African-Americans Have Shaped Alabama’s And America’s Cuisine
By Bob Blalock
If you are what you eat, Alabamians are barbecue and banana pudding, fried chicken and pork chops, pound cake and pecan pie, fried green tomatoes and okra, catfish and shrimp, grits and greens, peach cobbler and sweet potato pie, buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy, sliced tomatoes and macaroni and cheese, pimento cheese and boiled peanuts and so much more.
Food flavors Alabama’s rich history and culture, helping define who we are as a people and state. But who defined the food that defines us? In large measure, it has been African-Americans.
Beginning with slavery through the Civil War and Reconstruction, from brutal, segregated Jim Crow days through civil rights tragedies and triumphs, to today when we celebrate food and cooking and restaurants and chefs, African-Americans shaped our cuisine. From the time Africans were forced into slavery in America, they and their descendants influenced and enhanced what we eat and grow in Alabama, across the South and the rest of the country.
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