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Hog and Hominy: Soul Food From Africa to America

Page 27

by Frederick Douglass


  45. Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones], Home: Social Essays (New York: Morrow, 1966), 101–102.

  46. Verta Mae Grosvenor, Black Atlantic Cooking (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1990). For more on SNCC, see Howard Zinn, SNCC: The New Abolitionists (Boston: Beacon, 1965).

  47. Verta Mae Grosvenor, “Racism in the Kitchen,” Black World 19 (October 1970): 26–26.

  48. Bob Jeffries, Soul Food Cook Book (Indianapolis, N.Y.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969), vii.

  49. Ibid., ix.

  50. Helen Mendes, The African Heritage Cookbook (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 11, 15.

  51. Pearl Bowser and Joan Eckstein, A Pinch of Soul in Book Form (New York: Avon, 1969), 12.

  52. Ibid., 12–13.

  53. Ibid., 12.

  54. “Soul Food Moves Down Town,” 46, 49.

  55. Ibid., 49.

  56. Craig Claiborne, “Cooking with Soul,” New York Times Magazine, November 3, 1968, 104; Jeffries, Soul Food Cook Book, 9.

  57. Jim Harwood and Ed Callahan, Soul Food Cook Book (Concord, Calif.: Nitty Gritty, 1969), 1–2; Obie Green cited in Claiborne, “Cooking with Soul,” 102; Jeffries, Soul Food Cook Book, ix.

  58. Verta Mae Grosvenor, “Soul Food,” McCall’s 97 (September 1970): 72; Jeffries, Soul Food Cook Book, ix.

  8. THE DECLINING INFLUENCE OF SOUL FOOD

  1. Harvey Brett, “Report on Cuban Population in N.Y.C.,” pp. 1, 3–4, November 25, 1935, FCWPA, roll 269; Strong, “Puerto Rican Colony in N. Y.,” 1935(?), p. 2, FCWPA, roll 269; “Spanish American Restaurants,” p. 2, FCWPA, “Eating Out in Foreign Restaurants” research folder, roll 144; Irma Watkins-Owens, Blood Relations: Caribbean Immigrants and the Harlem Community, 1900–1930 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), 4; Lisa Brock and Digna Castañeda Fuertes, eds., Between Race and Empire: African-Americans and Cubans Before the Cuban Revolution (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 253.

  2. Agustín Laó-Montes and Arlene Dávila, eds., Mambo Montage: The Latinization of New York (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 105.

  3. Strong, “Puerto Rican Colony,” pp. 1–2; Jose Pastrana, “El Favorito Restaurant,” pp. 1, 4, FCWPA, “Eating Out Foreign Restaurants” research folder, roll 144.

  4. Strong, “Puerto Rican Colony,” pp. 1–2.

  5. Winston James, Holding Aloft the Banner of Ethiopia: Caribbean Radicalism in Early Twentieth-Century America (London: Verso, 1998), 197.

  6. Jairo Moreno, “Bauzá-Gillespie-Latin/Jazz: Difference, Modernity, and the Black Caribbean,” South Atlantic Quarterly 103 no. 1 (Winter 2004): 83–85; Donald L. Maggin, The Life and Times of John Birks Gillespie, Dizzy (New York: HarperEntertainment, 2005), 216.

  7. Harvey Brett, “Report on Cuban Population in N.Y.C.,” pp. 1, 3–4, November 25, 1935, FCWPA, roll 269; Strong, “Puerto Rican Colony,” p. 2; “Spanish American Restaurants,” p. 2.

  8. Dizzy Gillespie, Dizzy: To Be or Not to Bop. The Autobiography of Dizzy Gillespie with Al Fraser (New York: Doubleday, 1979), 317–319.

  9. Laó-Montes and Dávila, Mambo Montage, 107.

  10. Edwin Cruise, interview, December 2006.

  11. Francisco Corona, interview, December 2006.

  12. Ibid.; Louis A. Perez, Jr., Cuba Between Reform and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 288–312.

  13. Corona, interview.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Ibid.

  16. George Priestly, interview, 2006.

  17. Ibid.

  18. Oliverio Ojito Fardales, interview, December 2006

  19. “Tarry Town’s Cuban Flavor,” New York Times, March 20, 1977.

  20. Alice N. Conqueran, interviews, summer 2005 and December 2006.

  21. This insight was inspired by my interview with sociologist George Priestly and his comments on after-hours joints in Brooklyn and the leveling that took place between African Panamanians there.

