Lenten Season Part 5 Latin American Foodways and Traditions

Frederick Douglass Opie

Lenten Season Series with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Lenten+Season

Guatemala Foodways and Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Guatemala

Mexican Foodways and Recipes:

 http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/03/culinary-look-at-women-in-history.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/03/culinary-celebration-of-womens-history_03.html

Lenten Season Part 4 Fasting and Dr. Alvenia Fulton

Frederick Douglass Opie

The Best of Dr. Alvenia Fulton with Related Recipes:

http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/02/black-history-month-for-foodies-series_21.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/01/food-and-new-years-resolutions-series_05.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/02/dr-alvenia-fulton-look-whats-cooking-on.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/02/dick-gregorys-mentor-dr-alvenia-m.html

Lenten Season Series with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Lenten+Season

Fasting For Lent: "Good Health Begins in the Colon"

Comedian and activist Dick Gregory first met Dr. Alvenia M. Fulton during his 1967 campaign for mayor of Chicago against the incumbent, Richard Daley. Fulton came by campaign headquarters and dropped off some salad for Gregory and his staff. Someone at the headquarters informed him that a really nice black woman “‘brought all these salads here for you’; I had been a vegetarian,” says Gregory. When he went by to thank her, his encounter with Fulton turned “my whole life around,” said Gregory. They sat and talked and Fulton heard that Gregory was going to go on a forty-day fast in protest of the war in Vietnam. “And she thought I knew something about fasting, which I didn’t! And she taught me from day one to day forty what was going to go on in my body.”During the fast Gregory went from 350 to 98 pounds and ran twenty-five miles a day before and after sun up. After the fast, his weight returned to 148 pounds, he was totally healthy, and he began to fast on a regular basis. Over the next several years, Gregory and Fulton became close friends as she shared her knowledge about fasting, herbs, and nutrition with him. Here is a smoothie recipe I use when I fast like many maybe doing during the Lenten season. Dr. Fulton mantra was good health begins in the colon, that’s why she championed the merits of regular fasting using natural colon cleansers like psyllium husk and raw foods.

Ingredients
1/2 cup of frozen strawberries or your favorite fruit
1/2 cup of frozen bananas
Cup or more of vanilla soy milk or use fruit juice if you prefer
1 scoop of a good protein powder supplement
2 table spoons of psyllium husk
1/3 cup of soy yogurt
¼ cup or more of honey or maple syrup

Method
Combine fruit, milk, and yogurt in a blender and turn on high until the ingredients is mixed, add more soy milk if necessary. Next had the dry ingredients and sweeten to taste. Be sure to not overload your blender because you could burn out the engine on that bad boy!

Lenten Season: Dr. Alvenia Fulton A Food Pioneer We Should Know

Vegetarian chili and corn bread, recipes below

Master Herbalist Dr. Alvenia Moody Fulton held a Masters of Divinity from Greater Payne Theological Seminary in Birmingham, Alabama (she was the schools female student and graduate) and a PhD. in naturopathic medicine from Lincoln College of Naturopathy in Indianapolis.  She served as an African Methodist Episcopal pastor in Louisville, Kentucky, Birmingham, Alabama, and Manhattan, Kansas (the home of Kansas State University). She would go on to open a business/ministry on 52 Street on the south side of Chicago in a rough part of the city but the criminals protected and looked out for her. “The word on the Southside was leave that old lady alone,” she cares about us, said Dick Gregory.  In 1962, actors and activist Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee met Fulton when they went to her store while in Chicago performing Purlie Victorious. The entire cast was invited to Fulton’s store and home for dinner. “She prepared an unusual, most tasteful meal. It wasn’t until it was over that we realized that no meat had been served. The meat substitutes were delicious, fulfilling, and only a small part of the vegetables feast, topped off with a marvelous dessert and a truly believable coffee substitute.” The dinner, writes Ruby Dee, “was the beginning of a long relationship in which she changed my way of thinking about food. She not only showed me better ways to prepare and enjoy it, but also introduced me to the concept of food as medicine.” More on Fulton later but here are several recipes for vegetarian chili which was a dish on Dr. Fulton restaurant menu.


Vegetarian chili recipes: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/cat/1275/


Lenten Season Series with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Lenten+Season

Lenten Season Series: Food is “among the major recreations of Bahía”

A Bahian shrimp gumbo called carurú, recipe below 

“Food must also be considered among the major recreations of Bahía,” says Vera Kelsey about Brazil’s most African influenced region where Yoruba culture from West Africa is clearly seen in the region's music and food. A trained sociologist and writer, Kelsey (1891-1961) traveled extensively in Central and South America in the 1940s and published several books on Brazil (her papers are archived at the North Dakota State University library). Kelsey writes, “And here particularly are served the rich dishes imported long ago from Portugal’s cuisine, and many more of African origin” such as the Bahian fish gumbo called “carurú” made with okra, and African plant, peanuts, cashews, “dried shrimps, peppers, and other spices,” which is a “notable dish” in Kelsey’s words. Here is a recipe below.


