cheshireinthemiddle:

gservator:

uppermandible:

gservator:

cheshireinthemiddle:

knowledgeequalsblackpower:

i scrolled passed this several times before actually reading it. i’m not used to two white men talking sense…

Ignoring your clearly racist commentary, this is actually false. 

First off, many, if not most dishes that black slaves made were recipes brought over from Europe (France) and Canada. Black slaves didnt make gumbo and dredged fried Chicken in Africa, they learned it in the US. They were taught how to cook those meals in the first place. 

Second, Most southerners certainly weren’t rich. Most didn’t even own slaves. To say that they didnt know how to cook is very very wrong. Rich people may not have been knowledgeable about cooking but the majority middle and lower income families did. 

French Influence is a HUGE part of Southern Cooking. Creole cooking is an evolution from various immigrants. Actual diaries from black house slaves at the time very much confirmed that they were given recipes to go off of and taught how to cook for their slave owners. A vast majority of Africans, especially poor Africans captured and sold (by other Africans, remember) only really had knowledge on how to cook food from their specific culture, if that (as many cultures left cooking to the elderly, the women, etc.) 

To say that the food was just invented by black people is deeply dishonest. It is only something you say when you want certain groups to like you. 

-An educated black man with two culinary degrees who doesn’t blindly believe what people on television, who want you to like them, say. 

Honestly it’s like people who claim barbecue was invented by Black people, as if people haven’t been burning meat over charred wood for 10’s of thousands of years.

also, the staples of soul food, watermelon, fried chicken, cornbread, etc, were allsouthern foods before hand, due to cornmeal being more plentiful and cheapert than wheat flour, chickens being highly cost effective livestock, and watermelons being rediculously high-yield fruit. literally all southerners ate this stuff, even pigs feet, possum, etc. because most people in the south were poor, white and black alike.

black eyed peas became popular as people food only after General sherman burned literally every other crop on his way to the coast, forcing the (mostly white) people to live off them.

while we cannot ignore the contribution of black contributions to southern cuisine, it is simply false to claim that southern cuisine exists solely because of black people.

That is another great point.

Soul food itself, actual food that can be credited to black Americans (not all, but much of it), came from using scraps that slave owners didnt want. Braised greens can be credted to black people. Stewed chiterlings (pig intestines) can be attributed to black people (although other races such as native americans and norther mexicans also ate pig intestines in their own ways), and the like can be attribured to black people. But dredging marinated chicken in eggs and flour before frying was NOT invented by black people. Making soups and stews using roux was NOT invented by black people. Literally just putting pig meat with vegetables was NOT invented by black people. They were taught these things from slave owners and fellow slaves and servants (some of whom were certainly white) and simply worked to perfect and occasionally evolve those recipes.

To say otherwise ignores a ton of history and culture that was built by non African Immigrants and their home countries.