High on the Hog_ A Culinary Journey From Africa to America Part 1

High on the Hog.

A Culinary Journey From Africa to America.

by Jessica B. Harris.

FOREWORD.

BY MAYA ANGELOU.

Jessica Harris, the well-known cook and cookbook author, has taken a great risk. She is already highly respected for the meticulous care she has shown in describing her recipes. She has been reliable in listing her sometimes exotic ingredients and where they can be found. However, in this new book she has offered only twenty recipes. Each is clear and well explained; still, the majority of High on the Hog High on the Hog is comprised of stories and essays written in well-chosen prose about food and how it traveled and made its impact on the world. is comprised of stories and essays written in well-chosen prose about food and how it traveled and made its impact on the world.

Harris has chosen African cookery and tracked its influence to the United States, to South America, and to the Ca rib be an. She shows explicitly how the culinary efforts changed the mores and cultures and people in each place. She has left little room for argument with her findings. I do, however, wonder if Ms. Harris is about to change permanently her ways of producing books.

Because I had written many books and had taught many cla.s.ses years ago, I thought I was a writer who could teach. When I took the risk of accepting a permanent job teaching, I found I was not a writer who could teach, but a teacher who could write.

If Harris decides that she is more a prose writer than a recipe writer, the world of cookbook users and readers will be poorer for it. However, because she writes so well, all readers will be well serviced.

I will be among that group.

INTRODUCTION.

I am an African American. My family comes from here and can trace itself on both sides back over much of the period doc.u.mented in this book. Therefore I know intimately, and am linked by blood to, the tastes of pig meat and cornmeal that are a part of this country's African American culinary heritage. I've spent more than three decades writing about the food of African Americans and how it connects with other cuisines in the hemisphere and around the world, and so I also know that the food of the African continent and its American diaspora continues to remain a culinary unknown for most folks.

The history of African Americans in this country is a lengthy one that begins virtually at the time of exploration. Our often-hyphenated name, in all of its complexity, hints at the intricate mixings of our past. We are a race that never before existed: a cobbled-together admixture of Africa, Europe, and the Americas. We are like no others before us or after us. Involuntarily taken from a homeland, molded in the crucible of enslavement, forged in the fire of disenfranchis.e.m.e.nt, and tempered by migration, we all too often remain strangers in the only land that is ours. Despite all this, we have created a culinary tradition that has marked the food of this country more than any other. Our culinary history is fraught with all the a.s.sociations with slavery, race, and cla.s.s that the United States has to offer. For this reason, the traditional foodways that derive from the history of enslavement that many of us share are often perceived as unhealthy, inelegant, and hopelessly out of sync with the culinary canons that define healthy eating today.

Yet, for centuries, black hands have tended pots, fed babies, and worked in the kitchens of this country's wealthiest and healthiest. The disrespect for our food and for the people who cook it has been a battle that has raged for decades. Ebony Ebony magazine's first food editor, Freda DeKnight, wrote about it in the introduction to her 1948 cookbook, magazine's first food editor, Freda DeKnight, wrote about it in the introduction to her 1948 cookbook, Date with a Dish Date with a Dish: "It is a fallacy, long disproved, that Negro cooks, chefs, caterers, and homemakers can adapt themselves only to the standard Southern dishes, such as fried chicken, greens, corn pone and hot breads." More than a half century after the book's publication, at a period when chefs have become empire builders and media millionaires, that debate still rages. Certainly I will have much to say about slave markets, both those in which my ancestors were sold and others where my ancestors and those like them sold goods that they'd grown and items that they'd prepared. I will speak of scant meals of hog and hominy and of simple folk who became culinary entrepreneurs, like illiterate "Pig Foot" Mary, who created a real estate empire from the food that she cooked on an improvised stove on the back of a baby carriage!

I will also speak of presidential chefs like George Was.h.i.+ngton's Hercules and Thomas Jefferson's James Hemings and of an alternate African American culinary thread that weaves through the fabric of our food. This parallel thread is a strong one and includes Big House cooks who prepared lavish banquets, caterers who created a culinary co-operative in Philadelphia in the nineteenth century, a legion of black hoteliers and culinary moguls, and a growing black middle and upper cla.s.s.

My family is a part of that middle cla.s.s and encapsulates both culinary threads. In 1989, I wrote in Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa's Gifts to New World Cooking Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa's Gifts to New World Cooking, "Fate has placed me at the juncture of two Black culinary traditions: that of the Big House and that of the rural South." The Jones side of the family always held reunions at table. Early childhood memories are filled with images of groaning boards, of "put up" preserved peaches, seckle pears, and watermelon rinds, of "cool drinks" such as minted lemonade, of freshly baked Parker House rolls and yeast breads. The Harris side of the family were no slouches at "chowing down" either. Grandma Harris insisted on fresh produce, and some of my early memories are of her gardening in a small plot where she lived.

Writing about the food of African Americans connects me to my forebearers. On one side of the family was Samuel Philpot, who was born enslaved in Virginia and in his thirties at the time of Emanc.i.p.ation. My mother knew him, and I have several photographs of him, as he lived to be more than one hundred years of age. He was reputed to have been a Big House servant who on one occasion served Abraham Lincoln at supper. He married the daughter of free people of color, settled in Virginia, near Roanoke, and became the progenitor of the Jones side of my family. On the Harris side of the family, my great-grandmother Merendy Anderson had an orchard in the post-Emanc.i.p.ation period where she grew stone fruit-plums, peaches, and more-and sold them to neighbors in her Tennessee town. Closer to me were both of my grandmothers, who embodied the culinary traditions of their families. Grandma Harris cooked little and not particularly well, but she made beaten biscuits and could put a hurtin' on a mess of greens. She read her Bible and wrote poetry, but was plainspoken, a vestige of her struggle with literacy. Grandma Jones was more eloquent on paper; she'd gone to a women's seminary in Virginia in the late nineteenth century and embodied all the elegance that that state claims at table.

As this book is the direct result of my knowing them, I wrote it as if they'd survived to read it. I have deliberately foresworn the traditional academic format that I teach in order to move the odyssey forward. For High on the Hog High on the Hog is a journey into the realm of African American food, but makes no claim at being is a journey into the realm of African American food, but makes no claim at being the the definitive volume (that copiously annotated, weighty opus has yet to appear and will be the work of another). Rather, this is a personal look at the history of African American food that tells the tale in brief compa.s.s, introduces a rich and abundant cast of characters, and presents some of the major themes in a discursive narrative. definitive volume (that copiously annotated, weighty opus has yet to appear and will be the work of another). Rather, this is a personal look at the history of African American food that tells the tale in brief compa.s.s, introduces a rich and abundant cast of characters, and presents some of the major themes in a discursive narrative.