  22. Corona, interview.

  23. Hugh Bradley, Havana: Cinderella’s City, (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1941), 352.

  24. New York Times, March 20, 1977

  25. Corona, interview; Marìano Meneses, interview, December 2006.

  26. New York Times, March 20, 1977.

  27. Corona, interview.

  28. Priestly, interview.

  29. Ibid.

  30. Laó-Montes and Dávila, Mambo Montage, 239.

  31. Ibid. 240–241.

  32. Sonya (Cruz) Jones, interview, December 2006.

  33. Evelyn Gonzalez, The Bronx (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 109.

  34. Ibid., 109–110.

  35. Mark Naison, interview with Nathan “Bubba” Dukes, n.d. (ca. 2006), pp. 1–3, BAAHP (hereafter Dukes, interview).

  36. Mark Naison, “‘It Take a Village to Raise a Child’: Growing Up in the Patterson Houses in the 1950s and Early 1960s: An Interview with Victoria Archibald-Good,” Bronx County Historical Society Journal 40, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 9.

  37. Dukes, interview, 5.

  38. Naison, “‘It Take a Village to Raise a Child,’” 9.

  39. Dukes, interview, 18.

  40. Barbara (Cardwell) Pino, interview, December 2006.

  9. FOOD REBELS

  1. Marcellas C. D. Barksdale, interview, summer 2005; Yemaja Jubilee, interview, summer 2005.

  2. Dr. Elijah Saunders, interview, summer 2005.

  3. Joan B. Lewis, interview, summer 2005.

  4. Clara Bullard Pittman, interview, summer 2005.

  5. Lewis, interview.

  6. Dr. Rodney Ellis, interview, summer 2005.

  7. Lewis, interview.

  8. Sherman E. Evans, “On the Health of Black Americans,” Ebony, March 1977, 112.

  9. “Good Health Is a Family Affair: Good Nutrition, Exercise, Sleep, Physical Examinations, Etc.” [interview with Dr. Keith W. Sehnert], Ebony, May 1977, 107–114.

  10. Ibid., 110, 112.

  11. Saunders, interview. See Bill Rhoden, “The 10 Worst Things You Can Do to Your Health,” Ebony, January 10, 1978, 30–35.

  12. Saunders, interview.

  13. Elijah Muhammad, How to Eat to Live (Chicago: Muhammad’s Temple of Islam No. 2, 1967), 1:5, 6, 10.

  14. Eugene Watts, interview, summer 2005.

  15. Dick Gregory, interview, summer 2005.

  16. Muhammad, How to Eat to Live, 1:6.

  17. William L. Van Deburg, Hoodlums: Black Villains and Social Bandits in American Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 97, 98.

  18. Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, with Alex Haley (New York: Ballantine, 1964), 217–224.

  19. Ruth Miller, Roy Miller, and Rudolf Bradshaw, interview, summer 2005.

  20. Reginald T. Ward, interview, summer 2005; Watts, interview.

  21. Watts, interview.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Ibid.

  24. Saunders, interview.

  25. Watts, interview.

  26. Malcolm X, Autobiography, 215–225, esp. 219.

  27. Ibid., 219, 221.

  28. Bobby Seale, A Lonely Rage: The Autobiography of Bobby Seale (New York: Times Books, 1978), 159, 168.

  29. Pittman, interview.

  30. Lewis, interview.

  31. Ellis, interview.

  32. Gregory, interview.

  33. Dick Gregory, Nigger: An Autobiography, with Robert Lipsyte (New York: Washington Square, 1964), 145.

  34. Gregory, interview.

  35. Alvenia Fulton, Radiant Health Through Nutrition (Chicago: Life Line, 1980); Gregory, Nigger, 17.

  36. Alfred Duckett, “How to Eat and Love,” Sepia 22, no. 5 (May 1973): 74–79, esp. 80.

  37. Ibid.

  38. Gregory, interview; Duckett, “How to Eat and Love,” 80.

  39. Dick Gregory, Dick Gregory’s Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin’ With Mother Nature, ed. James R. McGraw, with Alvenia M. Fulton (1973; reprint, New York: Perennial-Harper, 1974), 80, 81.

  40. Vernon Jarrett, “Dick Gregory’s Health Advocacy,” Chicago Tribune, May 23
, 1973, 18.

  41. Dick Gregory, Callus on My Soul: A Memoir by Dick Gregory (Atlanta: Longstreet Press, 2000), 176; see 174–178, 186–190.

  42. Fred Opie, Jr., interview, summer 2005.

  43. Gregory, interview.

  44. Edward Williamson, interview, summer 2005.

  45. Scott Brown, Fighting for US: Maulana Karenga, the US Organization, and Black Cultural Nationalism (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 78, 88; Howard Zinn, SNCC: The New Abolitionists (Boston: Beacon, 1965).