Caruru-de-camarao recipe: http://www.mangerati.com/caruru-de-camarao

Lenten Season Part 3 Fish Fridays and Lent

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Elizabeth Henry The Queen of Fish Fry: http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/03/culinary-look-at-women-in-history-cast.html

Fish Series with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=fish+series

Lenten Season Series with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Lenten+Season

Fasting During the Lenten Season: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2011/04/25/135577006/status-update-unknown-or-fasting-from-social-media

Lenten Season: Part 2 Polenta, Lentils, and Food Equity

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Polenta Related Stories and Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Polenta

Vegan Stuffed Pork Chops: http://jennshaggy.blogspot.com/2008/12/vegan-goat-cheese-spinach-and-sun-dried.html

Vegan Roasted Chicken Soup: http://www.bookofyum.com/blog/gluten-free-progressive-dinner-vegan-un-chicken-roasted-vegetable-soup-recipe-4437.html

Vegan Smothered Cabbage Recipe: http://www.all-creatures.org/mhvs/recipes-

Lenten Season Series: Part 1 Ash Wednesday

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

Fat Tuesday and Food: http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/02/new-orleans-and-gumbo-history-on-fat.html

Vegan Gumbo Recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=27730.0 

Veggie Patty Recipe: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/jamaican-veggie-patties-recipe.html

Vegan Rice and Peas: http://www.ivu.org/recipes/latinam/jamaican-rice.html

Vegetarian chili recipes: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/cat/1275/

Vegan Ropa Vieja Recipe:http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=27125

Vegan Mofongo Video Recipe
http://veganricans.blogspot.com/2008/11/vegan-mofongo-w-fried-tempeh.html

Fat Tuesday and Food in Mardi Gras and Carnival Cities

New Orleans Gumbo, this and other recipes below

I decided to turn my attention to culinary history of New Orleans today in honor of Fat Tuesday and the start of Mardi Gras and Carnival around the world. In New Orleans, Rio, Spanish Town, Montevideo and other cities with rich carnival tradition, Mardi Gras represents the last party before Christians societies turn to serious reflections on the life of Jesus Christ as he prepared to go to the cross and die for the sin of the world. Ash Wednesday for many believers begins a season of sacrifice and serious reflection that last until Good Friday and then celebration on Resurrection Sunday!. As part of the Lower Mississippi Valley region, New Orleans historically as a rich Native American cultural heritage including the Choctaw and others. Starting in eighteenth century French settlers migrated to New Orleans establishing it as French controlled city in 1718. The French ceded the city to the Spanish in 1736 and then regained control of it in 1801. The demand for enslaved Africans to work sugar plantations throughout Louisiana and the shipping industry in the port New Orleans resulted in black majorities in the state and the city with large shipments of slaves arriving from the Caribbean and directly from Guinea in West Africa and Angola in Central Africa. Whites in New Orleans who could afford to, consumed large amounts of beef, veal, mutton, and pork. Enslaved Africans survived on rice and sagamité—a salt water boiled corn mush as rations from their owners, meats scraps from the tables and rubbish of city elites, and gardens where they raised okra and other produce. They also had permission in most instances to hunt and fish on Sundays. Hence New Orleans creole cookery as three roots: Indian, African, and European however the African is the predominate influence in New Orleans cuisine. One finds a similar trinity influenced Caribbean and South American foodways.


Traditional gumbo recipe: http://www.bigoven.com/170608-New-Orleans-Creole-Gumbo-recipe.html


Vegan gumbo recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=27730.0


Brazilian Feijoada History and Recipe : http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/07/july-soul-food-in-nineteenth-century.html


Rice and Beans/Peas and Rice Series With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Rice+and+Beans%2FPeas+and+Rice+Series

A Culinary Historian's Look at Presidents' Day

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

President Lincoln and Food with Related Recipes:

http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/06/juneteenth-colors-and-cakes.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-day-series-part-5-abraham.html

President Roosevelt (FDR) and Food with Related Recipes:  

http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/10/food-relief-and-voters-in-ohio.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/07/ice-cream-strategy-and-debt-ceiling.html

http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/02/black-history-month-for-foodies-series_19.html

