HOW TO PRESERVE THE FOODWAYS OF YOUR AFRICAN ANCESTORS

On Thanksgiving Day of 2019 three generations of my family gathered at my parents’ home. My brother saw “The Ebony Cookbook” by Freda DeKnight on the kitchen table. Tattered by decades of love and use, it had clearly seen better days. Stuffed between the pages of the book were a plethora of folded pieces of paper consisting of handwritten recipes collected from both my maternal and paternal Great Grands and Grandparents. I immediately snatched it up and embraced it. Containing more than 1,000 African American recipes, this cookbook had been passed down to my mother by her mother. Within seconds that evening, it had become a point of sentimental conversation evoking nostalgia. For nearly fifty years, my parents have used that book every Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. But what I had not realized is that it has served in helping African American families maintain the distinctiveness of who we are and where we come from. It has also assisted in preserving the foodways of African Americans for more than half a century. One of the most accessible ways to sustain your cultural identity is through the food you cook and eat. And so a thread of the old world has been passed down through the tradition of African American cuisine.

It is important to note how some of those foods of West Africa arrived in the new world. Aware of the horrific reality of being captured, sold, and taken away to distant lands of no return, some Africans would hide the seeds of their food in their hair. In a 2013 article by Judith Carney entitled Seeds of Memory: Botanical Legacies of the African Diaspora, she notes that “Plants and animals arrived on slave ships together with African captives for whom the species were traditional dietary staples, medicinals, and food animals.”  And so with every opportunity, my African ancestors found a way to hold onto the foodways of their homeland. In the U.S. they learned how to cook meals that mixed elements of food from Africa with ingredients native to America, along with Anglo cooking styles. This mixture is what we know today as Soul Food: yams, okra/gumbo (English words of African origin), black-eyed peas, collard greens, etc.

Bronx Chef and contributing writer for Delish Millie Peartree defines Soul Food in her article Everything You Need To Know About Soul Food, According To Chef Millie Peartree as the “ethnic cuisine traditionally prepared and eaten by African-Americans in the Southern United States.” This ethnic cuisine became a way for the ancestors of African Americans to preserve a piece of our homeland and culture. They were determined to hold on to the ingredients that made up the recipe of who they were even while living and adapting to their new and foreign world. And regardless of whether or not this is fully understood and appreciated by their posterity, the African traditions of our ancestors live on in our kitchens, and around our dinner tables.  

Chef and Food writer Stephen Satterfield, host of the Netflix docuseries based on James Beard Award-winning author Jessica B. Harris’ book “High On The Hog,” brought out an essential truth: Soul Food wasn’t just eaten in the slave quarters and in the kitchens of free blacks. It graced the dining tables of the Big House and even the biggest house of them all – the White House.

It didn’t take long for Soul Food in the New World to become connected with Sunday church dinners, holidays, weddings, and funerals of both African and European people in the South. Not only have African American people found a way to keep the foodways of their African ancestors close to their hearts; they have managed to establish Soul Food as the cultural cuisine of the very people who once enslaved them. To this very day, Soul Food makes up most of the diet of Southern whites.

Every Thanksgiving, every holiday meal, and with each life event, whether it’s a funeral or a wedding, you will find soul food somewhere on the menu for African Americans. We continue to pass down a piece of our African heritage to the next generation. Funny thing is, not until I started my journey of discovering my African roots and enriching my family heritage, did I think about why my enslaved ancestors felt the need to hold on to something, anything, from the land where they were forcefully taken. It never dawned upon me that what they did manage to hold on to has endured. Nonetheless, I am thankful they did. And so in repairing that old tattered book and cataloging the generations of handwritten recipes I have ensured that the foodways of my African ancestors will be passed down and used by future generations in my family, preserving our foodways.

I would love to hear from you in the comments where you may share how you preserved the foodways of your ancestors. Thanks for stopping by! Please this blog with others.