African American Women

Luster Willis, Mother and Child, 1983

The kitchen served as one place where African American women reigned. In the kitchen, women could let down their guard and enjoy themselves. During slavery, women created an identity within their communities through the task of daily cooking. Slave testimonies have revealed women's knowledge of particular cooking practices, food rituals, and their knowledge of therapeutic herbs and wild plants which were prepared into teas and meals to treat various ailments. The actions of slave women helped cultural survival of many slave families who attempted to adjust to the foreign harsh condition of slavery. The daily rituals of cooking provided slave women with a form of resistance "because they helped their communities maintain a sense of self-worth, dignity, and group solidarity under very harsh conditions of oppression." The promotion of of food traditions on the part of women strongly reflected African tradition of teaching in the form of oral tradition. Culinary historian Josephine Beoku-Betts also wrote: "Cultural preservation through food preparation in the family and wider community (including the publication of cookbooks) has become a highly conscious act on the part of contemporary African American women."

Legacies her grandmother called her from the playground "yes, ma'am "I want chu to learn how to make rolls" said the old woman proudly but the little girl didn't want to learn how because she knew even if she couldn't say it that that would mean when the old one died she would be less dependent on her spirit so she said "I don't want to know how to make no rolls" with her lips poked out and the old woman wiped her hands on her apron saying "lord these children" and neither of them ever said what they meant and I guess nobody ever does.

Joyce Jane Scott, Caldwell-Scott Quilt, 1984

Nikki Giovanni

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