Each chapter is-like Gaul-divided into three parts. An introduction sets the stage and presents a personal and present-day look at one of the stops on the journey. The main section of each chapter begins with a chronological presentation of the African American history of the period discussed that raises questions, presents a number of glorious partic.i.p.ants, and moves the journey forward. Finally, each chapter ends with a coda that adds a closer look at some aspect of the period's food, much like what is called a lagniappe lagniappe in Louisiana. A collection of recipes-some archival, some from my cookbooks-follows, presenting many of the key dishes in the African American culinary repertoire. Finally, there is a list of further reading and brief chronological listing of a selection of African American cookbooks for the questing bibliophile. in Louisiana. A collection of recipes-some archival, some from my cookbooks-follows, presenting many of the key dishes in the African American culinary repertoire. Finally, there is a list of further reading and brief chronological listing of a selection of African American cookbooks for the questing bibliophile.

This book is at the same time a last and a first, as its writing has led me on an odyssey as well as opened doors in my life, my mind, and my soul that I will be entering and investigating in future years as I too attempt to journey from the hock to the ham and take my own life higher on the hog.

[image]

Old Master killed about forty or fifty hogs every year. He had John to help him. When he was ready to pay him off he said, "John, here's your pig head, and pig feet, and pig ears." John said, "Thank you, boss."

So, John killed hogs for about five years that way; that's what he got for his pay. Then John moved on back of the place and got himself three hogs. Old Master didn't even know he had a hog. Next winter at hog-killing time Old Master went down after John. Old Master says, "John."

John come to the door-"Yessir." Old Master says, "Be down to the house early in the morning, I want to kill hogs-be there about five-thirty." John asks, "Well, Old Master, what you paying?" "I'll pay you like I always did. I'll give you the head and all the ears, and all the pig's feet and all the tails."

John said, "Well, Old Master, I can't, because I'm eating higher on the hog than that now. I got three hogs of my own an': I eat spareribs, backbone, pork chops, middling, ham, and everything else. I eat high on the hog now!"

CHAPTER 1.

OUT OF AFRICA.

Foods, Techniques, and Ceremonies of the Mother Continent

Dan-Tokpa Market, Cotonou, Benin, West Africa- I visited my first African market with my mother three decades ago. It was a sunny day in Dakar. We had left our hotel, the Croix du Sud, a grand art deco vestige of colonial times, to take a few turns around the European part of the city. Shortly after setting out, we found ourselves in the Marche Kermel, one of the city's many markets. I didn't know it then, but before independence the small bustling market had been designated for use by Europeans. We wandered, looking at the displays, wrinkling our noses at the butchers' stalls. We were fascinated by the flower sellers who jostled each other for position and rather loudly demanded payment for any of the photographs taken. (Indeed they seemed to sell more photographs than bright bouquets of flowers.) Little did I know that my first experience in the Marche Kermel would initiate me into a lifetime of market-love on the African continent and a love of the food that those markets have sp.a.w.ned on both sides of the Atlantic.

I'll never forget that first market visit, but to me the Dan-Tokpa Market in Benin will always be the mother of all African markets. No matter how many visits I make, I am always startled by its vitality and its vibrancy. After years of travel and countless skirts boasting hems stained with market mud from around the African continent, I continue to be amazed at how this large neighborhood market is transformed overnight into a small city of purveyors, each with his own clientele and all trying to hawk their wares.

The Dan-Tokpa Market, or the Tokpa, as it is affectionately known by locals, is a daily market, but every four days it surges into new life and trebles its size to become a grand marche grand marche. The Tokpa is not solely a food market; everything from brilliantly printed fabric to small and surely incendiary plastic demijohns of gasoline can be purchased. However, the exuberance of the food section and the variety of comestibles sold there speaks to the importance of food on the African continent.

Enormous snails that look like escargots on steroids are piled on mats in one section. In another, the air is pungent with the funk of dried smoked shrimp that are used for seasoning dishes. Bulging burlap sacks overflow with gari gari, or ca.s.sava meal, a major local starch. Earthenware cooking pots and calabash bowls are displayed in all sizes and shapes. Familiar leafy greens, tomatoes, and chilies are sold as well, albeit in different varieties and with unfamiliar names. Everywhere the eye glances there is a celebration of the food of West Africa. In terms of variety, the Topka rivals the exoticism of the souks of Marrakesh and the bazaars of the winding alleyways of Mombasa, Kenya. Yet many of the goods sold- okra, black-eyed peas, watermelon, and more-are familiar and remind me of my American home.

The markets of the African continent are timeless. I collect late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century postcards of African markets and am often amazed and bemused by the similarities of clothing, gesture, and ingredients. Even today, despite the growing proliferation of supermarkets and home freezers among the middle cla.s.s, there is still a love for the marketplace and the community it creates that will drive even the fanciest West African homemaker to mix with the crowds in search of just the right ingredient.

Over the years, I've also acc.u.mulated a mental Rolodex of recipes of West African market food, from the poisson braise poisson braise (grilled fish) of Benin to the (grilled fish) of Benin to the aloco aloco (deep-fried bananas) of the Cote d'Ivoire. They include grilled meats that are served up in spicy sauces for busy housewives to carry home in enameled basins and one-pot stews that nourish hungry laborers in from the country. There are also small fried tidbits for after-school snacks and c.o.c.ktail nibbles for the elite: peanuts roasted on sand-covered griddles, orange-hued fritters dripping with palm oil, and more. The dusty streets of the Topka seem the perfect place to begin this culinary journey. With the food of the African continent on glorious display we can begin to learn how over the course of centuries that food has transformed the cooking and the tastes of the United States. (deep-fried bananas) of the Cote d'Ivoire. They include grilled meats that are served up in spicy sauces for busy housewives to carry home in enameled basins and one-pot stews that nourish hungry laborers in from the country. There are also small fried tidbits for after-school snacks and c.o.c.ktail nibbles for the elite: peanuts roasted on sand-covered griddles, orange-hued fritters dripping with palm oil, and more. The dusty streets of the Topka seem the perfect place to begin this culinary journey. With the food of the African continent on glorious display we can begin to learn how over the course of centuries that food has transformed the cooking and the tastes of the United States.

