types of birds and fish, sturgeon, chicken, beef and opossum.
Deetz also found evidence that slaves on this plantation also regularly supplemented their diets by trapping and fishing as well as by keeping pigs and maintaining garden plots.

According to Patricia A. Gibbs, a former member of the research staff at Colonial Williamsburg, there is documentary and archaeological evidence that slaves grew a variety of plants in these gardenssuch as lima beans, pole beans, cabbages, collards, corn, cymlings (patty pan squash), onions, peanuts, black-eyed or other field peas, potatoes (both Irish and sweet), and pumpkins.

These garden patches were tended after the slave’s twelve-hour workday was over (often in the dark) and on Sunday, usually a day of rest on most plantations. The vegetables chosen were high-yield, didn’t require much care after planting, and by staggering plantings, would yield successive crops throughout most of the year.

Although slave gardens were apparently fairly common in the eighteenth century, there is less evidence of their being maintained in the nineteenth century; they were rarely mentioned in traveler’s accounts of Southern plantations of the time. Slaves of this period were more likely to be dependant on the food furnished by the plantation owner, with less supplemental vegetables available to them.

No matter what they were furnished or could procure for themselves, the diet of the slave was barely adequate in the best of times, especially considering the large amount of calories they expended. Malnutrition and the diseases it spawns were common among slaves, and the mortality rate was staggering, especially among the young.

November 17, 2008

“Ground nut” is an early term for peanuts; this soup is a delicacy in some parts of the South, particularly in Virginia.

Modern recipes nearly always call for peanut butter, which makes a much thicker soup than the original recipes (if you use peanut butter, replace the 3 cups peanuts with 2 cups of unsweetened peanut butter).
This recipe is faithful to the originals in use before peanut butter became a staple. It is based on a recipe by Rufus Estes, who wrote one of the first cookbooks published by an African American, Good Things To Eat, As Suggested By Rufus, published about 1911.

Estes was born a slave, and after emancipation became Executive Chef for the Pullman Railroad Car Company in Chicago.

Yield: 6 servings

• 3 cups unsalted peanuts
• 2 quarts water
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1 stalk celery, finely diced
• 1/4 cup sweet onion, finely diced
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mace
• 1 cup heavy cream

Soak peanuts in water for at least eight hours.

After the nuts have soaked, add bay leaves, celery, mace and onion to water.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer slowly for four and one half hours, stirring frequently to keep from burning.
Strain soup and rub softened peanuts through sieve or puree in food processor and return to soup mixture.

Return soup to burner and simmer to heat through. Whisk in cream to thicken, adjust seasonings and serve hot with croutons.