Soul, Black Women, and Food Marveline Hughes

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Soul, Black Women, and FoodMarveline Hughes
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• American womens search for identity in the 1960s
  coincided with the black quest through history
  for their origins
• One of the most symbolic
  tools in the search
  for roots is soul food

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Soul Food

• Roots like yams and potatoes symbolize stability
• Slaves brought and used seeds to preserve African
  culture
• Many of these foods have been adopted by white
  American culture
• -watermelon, okra

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Pride Plumpness

• Black women express themselves
  
  and gain self-confidence through
  food preparation
• Black women pride themselves on
  how they can make something out
  of nothing
• Black women take pride in the
  plumpness of those who eat their
  food
• In black culture big is associated
  with beautiful

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Family Food

• Large families are intentional
• Children praise mother about cooking
• A way to experience the feeling of
  plenty
• Family stories shared
  at meals

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Creativity

• Slaves were mostly illiterate so recipes were
  passed orally
• -room for creativity
• -snuck slaves tastes into masters food
• Cultural knowledge
• -Reject scientific progress and use fresh foods
  so no concerns about harmful preservatives

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Why eat out?

• Blacks couldnt eat at white
  
  
• restaurants until the 1960s
• Eating at home doesnt just
  reflect economic status
• - This shows cultural preference for
  soulful home cooked meal
• -Black Americans in the suburbs drive to the
  ghetto to get soul food
• -Potlucks in the suburbs have the same foods as
  potlucks in the ghetto
• Also personal gardens represent African respect
  for land, living things and African spirituality

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Soul Food is Soulful No Matter Who Prepares It!

• Soul is what is revealed when you peel back the
  human layers
• Human layers and differences represented with
  opposites in American culture
• -Beauty v Ugliness, White v Black, Smart v Dumb
• This shows intolerance and attempt to Anglo-ize
• -Black people recognize the power of labeling
• -Must not question the soulfulness of other
  black people or of any black food

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Black Women May Enjoy Cooking, but What is the
Reality of Cooking as a Profession?

• The prevalence of black women working as domestic
  cooks is a result of their role as cooks during
  slavery (historically acquired role definition)
• Many jobs held by black women still focus
  on nurturing white people
• This is still a form of slavery

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Soul Food and Religion

• Restrictions on food such as scheduling or
  selection not common (i.e., vs lent)
• Eating during spiritual religious rituals is a
  special celebration and a black community
  gathering
• Black preacher always gets
  first choice of food
• -Black Preacher is responsible for passing on
  the oral history of the black community

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Sharing

• The core of African American Food
  celebrations is the intent to share
• ex. Hog Killing
• community gathering
• -men help with killing, skinning and making
  major cuts
• -women help clean the meat, do the trimmings
  prepare samples and give portions to neighbors
• One of few activities with clear gender divisions
  in black culture
• Relates back to African traditions

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Gender Roles

• Cooking is less gender specific because many
  black people are cooks as an occupation
• Economic circumstances lead black women to be
  more independent and autonomous and take on other
  roles
• Motherhood and dominance in kitchen still
  important

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Typical Black Kitchen

• Breakfast Grits, homemade biscuits, ham or
  bacon, molasses or canned preserves, fresh milk
  eggs
• Dinner mess of greens with pot licker
  (collards, turnips, cabbage, beet green or
  mustard seasoned with pork skins, fatback or ham
  hocks), bread, potatoes, fresh squeezed lemonade,
  maybe a meat and a cobbler. Desserts might
  include bread pudding
• Supper Fruits cut up in creamy
  milk, biscuits, ice cream,
  fried chicken,
  creamed potatoes
  buttermilk for farm families

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Nutrition

• Inherited from Africa and emphasized by slave
  masters is still prevalent
• -sometimes viewed as a purely economic decision
• Some people connect soul food to higher rates of
  hypertension in the black population in America
• -Hughes suggests that hypertension might be more
  directly related to social and economic stress
  realities of oppression