The cooking of Africa has yet to have its moment on the foodie radar. With the exception of the food of the southern Mediterranean coast and of South Africa, it would seem that we're content to remain in the dark about the tastes of the continent. However, those who have tasted ya.s.sa ya.s.sa, the lemon-infused chicken and onion stew served over fluffy white rice, from Senegal, or kedjenou kedjenou, the deep, slow-cooked Ivorian stew of guinea hen, or a freshly caught grilled fish served up with an oniony, tomato-based sauce called moyau moyau in Benin know how shortsighted this is. Much African food is tasty indeed. The traditional foods of the African continent may also reflect some of the world's oldest foodways, for, as James L. Newman puts it in in Benin know how shortsighted this is. Much African food is tasty indeed. The traditional foods of the African continent may also reflect some of the world's oldest foodways, for, as James L. Newman puts it in The Peopling of Africa: A Geographic Interpretation The Peopling of Africa: A Geographic Interpretation, "all humanity shares a common Africa-forged genetic ident.i.ty." Some of the continent's food even tastes surprisingly familiar, because, for centuries of forced and voluntary migration, the food of Western Africa has had an influence on the cooking of the world, transforming the taste and the dishes of many nations east and west, few more than the United States.

Current thinking is that the African continent is where man originated. If this is true, it is also where humans first began to forage for food. As early as eighteen thousand years ago, some Nile Valley communities in Upper Egypt made intensive use of vegetable tubers. Later humans began to care for wild gra.s.ses as well, but did not establish true cultivation until about the sixth millennium B.C B.C., when people started to domesticate plants and animals and evolved lifestyles that were less nomadic. Many of the crops they cultivated then were native to the continent and are still cultivated today. These include some types of yam, African rice, and cereals such as sorghum and millets. Evidence of early agriculture has even been found within the Sahara, which then had a moister climate. Over time, these peoples migrated south, driven by the increasing desertification of the Sahara. In the western part of the continent, they settled in three different areas, each of which depended on a major grain or foodstuff as the basis for nourishment.

A wide band below the Sahara spanned from Sudan in the east to Senegal in the west and developed around the cultivation of sorghum and several varieties of millet. A coastal area and the Niger Delta region, including what is today Senegal and the Republic of Guinea, depended on rice and fonio fonio, a native cereal gra.s.s that produces a small mustard-like seed. A third area, also on the coast, ran from today's Cote d'Ivoire through Cameroon and cultivated yams. These three crucibles-cereals, rice, and yams-also marked three distinct areas from which enslaved Africans were brought to the United States. Each had its own traditional dishes centered on the starch that was its preference. Those from the rice crucible were among some of the earliest transported by the Transatlantic Slave Trade to what would become the United States. They brought with them their knowledge of rice cultivation and their memories of a rice-based cuisine, like that of today's Senegal, where wags say that the Lord's Prayer should be rewritten to say, "Give us this day our daily rice"! Those from the yam crucible arrived later, as the voracious slave trade made its way down the West African coast from Senegal to the Gold Coast, then south to the Bight of Benin and beyond. They saddled the United States with eternal confusion between the New World sweet potato and the Old World tuber whose name it came to bear-the yam. Those from the cereal crucible were inland and therefore not an immediate influence on American tastes until the inception of the slave trade. They depended on millet and on fonio fonio, which were traditional, and by the time they were involved in the trade, on large amounts of American corn.

The Western world first began to hear of the food of the sub-Saharan Africa from one who had actually voyaged there in the middle of the fourteenth century. Abdalla Ibn Battuta, a famous Tangerine traveler, left Marrakesh in 1352 to head for Bilad al Sudan (the place of the blacks). He was sent by the sultan of Morocco on a mission to the kingdom of Mali to observe the kingdom that was one of the principle destinations of Berber trade caravans. Like many travelers before and since, he thought of his stomach, wrote often of the food that he encountered on his two-year journey, and became one of the primary recorders of the early foodways of Africa. He reckoned the dates of Sijilmasa in northern Mali some of the sweetest he'd ever encountered and suggested that the dessert was full of truffles (although these were probably some other kind of vegetable fungus). He crossed the Sahara with trade caravans and visited salt mines where the salt came from the earth in huge tablets. He spoke of calabashes decorated with intricate designs that were used as eating and storage vessels. Ibn Battuta's account is of particular interest to those looking at the origins of African American foods and food-ways because almost seven hundred years ago he noticed elements of African foodways that are still reflected today in those of the continent's American descendants. He spoke not only of ingredients and storage vessels but also of cooking techniques, a woman-driven marketplace, a tradition of warm hospitality, and the importance of food in ritual.

Ibn Battuta's journey predated Columbus's voyages by almost a century and a half. By the early years of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, another century and a half later, the African continent had come under the influence of what is now known as the Columbian Exchange. Following Columbus's explorations, a New World larder of foods was unleashed. New World crops like tomatoes, corn, chilies, peanuts, and ca.s.sava arrived on the African continent and transformed its cuisine and changed its dining habits. Many of the New World additions, especially corn, chilies, and ca.s.sava, have become so emblematic of the continent's cuisine that it is almost impossible to imagine its dishes without them.

Not only the foodstuff made its way across the Atlantic; so did the basic cooking techniques. Whether frying, steaming in leaves, grilling, roasting, baking, or boiling, they could be duplicated using the hearth that was the European culinary standard. Cooking was done using flame, charcoal, and ash. There was no sauteing or braising, and most traditional dishes, while possibly elaborate in ingredients or preparation, relied on some form of live fire until fairly recently. From Morocco in the north to South Africa, from Kenya in the east to Cameroon in the west, the continent's traditional dishes tended to be variations on the theme of a soupy stew over a starch or a grilled or fried animal protein accompanied by a vegetable sauce and/or a starch. The starch changed from the couscous described by Ibn Battuta to millet couscous known as tiere tiere in Mali to the banana-leaf-wrapped fermented corn paste known as in Mali to the banana-leaf-wrapped fermented corn paste known as kenkey kenkey in Ghana or its pounded plantain variant, in Ghana or its pounded plantain variant, akankye akankye. It might even be the plain white rice accompaning the ya.s.sa in Senegal. The stew might be served over the starch or the starch might be formed into b.a.l.l.s, broken into bits, or scooped up with the fingers and dipped or sopped. It has been that way for centuries and remains that way today. Any Southerner who has ever sopped the potlikker from a mess of greens with a piece of cornbread would be right at home.

Our knowledge of early African foodways came not only from voyagers like Ibn Battuta but also from explorers and missionaries. Mungo Park, the first European to view the headwaters of the Niger, traveled to the continent in the late eighteenth century. Like Ibn Battuta, he was concerned with his stomach and gave a detailed accounting of some of the foods he encountered. By the time that Park made his exploratory journey, American corn had begun to supplant the millet and fonio fonio mentioned by Ibn Battuta, but couscous remained a traditional preparation no matter the starch. In his journal, Park described the process for making a corn couscous so precisely that it could be followed as a recipe. mentioned by Ibn Battuta, but couscous remained a traditional preparation no matter the starch. In his journal, Park described the process for making a corn couscous so precisely that it could be followed as a recipe.