President Reagan and Food with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/2009/09/piragua-venders.html

President Obama and Food with Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/2010/11/spicy-hot-food-series-president-obamas.html

Singer Gladys Knight Through the Lens of Food

Fried pie, video and recipes  below (photo from http://nashvillefork.com/)  

Atlanta, Georgia native Gladys Knight provides interesting culinary insights into Georgia foodways. Born in 1944, Knight grew up on fried chicken dinners on Sundays served with southern side dishes and desserts. “Our Sunday dinners featured fried chicken to die for,” she says, “and the all day eating frenzies came to a grand finale with lemon pies, spice cakes, coconut cakes, and my Aunt Velma’s famous fried pies.” Fried pies or crab lanterns, are deep fried pastries filled with dried fruit. The dried fruit provides an intense sweetness. Fried pies developed in the south out of two necessities: a use for leftover pie crust from making a traditional pie and they provided pies made with dried fruit that would not spoil and thus could travel well in a lunch bucket on in the very hot south. McDonald's started selling them back in 1968 and then made the transition from fried to baked pies in 1992 as consumers began moving toward less fried foods. Some McDees franchises still have fried apple pies on the menu and Burger King Restaurants sell them in apple or wild-berry flavor when they have room on their menus. Here are two fried pie recipes, one detailed recipe with lots of photos and the other a green tomato minced meat one. Caution: these are special occasion foods that are too rich for everyday consumption! 

Documentary Film: & Fried Pies: [Watch 10 min 28 sec]: http://southernfoodways.org/documentary/film/&_fried_pies.html 

Peach Fried Pies: http://www.jasonandshawnda.com/foodiebride/?p=1853

Black History Month: Marcus Garvey Through the Lens of Food

Jamaican patty, rice and peas, jerked beef, plantains, and mango salsa, recipes below

Jamaican-born Pan Africanist Marcus Garvey established the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Jamaica in 1914. In 1916, Garvey moved the headquarters of the UNIA from Jamaica to Harlem in New York City (NYC). The migration of large numbers of blacks from the southern United States and the Caribbean basin during World War I contributed to the growth of the UNIA in North America. As a pro-business conservative, in 1919 Garvey founded the Negro Factories Corporation (NFC) and offered stock in it to African Americans as a means to help black people to achieve economic independence. Among its many activities, the NFC ran three grocery stores and two restaurants in NYC. There is no available sources on what they sold (or their success), but most likely they had Caribbean and Southern foods and dishes because the majority of Garveyites had roots in these two regions. When I think of Garvey I think of Jamaica, and when I think of Jamaica I think of food like plantains, patties, and rice and peas. I love fish and vegetable patties, but patties come in a multitude of styles including jerk chicken and beef. Here are some patty and rice and peas recipes.

Veggie patty recipe: http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/jamaican-veggie-patties-recipe.html

Chicken patty video recipe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7Z-7WSIi3A

Fish patty recipe: http://health.asda.com/lifestyle/recipes/jamaica-fish-patties.aspx

Jamaican rice and peas: http://www.jamaican-traditions.com/jamaican-rice-and-peas.html

Vegan rice and peas: http://www.ivu.org/recipes/latinam/jamaican-rice.html

Black History Month: A Soul Food Journey From Africa To America

Slave Houses in 1830s Brazil, related recipes below

The following is a prerecorded interview I did on National Public Radio (NPR).

A Soul Food Journey From Africa To America: Listen Now [7 min 2 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95907586

Brazilian Food History and Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=brazil

Black History Month: Panamanian Food Through the Lens of James Weldon Johnson

Carimañolas  (meat stuffed yucca empanadas), recipe below (photo from http://hungrysofia.com)

James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) made a name for himself as an author, the first editor of the NACCP magazine the Crisis and as the composer the Negro National Anthem Lift Every Voice and Sing. But few know that this Atlanta University graduate was a foodie (just read Along This Way: The Autobiography of James Weldon Johnson) and fluent in Spanish. President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him as a U. S. Consul in Venezuela (1906-1908) and the Central American republic of Nicaragua (1909-1913). While in Central America, Johnson noted the essential role of African Americans in the construction of the Panama Canal which lasted from 1880 to 1914 with several starts and stops under French and then U. S. controlled contracts.“Now, Negroes were not a rare sight in Panama; they were almost as ubiquitous there as they are now in Harlem; the spade work on the Canal was being done mainly be Negroes,” writes Johnson in 1909. "So these that I saw in the Pacific Mail office made no special demands on my attention until I gradually perceived that they were not working as janitors or laborers, but doing clerical work. . . . I could not refrain from asking the agent about them.He informed that the very best accountants and bookkeepers to be found in Panama were educated Jamaican Negroes.” A majority of Jamaicans that came to work on the canal settled in Panama where their culinary foot print remains today but one creolized with the indigenous and Spanish culture of Panama.