  46. Lamenta Diane (Watkins) Crouch, interview, summer 2005.

  47. Williamson, interview.

  48. Lewis, interview.

  49. Pittman, interview.

  50. Sundiata Sadique (formerly Walter Brooks), interview, summer 2005.

  51. Ralph Johnson and Patricia Reed, “What’s Wrong with Soul Food?” Black Collegian, December 1980/January 1981, 21.

  52. Ibid., 22.

  53. Mary Keyes Burgess, Soul to Soul: A Soul Food Vegetarian Cookbook (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Woodbridge, 1976), 13, 19.

  54. Margaret Opie, interview.

  EPILOGUE

  1. “New York Bans Most Trans Fats in Restaurants,” New York Times, December 6, 2006, p. 1.

  2. “Saving Soul Food,” Newsweek, January 30, 2006.

  3. Ben Ammi, God, the Black Man and Truth, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: Communicators, 1990).

  4. “Saving Soul Food.”

  5. Yemaja Jubilee, interview, summer 2005.

  6. Ibid.

  7. Lamenta Diane (Watkins) Crouch, interview, summer 2005.

  8. Dr. Elijah Saunders, interview, summer 2005.

  9. Joan B. Lewis, interview, summer 2005; Yemaja Jubilee, interview, summer 2005.

  10. Dorothy I. Height, The Black Family Dinner Quilt Cookbook, with the National Council of Negro Women (Memphis, Tenn.: Wimmer Companies, 1993), 213–214. Other examples of healthy soul food cook books include Mary Keyes Burgess, Soul to Soul: A Soul Food Vegetarian Cookbook (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Woodbridge, 1976); Jonell Nash, Low-Fat Soul (New York: Ballantine, 1996); and Fabiola Demps Gaines and Roniece Weaver, The New Soul Food Cookbook for People with Diabetes, 2d ed. (Alexandria, Va.: American Diabetes Association, 2006).

  11. David Bell and Gill Valentine, Consuming Geographies: We Are Where We Eat (London: Routledge, 1997), 10, 116.

  12. Jim Harwood and Ed Callahan, Soul Food Cook Book (Concord, Calif.: Nitty Gritty, 1969), 1–2.

  Bibliography

  ARCHIVAL SOURCES

  Bronx African American History Project, Bronx County Historical Society Archive Collection, Bronx, N.Y. (BAAHP) Oral History Transcripts

  Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. Papers of Harry L. Hopkins

  Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C. U.S. Work Projects Administration (WPA) (Special Studies and Projects 1530–1942) “America Eats” Collection WPA State Records (SR)

  Slave Narratives

  National Archives II, College Park, Md. Records of the United States Information Agency Office of the Secretary of Agriculture

  Records of the Work Projects Administration

  Gift Still Pictures in the National Archives, Harmon Foundation Collection, Prints: Art Works by Negro Artists, 1922–1967

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  Westchester County Archives, Elmsford, N.Y. 1930 Federal Census of the Villages of Tarrytown, North Tarrytown, Ossining, and the City of Mount Vernon

  INTERVIEWS

  Interviews are with the author.

  Banks, Nettie C., summer 2005

  Barksdale, Marcellas C. D., summer 2005

  Barnett, Ella (Christopher), summer 2005

  Boswell, Christopher, summer 2005

  Conqueran, Alice N., summer 2005, December 2006

  Corona, Francisco, December 2006

  Crouch, Lamenta Diane (Watkins), summer 2005

  Cruise, Edwin, December 2006

  Ellington, Beryl, summer 2005

  Ellis, Dr. Rodney, summer 2005

  Evelyn, Dorothy M, summer 2005

  Fardales, Oliverio Ojito, December 2006

  Green, Katie (White), summer 2005

  Gregory, Dick, summer 2005

  Hornsby, Alton, Jr., summer 2005

  James, Stanlie M., summer 2005

  Johnson, Betty Joyce, summer 2005

  Johnson, Joseph “Mac,” summer 2005

  Jones, Sonya (Cruz), December 2006

  Jubilee, Yemaja, summer 2005

  Leggio, Carmen John, summer 2005

  Lewis, Joan B., summer 2005

  Maybee, Carleton, summer 2005

  Meneses, Marìano, December 2006

  Miller, Ruth, Roy Miller, and Rudolf Bradshaw, summer 2005

  Neely, Francis Ann (Watkins), summer 2007

  Opie, Dorothy, summer 2005

  Opie, Fred, Jr., summer 2005

  Opie, Margaret B. (Cooper), summer 2005

  Outlaw, Benjamin, summer 2005

  Pino, Barbara (Cardwell), December 2006

  Pittman, Clara Bullard, summer 2005

  Priestly, George, December 2006

  Sadique, Sundiata (formerly Walter Brooks), summer 2005

  Saunders, Dr. Elijah, summer 2005

  Ward, Reginald T., summer 2005

  Warren, Frances and Jim Warren, summer 2005

  Watts, Eugene, summer 2005

  White, Nora (Burns), summer 2005

  Williamson, Edward, summer 2005

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