In preparing their corn for food, the natives use a large wooden mortar called a paloon paloon, in which they bruise the seed until it parts with the outer covering, or husk, which is then separated from the clean corn, by exposing it to the wind: nearly in the same manner as wheat is cleared from the chaff in England. The corn thus freed from the husk is returned to the mortar and beaten into meal; which is dressed variously in different countries; but the most common preparation of it among the natives of the Gambia, is a sort of pudding, which they call kouskous kouskous. It is made by first moistening the flour with water, and then stirring and shaking it about in a large calabash or gourd, till it adheres together in small granules, resembling sago. It is then put into an earthen pot, whose bottom is perforated with a number of small holes; and this pot being placed upon another, the two vessels are luted together either with a paste of meal and water, or with cow's dung, and placed upon the fire. In the lower vessel is commonly some animal food and water, the steam or vapour of which ascends through the perforations in the bottom of the upper vessel, and soften and prepares the kouskous kouskous which is much esteemed throughout all the countries that I visited. which is much esteemed throughout all the countries that I visited.

Park also spoke of rice dishes and of corn puddings and of the fact that there were a wide variety of vegetables. Fowl was abundant and included partridge as well as guinea hens, which are indigenous to the continent.

Like Ibn Battuta, the explorers were amazed by the lavish hospitality that was offered by rich and poor alike to guests and visitors. Rene Caille, who traveled overland from Morocco through Mali into Guinea, spoke of the foods he ate in his 1830 travel account. He mentioned a "copious luncheon of rice with chicken and milk," which he ate with delight and which filled the travelers for their journey. He also recounted a meal offered to him by the poor of a village, which consisted of a type of couscous served with a sauce of greens. While Caille enjoyed his copious meal, his hosts made due with boiled yam with a saltless sauce. Similar prodigious hospitality garnered commentary from virtually all writers. However, some of the more gastronomically inclined French travelers, like Caille and others, were as astonished by the sophisticated tastes of the food as they were by the generous hospitality. Theophilus Conneau, another Frenchmen, recorded that on December 8, 1827, he ate an excellent supper. It was a rich stew which a French cook would call a sauce blanche. I desired a taste which engendered a wish for more. The delicious mess was made of mutton minced with roasted ground nuts [or peanuts] and rolled up into a shape of forced meat b.a.l.l.s, which when stewed up with milk b.u.t.ter and a little malaguetta [sic] pepper, is a rich dish if eaten with rice en pilau. Monsieur Fortoni [sic] of Paris might not be ashamed to present a dish of it to his aristocratic gastronomes of the Boulevard des Italiens.

This was high praise indeed from a Frenchman.

Ibn Battuta, Park, Caille, and others like them also visited the courts of African rulers and commented on the grandeur that attended the sovereigns. Mansa Kankan Musa of Mali, ruler of the region that Battuta visited, was so extravagant in his lifestyle that when he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, he distributed such quant.i.ties of gold that in his wake the Egyptian dinar was devalued by 20 percent. Leaders of the Akan, Fon, Bamileke, Bamun, and Yoruba peoples and other coastal kingdoms equally impressed early European arrivals with their wealth, the splendor of their courts, and the ceremonies and rituals surrounding food and food service.

Christianized Anna Nzingha, and also known as Dona Ana de Souza, the seventeenth-century queen of the Ndongo and Matamba kingdoms was an absolute sovereign. A lunch in her court, as recorded in 1687 by Joo Antonio Cavazzi de Montecuccolo in Descrico historica dos tres reinos do Congo, Matamba e Angola Descrico historica dos tres reinos do Congo, Matamba e Angola, was a finely tuned show of prestige combining African and Westernized customs. The queen, in her usual manner, was seated on a mat surrounded by her ladies and ministers. Her meal was served in vessels of clay, although she owned silver ones. When the food was served, it was piping hot, and the guests ate with their hands, pa.s.sing the food between their left and right hands until it cooled off. Cavazzi, an Italian priest who was in attendance at court, once counted eighty different dishes being served. When the queen drank, all those present clapped their hands or touched their fingers to their feet to indicate that she should enjoy what she was drinking from her head to her toes. She ate in great pomp, and the leftovers were given to the rest of the court.

The pomp of the African courts amazed the travelers, but they also commented on the elaborate rituals surrounding service. Food has remained an integral part of ritual on the continent, from the milk that is poured into the sea at Goree, Senegal, to placate Mame Coumba Castel, the spirit of that island, to the mashed yam that is symbolically "fed" to the sacred stools of the Ashanti. In general, traditional holidays on the continent can be divided into two basic types: those that offer thanksgiving and sacrifice to the ancestors and the G.o.ds and those that celebrate the new harvest. "Hooting at hunger," or h.o.m.owo, among the Ga people of the Accra plains of Ghana, is a thanksgiving festival where the community gathers annually to ridicule hunger and celebrate triumphing over it and vanquis.h.i.+ng famine. In Ghana and Nigeria and other countries within the belt where yams are the major starch, traditional yam festivals like h.o.m.owo remain common. New yams are propagated from old ones, and so the tuber has come to symbolize the continuity of life. Yam celebrations range from new yam shoots being paraded through the street of the community to ensure prosperity and a fruitful harvest to the elder or communal leader reading yam peelings as an oracle to foretell what the next crop will yield. Many of these celebratory occasions end in a communal meal of pounded yam. Over the centuries, these ceremonies and others like them were transformed by time and place, religion and culture, and they form the basis for many culinary rituals that remain integral parts of African American life: holiday celebrations, church suppers, traditional New Year's meals, and even Kwanzaa.

