African Americans, Diet of Health Article

African Americans, Diet of

The 2000 U.S. Census revealed that there were almost 35 million African Americans, or about 13 percent of the total U.S. population. This small percentage of the populace has had a significant influence on American cuisine, not only because African-American food is diverse and flavorful, but also because of its historical beginnings. Despite their cultural, political, economic, and racial struggles, African Americans have retained a strong sense of their culture, which is, in part, reflected in their food.

Origins of the African-American Diet

The roots of the diversity of African-American cuisine may be traced back to 1619, when the first African slaves were sold in the New World. In a quest to build new cities in America, Europeans actively transported Africans and West Indians (people from the West Indies) to the new land. The West Indies (in the Caribbean Sea) was part of the slave route to America. Because the West Indians' skin color was similar to that of Africans, they were not treated any differently. As a result, some West Indian food traditions are similar to those of African Americans.

It is not surprising that African-American food has a distinctive culinary heritage with diverse flavors, as it includes traditions drawn from the African continent, the West Indies, and from North America. While the European nations were busy establishing new societies, they did not realize that the African and West Indian slaves who worked for them brought their own vibrant and and rich culture—a culture that would withstand and adapt to the harsh centuries of slavery.

Food historian Karen Hess writes about the struggle of African Americans to maintain some of their original culture through food. "The only thing that Africans brought with them [from Africa] was their memories." Slave traders attempted to craft culturally sensitive rations for the Africans by including yams, rice, corn, plantains, coconuts, and scraps of meat in the slaves' provisions.

Southern slaves established their own cooking culture using foods that were similar to foods that were part of their African and West Indian heritages, and many popular foods in the African-American diet are directly associated with foods in Africa. For instance, the African yam is similar to the American sweet potato. White rice is also popular because it was a major part of the diet in West Africa. African Americans infuse plain rice dishes with their own savory ingredients (popular rice dishes include gumbo and "hoppin' John," a dish made with rice, black-eyed peas, and salt pork or bacon).

The Legacy of African-American Cuisine

Popular southern foods, such as the vegetable okra (brought to New Orleans by African slaves), are often attributed to the importation of goods from Africa, or by way of Africa, the West Indies, and the slave trade. Okra, which is the principal ingredient in the popular Creole stew referred to as gumbo, is believed to have spiritual and healthful properties. Rice and seafood (along with sausage or chicken), and filé (a sassafras powder inspired by the Choctaw Indians) are also key ingredients in gumbo. Other common foods that are rooted in African-American culture include black-eyed peas, benne seeds (sesame), eggplant, sorghum (a grain that produces sweet syrup and different types of flour), watermelon, and peanuts.

Though southern food is typically known as "soul food," many African Americans contend that soul food consists of African-American recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation, just like other African-American rituals. The legacy of African and West Indian culture is imbued in many of the recipes and food traditions that remain popular today. The staple foods of African Americans, such as rice, have remained largely unchanged since the first Africans and West Indians set foot in the New World, and the southern United States, where the slave population was most dense, has developed a cooking culture that remains true to the African-American tradition. This cooking is aptly named southern cooking, the food, or soul food. Over the years, many have interpreted the term soul food based on current social issues facing the African-American population, such as the civil rights movement. Many civil rights advocates believe that using this word perpetuates a negative connection between African Americans and slavery. However, as Doris Witt notes in her book Black Hunger (1999), the "soul" of the food refers loosely to the food's origins in Africa.

In his 1962 essay "Soul Food," Amiri Baraka makes a clear distinction between southern cooking and soul food. To Baraka, soul food includes chitterlings (pronounced chitlins), pork chops, fried porgies, potlikker, turnips, watermelon, black-eyed peas, grits, hoppin' John, hushpuppies, okra, and pancakes. Today, many of these foods are limited among African Americans to holidays and special occasions. Southern food, on the other hand, includes only fried chicken, sweet potato pie, collard greens, and barbecue, according to Baraka. The idea of what soul food is seems to differ greatly among African Americans.