Black Foodways and Places: African-American Memories in WPA Narratives

This paper explores the significance of climate in the memories of enslaved nineteenth-century foodways in Works Progress Administration narratives. Material aspects of foodways, the climate and landscapes in which food was... [ view full abstract ]

This paper explores the significance of climate in the memories of enslaved nineteenth-century foodways in Works Progress Administration narratives. Material aspects of foodways, the climate and landscapes in which food was grown, caught, bought and stolen, have been neglected by scholars and this paper acts as a corrective. Specifically, I show how enslaved individuals negotiated the path between autonomy and paternalism through relationships with food. Remembering places and foodways was highly contingent on climatic variables and seasons. The memories also reinforced notions of resistance, as formerly enslaved people saw their food culture as expressing their independence. For many, the memories triggered nostalgia for a time past during which they felt protected as valued parts of a community. Questions about food were foregrounded by WPA interviewers, and the provision of adequate food epitomized the master’s supposed paternalism. Many narrators recalled significant places and moments of resistance in the acquisition, production and consumption of food, while illustrating the precariousness of the enslaved position and their vulnerability to climatic extremes. Instead of a survey of African American foodways under slavery, I focus on the prisms of place and climate to show how arguments about food, place and climate reveal the complexities of the experiences of the formerly enslaved.