In Western Africa, the recipes and indeed the festivities changed as the continent increasingly became invaded by the cultures of the outside world. The Dya'ogo dynasty that ruled the kingdom of Tekur in what is today Mali adopted Islam around 850 C.E C.E. From this foothold, the religion began to make further incursions into sub-Saharan Africa. It spread through trade, jihad, and conversion deeper into the Sahel and fanned out toward the coastal regions. It was integrated in the cultures of Mali, Senegal, Niger, Mauretania, Upper Volta, and Guinea by the time of Ibn Battuta's travels and those of the early explorers. Islam brought with it dietary prohibitions, rules about meal service, and a cycle of feasting and fasting, complete with holidays and rituals that melded with those of traditional religions and became a potent cultural force in the western part of the continent by the time of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The Christianizing of the continent from the fifteenth century onward resulted in Roman Catholic dietary rules and regulations being adopted by its followers. Those who lived in the coastal areas were more rapidly influenced by the Europeans who made increasing incursions into the continent. Coastal dwellers eventually developed a creolized society that mixed African mores with those of the prevailing European colonial powers. Over the centuries, travelers were followed by explorers who became colonizers, and the Portuguese, French, Dutch, British, Belgians, and Germans all brought their dietary habits, religious restrictions, and everyday rituals to the continent, where they became a part of the culinary kaleidoscope that is the western segment of the African continent.

Recipes, religious celebrations, meals, menus, and more from the African continent were a part of the cultural baggage that was brought across the Atlantic by those who would be enslaved. No matter where the individual's origins, direct ties to the mother continent were ruptured and scattered in the upheaval of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The general notions of ceremony and the tastes of the food of ritual and of daily life, however, remained in memory, atavisms that influenced the taste, cooking techniques, marketing styles, ritual behaviors, and hospitality of their descendants and of the country that would become theirs. The matrix was fixed on the African continent; the transformation from African to African American involved one of the most brutal pa.s.sages that humans have had to endure: the Middle Pa.s.sage of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

OKRA, WATERMELON, AND BLACK-EYED PEAS: AFRICA'S GIFTS TO NEW WORLD COOKING While millions of Africans were brought in chains to the New World, the botanical connection to the African continent remained relatively small. The list is even smaller in the United States, where the weather did not permit the introduction of such tropical species as ackee, the oil palm, kola, true African yams, and other tubers. The few plants that could survive-okra, watermelon, and black-eyed peas-have, however, remained emblematic of Africans and their descendants in the United States and of the region in which most of them toiled, the American South.

Okra is perhaps the best known and least understood outside African American and Southern households. Prized on the African continent as a thickener, it is the basis for many a soupy stew and is served up in sheets of the slippery mucilage that it exudes. Okra probably was first introduced into the continental United States in the early 1700s, most likely from the Caribbean, where it has a long history. Colonial Americans ate it, and by 1748 the pod was used in Philadelphia, where it is still an ingredient in some variants of the Philadelphia gumbo known as pepperpot. In 1781 Thomas Jefferson commented on it as growing in Virginia, and we know that it was certainly grown in the slave gardens of Monticello. By 1806 the plant was in relatively widespread use, and botanists spoke of several different varieties.

Our American word okra okra comes from the Igbo language of Nigeria, where the plant is referred to as comes from the Igbo language of Nigeria, where the plant is referred to as okuru okuru. It is the French word for okra, gombo gombo, that resonates with the emblematic dishes of southern Louisiana known as gumbo. Although creolized and mutated, the word gumbo gumbo harks back to the Bantu languages, in which the pod is known as harks back to the Bantu languages, in which the pod is known as ochingombo ochingombo or or guingombo guingombo. The word clearly has an African antecedent, as do the soupy stews that it describes, which are frequently made with okra.

Watermelon has been so connected with African Americans that it is not surprising to learn that the fruit is believed to have originated on the African continent. Pictures of watermelons appear in Egyptian tomb paintings, and in southern Africa they have been used for centuries by the Khoi and San of the Kalahari. More than 90 percent water, the fruit is useful in areas where water may be unsafe, and it is also especially prized to cool folks down in hot weather.

Watermelons arrived in the continental United States fairly early on in the seventeenth century and were taken to heart and stomach rapidly as new cultivars were developed that were more suitable to the cooler weather. As with okra, watermelon has been indelibly connected to African Americans. Indeed some of the most virulently racist images of African Americans produced in the post-Civil War era involve African Americans and the fruit. Watermelon became so stereotypically African American that black comedian G.o.dfrey Cambridge in the 1960s developed a comedy routine about the travails of an upwardly mobile black man trying to bring home a watermelon without being seen by the neighbors in his upscale white community. He declared that he couldn't wait until a square watermelon was developed that would defy detection. (It has been; in the late twentieth century, the j.a.panese perfected a square watermelon that could be stacked.) National att.i.tudes toward watermelon have changed, but the fruit and its stereotyped history still remain a hot-b.u.t.ton issue for many.

Before Fergie sang with a music group known as the Black Eyed Peas, the vegetable was perhaps best known as an ingredient in the South Carolina perloo perloo (or composed rice dish or pilaf) known as Hoppin' John. Legumes are among the world's oldest crops. They have been found in Egyptian tombs and turn up in pa.s.sages in the Bible. The black-eyed pea, which is actually more of a bean than a pea, was introduced into the West Indies from Central Africa in the early 1700s and journeyed from there into the Carolinas. The pea with the small black dot is considered especially lucky by many cultures in Western Africa. While the pea was certainly not lucky for those who were caught and sold into slavery, the memory of the luck it was supposed to bring in West Africa lingered on among the enslaved in the southern United States and the Hoppin' John that is still consumed on New Year's Day by black and white Southerners alike is reputed to bring good fortune to all who eat it. (or composed rice dish or pilaf) known as Hoppin' John. Legumes are among the world's oldest crops. They have been found in Egyptian tombs and turn up in pa.s.sages in the Bible. The black-eyed pea, which is actually more of a bean than a pea, was introduced into the West Indies from Central Africa in the early 1700s and journeyed from there into the Carolinas. The pea with the small black dot is considered especially lucky by many cultures in Western Africa. While the pea was certainly not lucky for those who were caught and sold into slavery, the memory of the luck it was supposed to bring in West Africa lingered on among the enslaved in the southern United States and the Hoppin' John that is still consumed on New Year's Day by black and white Southerners alike is reputed to bring good fortune to all who eat it.

As came okra, watermelons, and black-eyed peas, so came sesame and sorghum. The African continent is also responsible for our eternal confusion about yams and sweet potatoes. Some variants of true yams are African in origin. Across the Atlantic, they became confused with the sweet potatoes that were the predominant tubers to which the enslaved in the United States had access. In African American parlance and from there into Southern usage, they retained the name of the African tuber that they replaced-yam.

Peanuts are New World in origin, yet they remain connected in many minds with the African continent, because it is likely that they moved into general usage in the United States via the Transatlantic Slave Trade. They returned to the northern part of their native hemisphere complete with an African name that derived from the Bantu word nguba nguba, meaning "groundnut"-goober. So we're all celebrating Africa when we're eating goober peas.

CHAPTER 2.

SEA CHANGES.

