Welcome to Food Way.

"Racism, or as they say now, tradition, is passed down like recipes. The trick is, you got to know what to eat, and what to leave on the plate."

-Mississippi Masala

Food reflects, preserves, and shares with other communities a culture's identity and heritage. Individuals pass favorite recipes, cooking methods, and ingredients to their family and friends who will extend the gesture to their loved ones. This private exchange of traditions within the home, church, or community gathering grounds is a crucial component in retaining a culture's history. Cooking is an ideal place to keep and share tradition because it is easy to do, it takes place every day and brings people, usually family members, together. This is especially true for the African-American community, who has used these foodways, both consciously and by virtue of nessecity, to preserve their history in the midst of overwhelmingly difficult conditions. A culture with a diverse background and rich history, it has faced innumerable challenges that have threatened to subvert its culture. Despite slavery, the migration West and then North, racism and its subsequent segregation, however, African-American culture continues to not only thrive but also influence American culture as a whole.

We invite you to explore how the African-American communities in Charleston and the Sea Islands of South Carolina and the Mississippi Delta continue to create food that is imaginative, delicious, and an inseparable part of American culture. By visiting Food Way and its surrounding buildings, you will discover how culinary traditions evolved but survived as they confronted not only difficult events in history but as they extended from the private to the public sphere. They also changed as they moved with the migration from the more culturally isolated Sea Islands to the Mississippi Delta where modernity and other regions presented additional influences. In general, as America becomes more technologically dependent, culturally homogenous, and impatient overall, African American cooking traditions that require more time and energy to maintain, begin to disappear. In larger more popular restaurants and grocery stores where money, public demand, and efficiency dictates behavior, it is more difficult to create cuisine that is high in quality and a reflection of a particular culture. It is also hard to convince younger generations to, for instance, cook a meal from scratch instead of going out for fast food.

The remarkable individuals we interviewed in South Carolina and Mississippi, however, showed us communities who preserved their cultural identity despite these obstacles. Through innovation, improvisation, and dedication to family history, Southern foodways continue to reflect African-American traditions in the private and public arenas. These traditions have survived the separation of families, the lack of resources and records, and the effects of migration. Today's increasing commercialization is another threat that has not succeeded in deteriorating a strong, influential, and versatile culture.

Food Way is the culmination of many visits to local libraries and college campuses in addition to interviews with restaurant owners, families, farmers, grocery store owners, and chefs. The experience has been educational, frustrating, surprising, frightening, and enlightening. In many cases, unfortunately, people have not been able to live, cook, and share traditions with their families the way they would like to. Many of the individuals we talked to, however, shared experiences about successfully integrating tradition, history, and identity into modern culture. We hope you find their stories as inspiring as we did.