hog and hominy soul food from africa to america

Of the various West African cultural groups brought to the New World as slaves, the Igbo and Mande cultures represented the largest proportion of the slave population. Mintz, Karen Hess, Howard Paige, Jessica Harris, and, most recently, Psyche Williams-Forson,” Opie concludes that soul food means many thing (spirituality, wisdom, rural folk culture, simple delicious food made from inexpensive ingredients), but the most true aspect of it lies in the fact that it is “an amalgamation of West African societies and cultures, as well as an adaptation to conditions of slavery and freedom in the Americas.” West African Landscape (Photo credit: C. Sometimes the truth isn’t pretty, but that’s usually the way it goes with the truth.īuilding on the “pioneering work of Helen Mendes, Verta Mae Grosvenor, Sidney W. Opie – an associate professor of history and director of the African Diaspora Studies Program at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York – goes straight to the dirt and isn’t afraid to plumb the depths, so to speak. Like a gardener digging for the root source of a fairly large plant, Dr. dissertation, but still of interest).Īnd then there’s Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America, which does for African-American cooking what Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari’s Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History did for, well of course, Italian cooking.

Bower and Hog Meat and Hoecake: Food Supply in the Old South, 1840-1860, by Sam Bowers Hilliard (an oldie, based no doubt on the author’s Ph.D. See Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, & Power, by Psyche Williams-Forson Savage Barbecue: Race, Culture, and the Invention of America’s First Food, by Andrew Warnes African American Foodways: Explorations of History and Culture, edited by Anne L. Several books on African-American cooking tempt me right now, all brilliant in their own way.

Hog and hominy soul food from africa to america