SFA 2004: Domestic Help and Southern Cooking

[wcmckinney]

Some of the more profound comments that were made at the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium this year were about black domestic servants in the South. Trudier Harris of UNC's English Department and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Diane McWhorter both touched on this subject in various ways and I would like to throw their thoughts open to this larger community.

Harris and McWhorter go to great lengths to humanize the black domestic servants who cooked and help raise white families in the South. Yet they were always "almost like family" and not actual family (though even that line may be blurred in some communities).

That these servents were usually women, and usually helped prepare meals is worth noting. The whistling walk from the plantation kitchen to the dining room was so dubbed, Harris profers, because people who were slaves were forced to whistle while bringing the food out so they could not spit in it.

Similarly, through the 20th century black people who were domestics were found in white households across class lines (partly because they were all paid so little). Harris and McWhorter both note that there was a certain phenomenon, which was exerted on these domestic workers. Certainly the food they prepared was controlled, but so was the food they could take home (this is where terms like "tote bags" come from).

So how 'bout it? Is this legacy continued into today's Southern Food? Are southern cooks that were also domestic servants romanticized, celebrated or even noted today? I would be interested in hearing about y'alls' own experiences or thoughts about how this relates to Southern Food Culture...

[AmbrosiaFood]

I would say the black cooks are not given their proper due in society today at all -- that is how the members of the black community I have spoken to, see it.

The job they did and still do as cooks was and is tremendous, and overwhelming. They provided succulent meals, with no education, little in proper facilities, and little pay. Often, in larger homes they supervised a kitchen staff.

In fact, what black cooks did then is parallel to what executive chefs do today. Now their efforts are trivialized, and chefs are being paid big bucks to do what they did for little.

Black cooks created what is now known as Southern cooking by their mixture of African foods and techniques with what was available to them, and adapted their own style of cooking [low on the hog] to the tastes of the family they cooked for and they ate [high on the hog].

I have seen on many cooking sites, that the white members have expressed lack of recognition and appreciation for black cooks.

[Mabelline]

Someday we will get over all this. While I TRULY sympathise with the african sentiment, I don't feel it makes the food taste any better. Po' white trash ate what they could scrounge, as well, often with the 'slaves' down the road. And as far as people receiving their just due, the French in the French possessions have always acknowledged the mestizo, indio, negrito influences.

I read about Natalie DuPree's unfortunate acceptance last time about her belief that some white culture was the source of longtime Southern foods, and that's her right.

Seems as if sometimes it's like the division about Troy.

[AmbrosiaFood]

Maybelline, I was not talking about what is better/worse -- Soul Food which has evolved into Southern cooking.

I was saying [maybe I was unclear] that after a gift is given, proper respect to the gift giver should be shown. That's all.

The gift reciever should not say, "well we did it all by ourselves", why are you seeking thanks. Just acknowledge the very real contribution of blacks in what southern cooking has become. Just a little respect.

[mantee]

My mother was the only one allowed in the kitchen to prepare supper, but I was wet-nursed untill I could eat my mother's cooking. The kitchen was a special place that only grown women were allowed in, whatever color.

[Mabelline]

AmbrosiaFood, I am truly repentant, for I was not being confrontational, I was just wonderin' if that was the direction of the Symposium agin'. It seems that we've got over a lot of the "We deserve the credit" stuff, but what the hey. Soul food to me is definitely hamhocks, neckbones, and chitlins', and we ate plenty of them when I was a sprout. To me it's like giving credit for cornbread. Well, when you're a doin' that, I reckon MY folks could take that credit.

[Varmint]

This discussion at the SFA Symposium had nothing to do with taking credit. It was more of a dialogue about how common it was for Southern white families to employ black domestic servants, and the consequences that arose out of this relationship. One poignant moment came when a tale was told of how one man stated that he never ate Thanksgiving dinner before 8:00 PM until he was in his mid-30s, because his mother spent all day making dinner for her "other family." Many, if not most, of these domestics were taken for granted, poorly paid, and overworked.

[Mabelline]

That is a true picture of how life went for folks who worked for those more affluent. I remember one ranch my dad was foreman of, in Springerville and St. Johns, Arizona, for one of the biggest stars of oldtimey Hollywood, and we were not allowed to graze our own cattle on 18,000 acres. Go figure. I give credit as much as I can, but I can say one thing from knowledge--youall might not have let my daddy run a couple steers to feed his family, but by golly, when we got hungry, every once in awhile one of your fat stock broke a leg, didn't they captain?