Carimañola recipe: http://hungrysofia.com/2010/04/06/a-perfect-afternoon/#more-3907

Several Panamanian recipes: http://panamaliving.com/recipes.html#Carimanolas

Afro Panamanian restaurant: http://www.eatingintranslation.com/2008/04/kelso-restauran.html

Black History Month: Maya Angelou Through the Lens of Food Part 4

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

The Best of Maya Angelou Food Stories With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Maya+Angelou

Hog Killing Days and Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Hog+Killing+Day

SNCC and Subsistence Farming in the South: http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/09/gardening-series-drive-skill-and-desire.html


The Welcome Table: Recipes from Maya Angelou: [8 min 35 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4975315

Maya Angelou’s Cooking Advice and Recipes: [7 min 20 sec] http://www.npr.org/2010/12/16/132080094/maya-angelous-cooking-advice-ignore-the-rules

Maya Angelou Reflects on Turning 80:  [Listen 11 min 56 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89355359

Black History Month: Maya Angelou Through the Lens of Food Part 3

Frederick Douglass, Babson College

The Best of Maya Angelou Food Stories With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Maya+Angelou

The Welcome Table: Recipes from Maya Angelou: [8 min 35 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4975315

Maya Angelou’s Cooking Advice and Recipes: [7 min 20 sec] http://www.npr.org/2010/12/16/132080094/maya-angelous-cooking-advice-ignore-the-rules

Maya Angelou Host Black History Month Special: http://mayaangelouonpublicradio.com/

Black History Month: Maya Angelou Through the Lens of Food Part 2

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

The Best of Maya Angelou Food Stories With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Maya+Angelou

Maya Angelou’s Cooking Advice and Recipes: [7 min 20 sec] http://www.npr.org/2010/12/16/132080094/maya-angelous-cooking-advice-ignore-the-rules

Maya Angelou Reflects on Turning 80:  [Listen 11 min 56 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89355359

Maya Angelou On Wisdom, Pride, and Independence: [Listen 13 min 32 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11732760

Black History Month: Maya Angelou Through the Lens of Food Part 1

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

The Best of Maya Angelou Food Stories With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Maya+Angelou

The Welcome Table: Recipes from Maya Angelou: [8 min 35 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4975315

Maya Angelou Host Black History Month Special: http://mayaangelouonpublicradio.com/

New Home for Maya Angelou Collection: [Listen 9 min 52 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131356763

Black History Month: Colonel Angustias Farrera and the Mexican Revolution

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

La Negra Angustia and Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=La+Negra+Angustia

Africans in Mexico and Peru Video:[Watch 33 min] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/black-in-latin-america/featured/full-episode-mexico-peru/227/

Historian Ben Vinson, “Caste in Mexico”:[52 min 30 sec] http://worldofideas.wbur.org/media-player?url=http://worldofideas.wbur.org/2009/04/12/caste-in-mexico&title=Caste+in+Mexico&pubdate=2009-04-12&segment=&source=worldofideas

Gerald Horn, Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920 (NYU Press, 2005): http://www.amazon.com/Black-Brown-Americans-Revolution-1910-1920/dp/081473667X

Black History Month: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Through the Lens of Food, Part 2

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

The Best of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Food Stories With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Adam+Clayton+Powell

Vintage Footage of the Political Career of Adam Clayton Powell Jr: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-YbiONiVnA

Interview with Adam Clayton Powell Jr [Watch 10 min 59 sec]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE2m4SNDy0U

From Powell to Rangel: A History Harlem Political Leadership: [Listen 8 min] http://www.thetakeaway.org/2010/jul/29/adam-clayton-powell-jr-charles-rangel-past-and-future-harlems-political-leadership/

Black History Month: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Through the Lens of Food, Part 1

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

The Best of Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Food Stories With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Adam+Clayton+Powell

Interview with Adam Clayton Powell Jr [Watch 10 min 59 sec]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE2m4SNDy0U

From Powell to Rangel: A History Harlem Political Leadership: [Listen 8 min] http://www.thetakeaway.org/2010/jul/29/adam-clayton-powell-jr-charles-rangel-past-and-future-harlems-political-leadership/

Langston Hughes Through the Lens of Food Part 2

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

The Best of Langston Hughes Food Stories With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Langston+Hughes

