Jennifer Jensen Wallach is associate professor of history at the University of North Texas. She is the author, most recently, of How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture and Richard Wright: From Black Boy to World Citizen. She is also the editor of the University of Arkansas Press’ Food and Foodways series.

[H]istorian Jennifer Jensen Wallach paints a deeper portrait of black foodways. 'There is not a single African American food story,' Ms. Wallach writes in Getting What We Need Ourselves . . . but a multiplicity of narratives, lineages, myths and prejudices. Ms. Wallach begins in Africa, where the Atlantic slave trade forced a vast diversity of cultural backgrounds to depend on “amalgamation and compromise.” Adaptability was key. Local ingredients like palm oil, chickpeas, yams and red rice became common culinary threads. New World imports like capsicum peppers, cassava, maize and peanuts, brought by slave traders, further creolized the West African diet. The enslaved and their captors transported these foodstuffs and others, including sesame, sorghum, black-eyed peas, watermelon and okra, to the Americas, where they flourished as symbols of resilience in 'memory dishes' like gumbo, Hoppin' John and perhaps even tamales. But for enslaved Africans, food could be a source of suffering as well as sustenance. Force-feedings were common during captivity, diets contained far more carbohydrates than proteins, hunger strikes were not rare. Food, Ms. Wallach writes, 'became a battleground,' and not for the last time.

• ContentsIntroductionChapter 1: Culinary Exchanges and Origins during the Transatlantic Slave TradeChapter 2: Africanisms and Adaptation during the Era of SlaveryChapter 3: Foodways, Resiliency, and White Supremacy after the Civil WarChapter 4: The Quest to Cook and Eat with Dignity during the Jim Crow EraChapter 5: The Search for a Common Table during the Great Depression and World War IIChapter 6: Food as Politics during the Black Freedom StruggleEpilogueBibliographyAbout the Author

Jennifer Jensen Wallach is associate professor of history at the University of North Texas. She is the author, most recently, of How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture and Richard Wright: From Black Boy to World Citizen. She is also the editor of the University of Arkansas Press’ Food and Foodways series.

[H]istorian Jennifer Jensen Wallach paints a deeper portrait of black foodways. 'There is not a single African American food story,' Ms. Wallach writes in Getting What We Need Ourselves . . . but a multiplicity of narratives, lineages, myths and prejudices. Ms. Wallach begins in Africa, where the Atlantic slave trade forced a vast diversity of cultural backgrounds to depend on “amalgamation and compromise.” Adaptability was key. Local ingredients like palm oil, chickpeas, yams and red rice became common culinary threads. New World imports like capsicum peppers, cassava, maize and peanuts, brought by slave traders, further creolized the West African diet. The enslaved and their captors transported these foodstuffs and others, including sesame, sorghum, black-eyed peas, watermelon and okra, to the Americas, where they flourished as symbols of resilience in 'memory dishes' like gumbo, Hoppin' John and perhaps even tamales. But for enslaved Africans, food could be a source of suffering as well as sustenance. Force-feedings were common during captivity, diets contained far more carbohydrates than proteins, hunger strikes were not rare. Food, Ms. Wallach writes, 'became a battleground,' and not for the last time.

• ContentsIntroductionChapter 1: Culinary Exchanges and Origins during the Transatlantic Slave TradeChapter 2: Africanisms and Adaptation during the Era of SlaveryChapter 3: Foodways, Resiliency, and White Supremacy after the Civil WarChapter 4: The Quest to Cook and Eat with Dignity during the Jim Crow EraChapter 5: The Search for a Common Table during the Great Depression and World War IIChapter 6: Food as Politics during the Black Freedom StruggleEpilogueBibliographyAbout the Author

Jennifer Jensen Wallach is associate professor of history at the University of North Texas. She is the author, most recently, of How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture and Richard Wright: From Black Boy to World Citizen. She is also the editor of the University of Arkansas Press’ Food and Foodways series.

[H]istorian Jennifer Jensen Wallach paints a deeper portrait of black foodways. 'There is not a single African American food story,' Ms. Wallach writes in Getting What We Need Ourselves . . . but a multiplicity of narratives, lineages, myths and prejudices. Ms. Wallach begins in Africa, where the Atlantic slave trade forced a vast diversity of cultural backgrounds to depend on “amalgamation and compromise.” Adaptability was key. Local ingredients like palm oil, chickpeas, yams and red rice became common culinary threads. New World imports like capsicum peppers, cassava, maize and peanuts, brought by slave traders, further creolized the West African diet. The enslaved and their captors transported these foodstuffs and others, including sesame, sorghum, black-eyed peas, watermelon and okra, to the Americas, where they flourished as symbols of resilience in 'memory dishes' like gumbo, Hoppin' John and perhaps even tamales. But for enslaved Africans, food could be a source of suffering as well as sustenance. Force-feedings were common during captivity, diets contained far more carbohydrates than proteins, hunger strikes were not rare. Food, Ms. Wallach writes, 'became a battleground,' and not for the last time.

• ContentsIntroductionChapter 1: Culinary Exchanges and Origins during the Transatlantic Slave TradeChapter 2: Africanisms and Adaptation during the Era of SlaveryChapter 3: Foodways, Resiliency, and White Supremacy after the Civil WarChapter 4: The Quest to Cook and Eat with Dignity during the Jim Crow EraChapter 5: The Search for a Common Table during the Great Depression and World War IIChapter 6: Food as Politics during the Black Freedom StruggleEpilogueBibliographyAbout the Author