My point is, we've all had bad times, we have probably all been treated not quite right by someone at sometime, and yep, I reckon more blacks than whites raised up them babies- but not the farm folks, the plain folks,the poor folks...

But, just on an off chance--I wonder if that person who had that memory about Thanksgiving, and their mama working late, went to college? Reckon maybe mama worked for extra money?

[Mayhaw Man]

Actually, part of the point that was being made during the talk being referenced in the last few posts was not about just the affluent set. Virtually anyone in the middle class-mill workers, clerks, bank tellers, and schoolteachers could afford, and had, domestic help well up into the Fifties and beyond. The wage paid out to these workers was so low that anyone could afford at least part time, and more often than not, full time help. I assure you that a few may have saved for a bit of college, but that was certainly not the norm.

I know that, after Diane McWhorton's Pulitzer Prize winning book, Carry Me Home-Birmingham, AL-The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution came out, I asked my mother what the wage was in the early sixties for a full time maid (incidentally, for you of the politically correct set-this is the term that is commonly used for that type of domestic and the term that was accepted by the conference this weekend without objection by anyone-black or white) and she said that it was somewhere around $20 per week. This would be for a 4 1/2 day week (Thursdays off and off at noon on Saturday). Even in 1963 it would have been difficult to save for anything at $20 a week. And to top it all off, most of the employers gave no real thought to asking them to serve on Sunday lunch if there were guests coming and even less about asking them to bring someone extra to tend bar or help in the kitchen. Wrong? Without a doubt. But that's the way it was.

What we discussed this weekend, from many and often totally differing directions, was what and how this situation related and continues to relate to the predominant cuisine of the South. This discussion was at once, heartbreaking, informative, angry, sad, and also often hysterically funny. SFA is providing transcripts of the talks given at the conference and as soon as they are available I hope to post them here to let everyone get some idea of the depth and gravity of the discussions held in Oxford, MS last weekend. I'm glad that I was there.

[andiesenji]

I have read this topic with interest. Because I had a somewhat unique perspective.

I grew up in a very large house with several black servants. However I had to check with some of my elderly relatives because as a child I had no knowledge of wages and the related things.

The situation with my family was quite different from most in the south because we were considered "furriners" by the people around the area because most of the older generation emigrated from England.

My grandfather emigrated from England (in 1919) because he despised the class system, in spite of being of the upper class. He hated the system that kept young people of intellect from advanced schooling because of the occupation of their parents.

He also felt segregation was an abomination and the separate schools were a particular thorn in his side.

His cook, a Gullah woman, was hired away from his cousin in Charleston and along with her family (her mother and children, she was a widow), accompanied my grandfather and his family to Western Kentucky in 1920. Besides the big house there were several bungalows on the farm, all completely renovated after my grandpa bought it and one was the home of our cook. The vet that lived on the farm had another as did the farm manager who had charge of the horticultural part of the farm.

My aunt said that my grandfather paid very well, and paid the same scale to both black and white farm workers and the household help, which did not endear him to the whites. In 1938, a year before I was born, he hired a black man, a graduate of Tuskeegee, Univ., who had studied with Dr. Carver, to manage the farm. That pretty much meant that very few whites worked on the farm because most would not take orders from a black man in those days. Even after the war there was quite a bit of bad feeling. My cousins and I stuck together in school because we were often on the receiving end of nasty name-calling. We could never figure out what they were so angry about. The farm was very productive, even during drought years there were good crops.

Our cook must have made pretty good wages because when I was little, during the war, she had a little old Ford from the 30s and a year or so after the war ended, she bought a light gray Plymouth. She always dressed herself and her children very well and her house was immaculate. Since most of her children also worked on the farm, they usually had all their meals in the kitchen. However when we had picnics outside during the summer, we all ate together.

She was a fantastic cook and also managed the household help. She ruled with an iron hand.

She did not read or write more than a minimum, but had in her memory hundreds of recipes, including many elaborate and many-ingredient cakes and desserts.

She and my great-grandmother were kindred spirits and loved trying the "old-timey" receipts my great-grandma found. She always called my great-grandma "Miz Fee" (Ophelia) and deferred to her in everything. She was a pillar in the local black church and when they needed a new pastor she went off for a couple of weeks and found one she thought would "suit", and he was installed without further discussion. A powerful woman.

It was not until I was several years away from home that I discovered how bad things were in the south in most places. I was shocked and dismayed. I finally understood why my grandpa was so angry about the status quo in the south. I wish that he could have lived long enough to see the changes. Of course he would probably say, it is still not enough.........