Enslavement, the Middle Pa.s.sage, and the Migrating Tastes of Africa

Goree Island, Senegal- Sunday was the day that the small ferries that took travelers back and forth to Goree from Dakar were most crowded. Then daytrippers headed over to frolic on the tiny island's beaches and stopped for lunch in the local restaurants that caught the sea breezes. Those with more cash splurged on a gourmet luncheon at the Relais d'Espadon, or overnighted at the Chevalier de Boufflers, the small hotel named for one of the island's early-century governors. To those with little knowledge of its past, Goree was a pleasant place in the 1970s: a picture-book spot where time seemed to have stopped. There were no cars, only sandy streets and alleyways bounded by rosy brick walls festooned with brilliantly colored bougainvillea blossoms. The breezes kept the island relatively cool, and the sight of a woman rounding a corner with her brightly colored robes billowing in the wind was one of the island's joys.

In the early 1970s, I journeyed to Senegal frequently and visited the island occasionally during my stays in Dakar. There, I learned of the calabash of milk that islanders offered annually to the sea to placate its tutelary spirit, Mame Coumba Castel. In those days, the aroma of frying fish turnovers called pastels pastels and of meat grilling on the stoves of the small eateries near the ferry dock perfumed the air, and I loved the slip of sand under my feet. I enjoyed the warm greetings of the folks who lived on the outpost and the friends I made there. The most unforgettable thing about Goree, though, was La Maison des Esclaves. and of meat grilling on the stoves of the small eateries near the ferry dock perfumed the air, and I loved the slip of sand under my feet. I enjoyed the warm greetings of the folks who lived on the outpost and the friends I made there. The most unforgettable thing about Goree, though, was La Maison des Esclaves.

An unprepossessing building from the street, it looked like any other one, its rosy stucco facade broken by a wooden door that had seen much wear. A hand-lettered sign was the only indication that this house was different from the others surrounding it. It said, simply, LA MAISON DES ESCLAVES: LA MAISON DES ESCLAVES: the House of the Slaves. Through the door, one entered a courtyard where the most arresting feature was a curving horseshoe staircase under which a small corridor led to an open doorway to the sea. The brilliance of the sparkling sea on the other side beckoned through the darkness of the hall. the House of the Slaves. Through the door, one entered a courtyard where the most arresting feature was a curving horseshoe staircase under which a small corridor led to an open doorway to the sea. The brilliance of the sparkling sea on the other side beckoned through the darkness of the hall.

A small office was on one side of the entrance. In it sat the curator c.u.m guide, whose ramrod posture and carefully enunciated French made me think of him as one of the ancien combattants ancien combattants, war veterans, who manned such venues throughout Western Africa. Joseph Ndiaye was his name, and on my first visit, he took me, my mother, and our small group of tourists through the former dwelling, detailing how the slave traders lived lavishly upstairs while terrified captives huddled in misery below them. He showed us the room where the women and young children were held, the stygian dungeons that housed the general population of men and boys, and the cramped lockups for the recalcitrant. He pointed out the open doorway to the rocks and sea and called it the Door of No Return. Ndiaye had a pair of iron shackles, which he put on, and as he hobbled around the courtyard, the realities of enslavement became vividly real. In 1972, before Alex Haley penned Roots Roots and revised the way that many black Americans thought of their African ancestry, this was transformational. Certainly slavery was not a new concept, but actually standing on one of the spots where Africans had been forced on s.h.i.+ps and sent off to the Americas was harrowing and unforgettable. and revised the way that many black Americans thought of their African ancestry, this was transformational. Certainly slavery was not a new concept, but actually standing on one of the spots where Africans had been forced on s.h.i.+ps and sent off to the Americas was harrowing and unforgettable.

Goree was no more than a shadow on the horizon for a few subsequent trips to Dakar until several years later, when I found myself compelled to go there again. By this time, Roots Roots had transformed the place, and Ndiaye's demonstration had become more studied, more theatrical, and to me, less moving. The walls were decorated with slips of paper inscribed with quotations from around the world about slavery and its horrors. The crowds were larger; the house, however, remained the same. On this solo journey, without the comfort of my mother or fellow black Americans, the spirit of the place overwhelmed me, and I, like many others before and after me, broke down and began weeping with despair and grief at the thought of history's transgressions. I was in such a state that a newly made Senegalese friend, Yaya MBoup, took it upon herself to find me some African Americans who lived on the island and introduced me to John Franklin and Elaine Charles. That evening, I missed the last ferry from Goree and spent the night amid new friends and the island's ghosts, listening to the slap of sandals on the sandy lanes, savoring the fragrant chicken had transformed the place, and Ndiaye's demonstration had become more studied, more theatrical, and to me, less moving. The walls were decorated with slips of paper inscribed with quotations from around the world about slavery and its horrors. The crowds were larger; the house, however, remained the same. On this solo journey, without the comfort of my mother or fellow black Americans, the spirit of the place overwhelmed me, and I, like many others before and after me, broke down and began weeping with despair and grief at the thought of history's transgressions. I was in such a state that a newly made Senegalese friend, Yaya MBoup, took it upon herself to find me some African Americans who lived on the island and introduced me to John Franklin and Elaine Charles. That evening, I missed the last ferry from Goree and spent the night amid new friends and the island's ghosts, listening to the slap of sandals on the sandy lanes, savoring the fragrant chicken ya.s.sa ya.s.sa that had been prepared. That night I began to learn the tale of Goree and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. that had been prepared. That night I began to learn the tale of Goree and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

In the fifteenth century, Goree was settled by the Portuguese as a beachhead of incursion into the African continent. Subsequently, the Dutch, British, and French took over the island in turn and made it their base during their years of slave trading. The transportation and enslavement of millions of Africans and their descendants was not a clear-cut issue but rather the result of much complicity between Europeans and Africans, many of whom had lived together in relative harmony in the coastal areas of the continent for centuries. There, in places like Goree, they had developed their own culture, one that was creolized and that mixed European and African ways with facility. Historian Ira Berlin has called these people Atlantic Creoles. Up and down the West African coast they created a buffer community between Europeans and Africans and often served as middlemen in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