Celebrating The Legacy of Langston Hughes: [Listen 36 min 12 sec]  http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146297228/celebrating-the-legacy-of-langston-hughes


Editor Arnold Rampersad on African American Poetry: [Listen 36 min 12 sec]  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5126003

Black History Month: Langston Hughes Through the Lens of Food Part 1

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

The Best of Langston Hughes Food Stories With Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Langston+Hughes

Celebrating The Legacy of Langston Hughes: [Listen 36 min 12 sec]  http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146297228/celebrating-the-legacy-of-langston-hughes

Black History Month and Food: The Prose and Politics of Langston Hughes

Lobster Thermidor, recipe in related links below (photo from http://www.memoirsofachocoholic.com/)

I came across the poem "Dinner Guest: Me" by the Harlem Renaissance (and beyond) author Langston Hughes. Born in 1902 in Joplin Missouri, Hughes grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, and several other Midwestern communities, at the turn of the century before making his way to Harlem where he lived until his death and in 1967. This poem is about race relations in Manhattan and the city’s black intellectual communities some of which struggled with black pride and the promises of white liberal politicians and their constant delays in improving conditions for black folk in North America. Tomorrow I will be doing a video post on Langston  Hughes through the Lens of Food. Also see the related links below. 

Dinner Guest: Me

I know I am
The Negro Problem
Being wined and dined,
Answering the usual questions
That come to white mind
Which seeks demurely
To Probe in polite way
The why and wherewithal
Of darkness U.S.A.--
Wondering how things got this way
In current democratic night,
Murmuring gently
Over fraises du bois,
"I'm so ashamed of being white."

The lobster is delicious,
The wine divine,
And center of attention
At the damask table, mine.
To be a Problem on
Park Avenue at eight
Is not so bad.
Solutions to the Problem,
Of course, wait.

Lobster Thermidor Recipe: http://www.cuisine-france.com/recipes/lobster_thermidor.htm

Langston Hughes Biographer Arnold Rampersad: [Listen 36 min 12 sec]  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5126003

Black History Month: Soul, Double Consciousness, and Don Cornelius

Frederick Douglass Opie, Babson College

40 Years of Peace Love and Sooouul: [Listen 17 min 49 sec] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123368998

Soul Train Makes Trip to Chicago in New Exhibit: [Videos: 2 min 35 sec; 1min 2 sec; 1min 1 sec; 1 min 14 sec] http://www.wbez.org/blog/lee-bey/2011-07-20/soul-train-make-return-trip-chicago-new-exhibit-89209

Don Cornelius Reflects on 40 Years Aboard Soul Train: [Listen 12 min 50 sec] http://www.wbez.org/episode-segments/2011-08-31/don-cornelius-reflects-40-years-aboard-soul-train-91297

Classic Soul Train Photos: http://soultrain.com/photos/?album=1&gallery=4

The Best of Soul Train Videos: http://www.npr.org/2011/02/17/130861042/songs-we-love-the-best-of-soul-train

My Food Memoir and Black Power: http://www.foodasalens.com/2009/08/labor-day-picnics.html

Fried Chicken Story and Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/06/wedding-and-food-series-part-5-early.html

Election Day Traditions and Food

Election Day Cake, recipe below

I started talking about the role of food in electoral politics in my series Stumping and Eating with Related Recipes (see the link below) looking at the 2012 Race to the White House.  I want to continue the theme during February which is black history month. I am excited about sharing some fresh new looks into history and food based largely on archival work,  printed primary sources, and interviews I have collected over many years. Treating voters to food and drink in exchange for their vote on election day in this country dates back to our nation’s English political culture. Dating back to the eighteenth century English politicians plied the most eligible voters in their districts with whisky and food. Negro Election Day (election of black Kings and governors) in New England (which happened in May or June) was the best known African American festival during the colonial period. The event included northern blacks dressed in fine apparel, enjoying music, dancing, and selling and consuming of food and beverages. An Election Day event in 1760 Boston included feasting on large amounts of Election Day cake, gingerbread and beer. As in the south, northern blacks slaves endured food deserts from white masters seeking to reduce their expenses. Thus holidays and special occasions like Election Day provided enslaved Africans food in abundance several times a year. Here are recipes and more on the history of Election Day cakes and a link to my series Stumping and Eating with Related Recipes.


Election Day Cake Recipe: http://starchefs.com/chocolate_lovers/2002/html/november/recipe_04.shtml

More on Election Day Cakes:http://culinarytypes.blogspot.com/2008/11/cast-your-vote-to-bring-back-election.html

Series Stumping And Eating And Related Recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Electoral+Politics+and+Food