[AmbrosiaFood]

That is a true picture of how life went for folks who worked for those more affluent. I remember one ranch my dad was foreman of, in Springerville and St. Johns, Arizona, for one of the biggest stars of oldtimey Hollywood, and we were not allowed to graze our own cattle on 18,000 acres. Go figure. I give credit as much as I can, but I can say one thing from knowledge--youall might not have let my daddy run a couple steers to feed his family, but by golly, when we got hungry, every once in awhile one of your fat stock broke a leg, didn't they captain?

My point is, we've all had bad times, we have probably all been treated not quite right by someone at sometime, and yep, I reckon more blacks than whites raised up them babies- but not the farm folks, the plain folks,the poor folks...

But, just on an off chance--I wonder if that person who had that memory about Thanksgiving, and their mama working late, went to college? Reckon maybe mama worked for extra money?

←

I am sorry. I must have misunderstood the thread topic. Apology accepted Maybelline. I was not trying to give offense either -- I was just stating facts as I knew them.

My grandmother was a cook/maid for a blue collar middle class family family [not in the south] for many many years. So was several of my aunts. Affluence is indeed relative, since the families they worked for did not have much, but they had enough to pay my relatives a pittance salary.

My grandmother often had those "late holiday meals", and was absent when her own children needed her. No, no matter how hard she tried, she could not even afford indoor plumbing until a grown child had it installed for her -- much less helping a child go to college.

My grandmother raised a huge garden, canned and preserved, and kept a few chickens and a pig or two to keep food on the table for her children. Yes, they lived in town, not on a farm. She did not have a car or access to the money to pay for public transportation, so she walked about 3 miles to and from work. Grandma raised 13 children.

Grandpa was no help, since he turned to alcohol when he could not get enough work to support his family. He died from alcoholism while there were still 7 children at home to support.

[hannnah]

The recipes that have been passed down to me from my mom's side of the family? They weren't my grandmother's. Mom's often said how grateful she was that Miss Annie was willing to take the time to share her recipes and her skill rather than just shooing her out of the kitchen.

I'd have to ask to be certain, but I'm pretty sure Miss Annie never had to work weekends and holidays; both my grandparents would have been home on weekends, and the whole extended family went to my great grandparents' for holidays.

(This may be a subject for another thread, but did anyone else's family all buy the same dish pattern so they didn't have to worry about losing them at family gatherings, or was my mother's family just strange?)

[fierydrunk]

I agree this isn't simply a black/white (in that "blacks taught whites everything") issue which is what I think Maybelline is getting at when she refers to "plain poor or farm folks"... I guess because there are plenty of blacks who fall into this category as well. My grandfather and his parents had a farm in Proctor, Arkansas from the Teens to the 50's and blacks and whites both worked that farm. It is simply false that "plain poor or farm" as a reality is exclusive to white folks.

I guess I am really not sympathetic to the "one day we'll all get over this" sentiment cos I don't see what there is to "get over." A black woman (who actually lived with their family her whole life, but still had her own family--amazing to me) taught my grandmother to cook and when she got another black woman to help her own family, they shared responsibilities in the kitchen and then spread the knowledge down to me. By the time I was born, the particular black woman who worked in my home was a terrible cook and so was my mom, so I went to Granny's to eat.

But believe it, Granny learned cooking from Mary (her maid). PERIOD. And that was the case in mant, many, many urban and rural Southern homes.

So, giving credit where it is due is OK. Talking about race is OK. Why get all bristled up about it?

[kpurvis]

One point on the domestic issue that wasn't raised at the symposium (and probably isn't all that relevant here, but I feel like stating it!): My gratitude to the black working mothers who raised such a tremendously important generation.

As a 45-year-old working mother, I have been told all my adult life, by everyone from politicians to my aunt, that "the trouble with the world today is that mothers have gone out to work, instead of staying home and raising their children.

Every time I hear that one, I think, "What world are you remembering that didn't have working mothers? Black mothers worked. Textile mills and tobacco farms were full of working mothers. Every school I attended had female teachers who had children of their own. Since when is it new that women worked?"

In the case of black women, I look at the generation raised by them, young people who had the courage to hold their heads high when they were spit on at lunch counter sit-ins, who stood up against police dogs and firehoses in Birmingham, who walked through crowds of screaming kids and adults to reach the door of a high school. I look at the people in my own generation who worked hard to get degrees and fueled the remarkable growth of the black middle class. And damn it, I'm proud to be a working mother, if I can do half as good a job as those working mothers did it.

Sorry. Pardon my rant. It's off the point of food, I know. But cooking wasn't all I learned by hanging around in the kitchen.