In their forays to the Senegalese coast, the French, like their predecessors, developed friends.h.i.+ps with local natives and established liaisons with local women who were known as signares signares (from the Portuguese (from the Portuguese senhora senhora). These women, with European names like Caty Louette, Victoria Albir, and Anne Pepin, were members of Goree's mulatto elite, which had developed from centuries of intermingling between Africans and Europeans. The signares signares bridged the worlds of Africa and Europe and evidenced the best and worst of each. Practiced courtesans, they dressed in European finery, contracted "local marriages" with powerful Europeans, headed their own businesses offering goods to provision s.h.i.+ps, provided canoe men to transport the enslaved to the s.h.i.+ps, made fortunes as slave traders, worked as go-betweens in the trade, and generally were complicit in the enslavement of many. They dominated the island and were its leading citizens. In 1767 Caty Louette had her own household slaves and owned one of the island's first stone houses. Victoria Albir built the colonnaded domicile that today houses the island's ethnographic museum, and Anne Pepin was the mistress of the chevalier de Boufflers, the island's French governor. She visited him resplendent with jewels and received his guests in lavish European style. For her, he constructed the house that became La Maison des Esclaves. The signares kept European-style households and developed a sumptuous fusion cuisine. The dishes they created for entertaining were designed to impress their French patrons and European guests. One example is the culinary tour de force bridged the worlds of Africa and Europe and evidenced the best and worst of each. Practiced courtesans, they dressed in European finery, contracted "local marriages" with powerful Europeans, headed their own businesses offering goods to provision s.h.i.+ps, provided canoe men to transport the enslaved to the s.h.i.+ps, made fortunes as slave traders, worked as go-betweens in the trade, and generally were complicit in the enslavement of many. They dominated the island and were its leading citizens. In 1767 Caty Louette had her own household slaves and owned one of the island's first stone houses. Victoria Albir built the colonnaded domicile that today houses the island's ethnographic museum, and Anne Pepin was the mistress of the chevalier de Boufflers, the island's French governor. She visited him resplendent with jewels and received his guests in lavish European style. For her, he constructed the house that became La Maison des Esclaves. The signares kept European-style households and developed a sumptuous fusion cuisine. The dishes they created for entertaining were designed to impress their French patrons and European guests. One example is the culinary tour de force dem farci: dem farci: fish that is skinned, boned, stuffed with a forcemeat of fish and bread, reconst.i.tuted, cooked, and served whole. Their hospitality was as legendary as their beauty and their avidity, and the descendants of the dishes that they served to their French "husbands" are reputed to be some of Senegal's most sophisticated even today. fish that is skinned, boned, stuffed with a forcemeat of fish and bread, reconst.i.tuted, cooked, and served whole. Their hospitality was as legendary as their beauty and their avidity, and the descendants of the dishes that they served to their French "husbands" are reputed to be some of Senegal's most sophisticated even today.

Goree Island, which flourished under the French in the eighteenth century, was only one such place along the western coast of Africa where millions of Africans were sent to embark on the harrowing journey to the Americas. As the trade grew, slave depots pockmarked the western coast from Goree in the north to Luanda and Benguela in Angola in the south. They are etched in infamy, yet, ironically, names like Elmina, Cape Coast, Anecho, Ouidah, Calabar, Bonny, Loango, and Cabinda are largely unknown to the American descendants of those who pa.s.sed through them. These were the last spots on the African continent on which millions stood in fear, not knowing what would befall them before being loaded onto longboats or canoes, transported to the big s.h.i.+ps that sat at anchor, and carried in misery across the ocean to the American future that awaited them. Surely, as they looked back in horror at the coastline ebbing away, they thought of families and loved ones lost, of traditions shared, and of the homes they would see no more. Not all came to the North American colonies; of the Africans who arrived in the hemisphere, only 6 percent came to the continental United States. The others went to Latin America and the Caribbean, with the largest number going to Brazil. No matter where their journeys from Goree and like spots took them, they brought with them a remembrance of the meals they had eaten on the African continent that transformed the tastes of their new homes.

Slavery existed in the world for centuries before it came to the sh.o.r.es of the Americas. We get our word slave slave from the Slavic peoples of middle Europe, who were captured and sold at the slave markets in Roman times along with prisoners of war from around the vast empire. Africans also knew slavery long before Europeans arrived on their sh.o.r.es. Enemies, criminals, and debtors all became slaves of those in power. An African slave trade to Europe that presaged the one to the Americas began as a trickle in 1441, when the Portuguese first brought sub-Saharan African slaves to European markets. Once Spain established its American settlements, Nicolas de Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, decreed that only black slaves born in Spain or Portugal could be imported into the colony. Eventually that ruling was abandoned, as those slaves incited the Indians to revolt. Yet, as the Spanish colonies grew in the New World, so did their need for slave labor, and regular slave traffic from Africa to the Americas began in 1519. Then, a century later, in 1619, a captured s.h.i.+p brought nineteen Africans who had been bound for enslavement in Cuba into the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. The original Africans were indentured and not enslaved, but they, like the millions of others who would follow them to the continental United States, had endured the Atlantic transit. They had survived the Middle Pa.s.sage that was the birth ca.n.a.l of African Americans. It was a voyage that took Africans and transported them through moans, screams, pain, and wrenching separation into life on American sh.o.r.es. from the Slavic peoples of middle Europe, who were captured and sold at the slave markets in Roman times along with prisoners of war from around the vast empire. Africans also knew slavery long before Europeans arrived on their sh.o.r.es. Enemies, criminals, and debtors all became slaves of those in power. An African slave trade to Europe that presaged the one to the Americas began as a trickle in 1441, when the Portuguese first brought sub-Saharan African slaves to European markets. Once Spain established its American settlements, Nicolas de Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, decreed that only black slaves born in Spain or Portugal could be imported into the colony. Eventually that ruling was abandoned, as those slaves incited the Indians to revolt. Yet, as the Spanish colonies grew in the New World, so did their need for slave labor, and regular slave traffic from Africa to the Americas began in 1519. Then, a century later, in 1619, a captured s.h.i.+p brought nineteen Africans who had been bound for enslavement in Cuba into the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. The original Africans were indentured and not enslaved, but they, like the millions of others who would follow them to the continental United States, had endured the Atlantic transit. They had survived the Middle Pa.s.sage that was the birth ca.n.a.l of African Americans. It was a voyage that took Africans and transported them through moans, screams, pain, and wrenching separation into life on American sh.o.r.es.

The Middle Pa.s.sage was the central leg of a complex triangular voyage that offered enormous profit to those whose s.h.i.+ps successfully completed all three legs. In the early years, the journeys began in home ports in northern Eur ope, where captains provisioned their s.h.i.+ps with trade goods-rum or brandy, gunpowder, beads, and cloth-and headed out to Africa. Once on the sh.o.r.es of the continent, they purchased slaves and transported them to the New World markets on the middle leg of the journey. The final leg of the tripart.i.te journey was the voyage home, bringing sugar, tobacco, or other agricultural products from the colonies to European or American ports. For a period of more than three hundred years, the s.h.i.+ps plied the waters of the Atlantic. It is estimated that during the period of the slave trade there, from 1527 to 1866, there were 27, 233 transatlantic trips. The litany of s.h.i.+ps and their names seems endless.

