How come Caribbeans don't call their food 'slave food' but Native Black Americans call Soul Food

[Breh Obama]

Diabetes
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Heart disease
Liver disease

Are all rampant in the Caribbean because of the garbage as food we've eaten for centuries because it's "culture"

 

[Dafunkdoc_Unlimited]

Been African American my whole life and predominantly lived around African Americans for 20+ years never heard anyone refer to it as slave food, who tf yall be around?

Back in the 80's, it was the Nation of Gods and Earths and Nation of Islam. You'd hear references to it on the radio daily......especially during the 'Conscious Era'.....​

​

 

[breakfuss]

You can conform with slave food in Google search Twitter Search

Ebony Magazine website has a article headline with Slave Food term in it.

Medical Doctors multi series podcast on YouTube called 'Slave Food'

Nas on his Untitled album released in mentions Slave Food term in a song (You may be able to characterize as Psuedo Hotemp)


Nation of Islam has circulated the Slave Food critique especially with the background Hon. Elijah Mohommed. book Eat to Live

Kind of frustrating some y'all tryna play dumb smh lol

So some TED talks and fringe black nationalists speak for the majority. You can find just as many YT channels, blogs or academics speaking about soul food in a celebratory way. I never said I hadn't heard or even taken part in critical discussions about AA cuisine, but ain't no well-adjusted negro walking around calling it slave food. It's not even remotely clever.

 

[ReturnOfJudah]

..

Soul food: Scraps became cuisine celebrating African-American spirit
Slaves were forced to eat the animal parts their masters threw away. They cleaned and cooked pig intestines and called them "chitterlings." They took the butts of oxen and christened them "ox tails." Same thing for pigs' tails, pigs' feet, chicken necks, smoked neck bones, hog jowls and gizzards.

A Brief History of Lobsters and How They Became Seafood Royalty
Lobsters were considered the “poor man’s chicken” and primarily used for fertilizer or fed to prisoners and slaves.

 

[get these nets]

One thing that I’ve learned as an adult is NOT to say a dish MUST be prepared a certain way. You get that a lot when talking about soul food, or any other ethnic cuisines like Jamaican or Nigerian. I’ve found that foods can be prepared differently from what you were brought up on and still be just as good. Plus food is inconsistent from household to household. Folks palettes are informed by how they grew up. If their parents were bad cooks, their palettes will have gotten used to bad cooking and may not be able to discern actual good food even if it smacked them in the face.

Agree with this, to an extent. In some cases, the strict prep/cooking instruction is valid. We put up interviews with the late Lena Chase at her restaurant in New Orleans when she was alive. The sweetest woman ever.............until somebody suggested a different way of making or eating gumbo. We had a running joke on who she would scream on next. Renaissance man Howard Conyers, Obama, Roland Martin all got screamed on. hehehehr
Rest In Peace to her.

But in general and for later generations, I don't think those kind of strict rules apply much. Because of migration, immigration, etc many people have parents from different regions, cultures, or countries. Two grandmothers from different backgrounds opens up your mind and palette to different foods. And the same foods being prepared differently. Merges, mixtures, and blending will naturally occur,

Also, people travel more frequently and widely than in past eras. This exposes them to different ways and ideas to prepare the same foods. You brought up an interesting comment in the thread about John Young, the King of Buffalo Wings. Like you pointed out, Mumbo/Mambo Sauce made it's way to DC via people who had visited the restaurant/store in Chicago where it was made/popularized.
High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America

In Buffalo, Mr. Young's daughter said that he tinkered/experimented with his sauce early on. And that after traveling internationally that he picked up some spices/fruits to add to what became his signature version of Mambo Sauce.

 

[Sankofa Alwayz]

The only native Black Americans that constantly call their own culture’s cuisine “slave food” are dusty ass Pannies and militant vegans. Other than them, ain’t no self-respecting native Black American calling the cuisine of our Ancestors “slave food”.

It’s interesting how those same Pannies and militant vegans never have smoke for the “slave food” staples of Caribbean cuisines tho

 

[Majestyx]

@im_sleep
@Dorian Gray
@CarolinaBigAggie.

Cornbread was mentioned earlier in this thread. Somebody prepared a church dinner one time, and the cornbread had actual pieces of corn inside. Have had this maybe 3 times since then. Once at a Soul Food spot in North Jersey. Was fire each time. Is preparing it that way from a specific region of the South?

that shyt is fye!!!!!!!!!

 

[MajesticLion]

The only native Black Americans that constantly call their own culture’s cuisine “slave food” are dusty ass Pannies and militant vegans. Other than them, ain’t no self-respecting native Black American calling the cuisine of our Ancestors “slave food”.

It’s interesting how those same Pannies and militant vegans never have smoke for the “slave food” staples of Caribbean cuisines tho

I know you're talking about Americans, but this needs to be pointed out here: Caribbean people address this all the time about ourselves. You just don't hear us talking about it. And the huge difference between home and here, as with most things, is one of scale. Small places mean that no matter how unhealthy the food may have been, it didn't matter as much because we walk(ed) almost everywhere on a daily basis. Far, faaaar more than Americans do. We also eat far more fruit/veggies/seafood, grow stuff in our yards, eat less canned goods, etc. That also plays it's part. That's been changing as more islands have been importing foods and operating as though they're the US, but the principle still holds.

Despite the OP and the clumsy attempt at woe is we, nobody has any exclusive on "slave food". Black pudding, pig/chicken foot souse, all sorts of things under the slave umbrella exist. You're far better off not getting baited into that garbage.

 

[Ghost Utmost]

Here we are again treating language as an objective thing.

You use language to DESCRIBE things but the words themselves are arbitrary. Immaterial. Imaginary.

Calling Soul Food "Slave Food" is akin to calling my government name "Slave Name". No slave master named me. My family did. But I recognize the influence of slavery on my current state. Our last name is definitely not African. And my first name is European in origin.

Wether or not a Black person who came through slavery acknowledges the effects.. there are effects. Its good to be self confident, but that becomes delusion if it ignores the facts.

 

[Givethanks]

Coli full of black white black people

 

[5thbornpowerseed]

Its slave food...

What more is there to discuss?

 

[im_sleep]

Outside of certain parts of LA and Oakland there is a genuine lack of black culture on the west coast. The only folks I know who’ve retained a sense of black culture on the west coast outside of those areas are those that chose to go back south to attend HBCUs.

This has been a common complaint for YEARS among black folks who relocated to the west coast from other regions. The resounding theme has been lack of black identity, lack of cohesiveness, lack of community.

Most the folks who go out west and complain don’t function with the community to begin with. This shyt comes mainly from uppity LA transplants who are too scared to go south of the 10 freeway.

Plus a lot of yall don’t understand how segregated it is out west. Outside of the hood in most major cities out west it’s easy to be the only Black face around. So it’s a big difference from someone who grew up in the community with other Black folks and someone who grew up in the suburbs as a token. A lot of yall meet the suburban folks we export in college and get shyt twisted.

That’s why I say it’s some internet shyt, because I’ve seen this all play out in real life. But my perspective is shaped by the west coast pre-2000’s. Maybe these 2010’s-2020’s raised folks on something different. That demographic shift happened FAST, yall really have no idea.