Food is simply what people put into their stomach when they feel hungry. However, African Americans who lived under slavery often times couldn't even accomplish the basic task of acquiring food as easily as we do today. Now I am here taking African American Studies class and learning about all the difficulties African Americans had to go through over the years. When we were discussing the conditions of African American families and how they survived under these circumstances through subsistence production, I instantly connected it with my experience in Liberia, Africa and how precious it was to have a solid meal. After research, I encountered a food activist, Bryant Terry a soul food chef who believes in bettering people’s health by advocating
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However, slaveholders did not treat their labors well; If one died, they can get another one due to the profit existed in slave trading, supply of slaves were basically unlimited at the time. Therefore it was normal for slaveholders to be cruel; they distributed food and clothes less than what slaves actually needed in order to survive(Dunaway 150-152). In that case they had to produce extra on them own. With the lack of literacy and proper devices African Americans managed to make delicious cuisines out of leftovers and “gross” animal body parts. That is the creation of African American soul food. Some of famous soul food dishes today are: “mess of greens”, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, fufu, chittering, and hoecakes and many more. Ingredients of soul food include turnips, beets, kales, and collards; in terms of meat, lards were commonly used to fry, and chittering was made of meats like chicken, pigs' feet, oxtail, ham hocks, and small pig intestines. It might seem crazy to cook and eat some of pigs’ body parts, but it was necessary to their survival. Overtime, soul food became a symbol of African American’s ability to assert a racial authenticity and pride among the African American communities because of its relation in slave diet(Thompson, 794). Bryant Terry certainly treats soul food as a symbol of racial pride; he integrates the foundation of southern cuisine(soul food), fresh fruits, preserves, legumes, health foods and rustic country cooking, in his book to deliver the beauty within African Americans’ kitchen to the
However, slaveholders did not treat their labors well; If one died, they can get another one due to the profit existed in slave trading, supply of slaves were basically unlimited at the time. Therefore it was normal for slaveholders to be cruel; they distributed food and clothes less than what slaves actually needed in order to survive(Dunaway 150-152). In that case they had to produce extra on them own. With the lack of literacy and proper devices African Americans managed to make delicious cuisines out of leftovers and “gross” animal body parts. That is the creation of African American soul food. Some of famous soul food dishes today are: “mess of greens”, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, fufu, chittering, and hoecakes and many more. Ingredients of soul food include turnips, beets, kales, and collards; in terms of meat, lards were commonly used to fry, and chittering was made of meats like chicken, pigs' feet, oxtail, ham hocks, and small pig intestines. It might seem crazy to cook and eat some of pigs’ body parts, but it was necessary to their survival. Overtime, soul food became a symbol of African American’s ability to assert a racial authenticity and pride among the African American communities because of its relation in slave diet(Thompson, 794). Bryant Terry certainly treats soul food as a symbol of racial pride; he integrates the foundation of southern cuisine(soul food), fresh fruits, preserves, legumes, health foods and rustic country cooking, in his book to deliver the beauty within African Americans’ kitchen to the