Baltimore Foodways in the Late Nineteenth Century

Terrapin chowder, related recipe below

I’m going to do a series of stories on what I learned while doing field work in Baltimore, Maryland the city’s African American foodways and eateries which is my shtick. Baltimore developed black neighborhoods like other North American cities. Many of these neighborhoods have histories that date back to the Reconstruction era. During the Reconstruction period 1863-1877, the various forms of debt peonage in the shipping industry in port cities like Baltimore that replaced slavery hardly improved the diet of former slaves. At the turn of the century the port city of New Orleans for example had large populations of workers who inhabited boarding houses, poor houses, and hobo encampments. As result restaurants that catered to these workers sprung up around the city that had menus that centered around the continuation of the antebellum diet including, the 3m’s—meat (salt pork), meal, and molasses—as well as in the case of the Chesapeake region, terrapins which served as rations which enslaved Africans turned into a delicacy. Here is a related recipe:

Chesapeake Terrapin stew: http://www.reciperascal.com/chesapeake-terrapin-stew/

1950s Infrapolitics & Segregated Restaurants

Activist James Farmer eating at a southern lunch counter 1965.

Jim Crow segregation laws required that blacks sit apart from white customers in restaurants. In her memoir, singer Diana Ross, who grew up in Detroit, remembers a trip she made with her siblings to visit relatives in Bessemer, Alabama, in the 1950s. “I dimly recall seeing signs on water fountains, in waiting rooms, and at movie theatres: WHITE, COLORED.” She goes on to say, “There were so many indignities black people endured; everything was separate and unequal.” Interviews with southerners indicate that African-American customers and restaurant employees did not simply capitulate to Jim Crow conditions in the South but employed what one scholar calls “infrapolitics.” In the case of segregated restaurants, infrapolitics included such everyday forms of resistance as theft and passing. For example, blacks working the “coloured” window at white-owned restaurants regularly gave away food or discounted the food sold to blacks.

What Happened to that Old Soul Food Restaurant?

A fish restaurant for black folk, Memphis, Tennessee, 1937

Yesterday I hooked up with my cousin Charlie White who is a Baltimore native. I road shot gun with him as we went exploring the city’s historic soul food restaurants. When he informed friends and other family members about what I was hunting down, we were both amazed at how black owned operated restaurants in the city have gone out of business places like the Chuck Wagon and East Baltimore. Before the emergence of the civil rights and black power movements in this city and others, African-American cooks working at segregated restaurants, barbecue stands, bars and grills, and nightclubs helped establish consumer demand for what became known as soul food in the late 1960s. Jim Crow policies ensured that black restaurants remained separate black spaces. For working-class blacks, these eateries enabled them to collectively relax and recover from the stress of racial politics. In large part, many of the eateries flourished due to the Jim Crow laws and customs that restricted the public dining options of African Americans beginning in the late nineteenth century and ending with the 1954 landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education, in which the Supreme Court ended the principle of “separate but equal” and affectively began the slow death of Jim Crow segregation laws and many black owned and operated restaurants.

The Black Zagat Guide and Eating Jim Crow

A rest stop for Greyhound bus passengers on the way from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee, with separate accommodations for colored passengers. 1943

Ran into Tim Zagat CEO of Zagat restaurant rating and review guide at Lexington Market here in Baltimore where I am doing field work. Tim told me that Zagat was launching it’s new guide to eateries in Baltimore and he was there promoting it. There were plenty of local politicians with him taking photos in front of Faidley’s restaurant which makes a mean crab cake, probably the best I’ve ever had. Meeting Zagat reminded me of eating out for black folks before the end of Jim Crow and de-facto Jim Crow. Purchasing food at “coloured” windows of segregated restaurants could be a degrading and even dangerous experience, says Virginia native Eugene Watts; you never knew when some volatile white southerner behind the counter was going to “go off.” As a result Black folks had their own zagat rated list of restaurants passed down through oral histories. This oral black Zagat guide told black folks where they could get inexpensive great tasting down home food with dignity in cities across the country.

July Gardens of Necessity

Crock pot squash dish, recipe below

It’s late July now and my garden produces more vegetables than my family can consume. In colonial Cuba, in addition to their fieldwork, slaves in Cuba received time and space to work their subsistence gardens. Former slave Esteban Montejo recalled his days in captivity in Cuba, “it was the small gardens that saved many slaves. They provided them real nourishment. Almost all slaves had their conucos [gardens].” He writes: “They were little strips of dirt for gardening. They were real close to the barracoons, almost right in back. They grew everything there: sweet potato, squash, okra, corn, peas, horse beans, beans, like limas, limes, yucca, and peanuts.” Here is a crock pot squash recipe that I recently made, it was delicious.

Crock pot squash recipe

Ingredients

2 pounds yellow summer squash or zucchini, thinly sliced (about 6 cups)

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup peeled shredded carrot

1 can (10 1/4 ounces) condensed cream of celery or cream of mushroom soup

1 cup vegetable broth

1/4 cup flour

1 package (6 to 8 ounces) corn bread stuffing crumbs

1/2 cup butter, melted

Season with Old bay and fresh herbs of your choice to taste

Method

In large bowl, combine squash, onion, carrot and soup. Mix vegetable broth and flour; stir into vegetables. Toss stuffing crumbs with butter and place half in slow cooker. Add vegetable mixture and top with remaining stuffing crumbs. Cover and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

July 1930, Langston Hughes and Punches with Soul

Rhubarb Punch, this and other recipes below

 In doing research for my book Hog and Hominy http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/tableOfContents I came across the following 1930s source on Black southerners and punch from the life of Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes. “White authors and lecturers on a similar [book] tour could always take refuge at a hotel after a program.” But Jim Crow laws barred African Americans authors from segregated hotels. As result black speakers “were at the mercy of private hosts in private homes from whom there was no escape.” He explains, “Southerners are great ones for hospitality. Warm and amiable and friendly as it was, I was nevertheless almost killed by entertainment, drowned by punch, gorged on food, and worn out with handshaking.” My wife and I hosted a party last night and folks raved about the two punches we drowned them with: Peachy Lemonade and Pink Rhubarb Punch. Several folks asked for the recipes so here they are:

Rhubarb Punch recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Pink-Rhubarb-Punch

Peachy Lemonade recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Peachy-Lemonade