On September 13, 1693, the Hannibal Hannibal left Gravesend, England, for the African coast. On January 13, 1698, the sloop left Gravesend, England, for the African coast. On January 13, 1698, the sloop Albion Frigate Albion Frigate sailed from the Downs, on the English Channel, to the African coast. On October 25, 1773, sailed from the Downs, on the English Channel, to the African coast. On October 25, 1773, Adventure Adventure cleared Newport, Rhode Island, for the Atlantic coast. On November 22, 1806, the brig cleared Newport, Rhode Island, for the Atlantic coast. On November 22, 1806, the brig Tartar Tartar, owned by Frederick Tuell of Charleston, South Carolina, headed out of Rhode Island bound for Rio Pongo in Guinea. The schooner Nancy Nancy left Charleston for Senegal on June 1, 1807. The trips continued clandestinely after the Transatlantic Slave Trade was outlawed in 1808; in 1845, the left Charleston for Senegal on June 1, 1807. The trips continued clandestinely after the Transatlantic Slave Trade was outlawed in 1808; in 1845, the Spitfire Spitfire sailed from New Orleans and was captured and found to be transporting 346 individuals. The sailed from New Orleans and was captured and found to be transporting 346 individuals. The Wanderer Wanderer left Charleston flying the flag of the New York Yacht Club with false papers claiming it was sailing for Trinidad but in reality set course for the Congo, completed its journey successfully, and returned to the Georgia coast on December 1, 1858. Virtually all the nations of northern Europe engaged in the trade. Eventually they were joined by the northern and southern ports of the colonies that became the United States. left Charleston flying the flag of the New York Yacht Club with false papers claiming it was sailing for Trinidad but in reality set course for the Congo, completed its journey successfully, and returned to the Georgia coast on December 1, 1858. Virtually all the nations of northern Europe engaged in the trade. Eventually they were joined by the northern and southern ports of the colonies that became the United States.

s.h.i.+ps left at all times of the year from Bristol and Liverpool in England; from Nantes, Bordeaux, and La Roch.e.l.le in France; from Boston, Providence, Newport, Baltimore, New York, Annapolis, Charleston, and other ports throughout the northern Atlantic. Canny slavers out of the British ports even calculated their sailings with the objective of arriving in South Carolina or Virginia between May and October, during the growing season, when Africans fetched higher prices. No matter what their home port or when they set sail, s.h.i.+ps were provisioned with shackles and slaving equipment as well as with some staples that had to last the entire journey. The scale of provisioning s.h.i.+ps was such that purchases by British slave traders influenced the cost of everything from the timber that was used to refit the s.h.i.+ps' holds once they arrived on the African coast to edible stores.

Slave s.h.i.+ps required more food than any of the other vessels trading on the Atlantic. In addition to the rations of the crews, which numbered about thirty individuals, they also had to provide for feeding three hundred or so enslaved Africans, who came from different cultures and had different food preferences. Slave-s.h.i.+p provision lists from Royal African Company records from 1682 to 1683 include such items as stockfish and beef, beans, salt, flour, and brandy, which was both a provision and a trade good. (In later years, the brandy was replaced with rum.) All was boarded for the first leg of the journey to the African coast. Estimating a six- to fifteen-week journey from British ports to the African coast, depending on winds and weather, captains planned on arriving on the West African coast in time for the harvests there, in order to be better able to take on additional supplies.

Once on the West African coast, the s.h.i.+ps met up with others with the same mission, and it became a race among them to fill their hold with food and slaves. Captains cajoled and bribed African rulers, traded with middlemen and factors, and bought foodstuffs from locals while they waited for enough slaves to fill the holds, which were like voracious maws gobbling up human lives. Often they remained on the African coast for months at a time, sailing from port to port in search of human cargo; the average time most s.h.i.+ps remained on the coast was four months. As the slaves were acquired, they were examined: lips pulled back and mouths probed for missing teeth and sores, eyes examined for ophthalmia and blindness, muscles palpated, genitals fingered-all to determine age and health. If the slaves were deemed sound, the bargaining began. Once the negotiations were concluded, the hapless captives were branded with a company's mark and herded out to the canoes that would take them to the s.h.i.+ps that waited at anchor. Many were despondent; others attempted suicide; still others threw themselves overboard and were eaten by the sharks that followed the slave s.h.i.+ps, preferring death to an uncertain future. Once on board, they were led belowdecks. Alexander Falconbridge, a s.h.i.+p's doctor who sailed with the slavers in the eighteenth century, observed these conditions: The men, on being brought aboard s.h.i.+p, are immediately fastened together, two and two by handcuffs on their wrists and irons rivetted on their legs ... At the same time they are frequently stowed so close as to admit of no other position than lying on their sides. Nor will the height between decks, unless directly under the grating, allow them to stand; especially where there are platforms on either side, which is generally the case.

The holds in which they were kept were horrifying. Buckets served as latrines, and those too far away were reduced to relieving themselves on themselves and their neighbors. Falconbridge reported that the decks of the slave holds were covered in blood and mucus and concluded that "it is not in the power of the human imagination to picture a situation more dreadful or disgusting."

More compelling still is the testimony of Olaudah Equiano, an African who had experienced the Middle Pa.s.sage firsthand: The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for fresh air; but now that the whole s.h.i.+p's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the s.h.i.+p, which was so crowded that each scarcely had room to turn himself, almost suffocated us.

The Middle Pa.s.sage had begun.

Many have told tales of the newly enslaved Africans bringing with them in their hair or their clothing okra and sesame seeds, thereby transplanting them to the New World. The truth is that, with the exception of necklaces and amulets, the beads of which have been found in archaeological digs on this side of the Atlantic, most slaves arrived with no belongings and had little idea of their ultimate fate; some thought that they would be eaten! The arrival of African foodstuffs in this hemisphere during the period of the Transatlantic Slave Trade is the result of a more brutal reality. The economics of slavery were such that slavers needed to feed slaves a diet on which they would survive. Much ink flowed during the period of enslavement on how to feed the slaves inexpensively with foods that they would eat. Therefore the almost-four-century-long period of the Transatlantic Slave Trade was one that was marked by a second trade in the foodstuffs necessary for the enslaved Africans to endure their arduous and unspeakable journey. Their survival was of prime importance to the traders who studied West African cultures and dietary habits and used their knowledge in provisioning the s.h.i.+ps t