The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge ** (of 4)

 

This book had everything I hoped for, except a compelling narrative. Thoroughly researched, John T. Edge makes a strong case for tracking the development of recent southern history through its food. Beginning in the deeply racist Jim Crow era of the middle 20th century, Edge paints a picture of the intermixing of Black and white cuisines: corn bread, boiled beans and greens, various parts of hog. Just as quickly he makes it clear that Black food was discarded white food that was a necessity for survival and white food was cultivated, prepared, and silently and obediently served by Black staff.

The fight for civil rights was fought at southern lunch counters as much as it was in the voting booths and on buses. Even into the 1960s tens of thousands of Blacks suffered from starvation across the south. Black children whose parents were so disbarred from the American economy lay upon dirt floors, their bellies distended, flies in their eyes, too lethargic to care. Whites claimed, and still do, that Blacks were too lazy to work hard, but the fallacy lies in the readiness with which white employers failed to employ Blacks and the absolute illogic that any parent could choose laziness over a starving child.

The Potlikker Papers describes a southern cuisine reacting to the empowerment of Soul Food, the rise of farm-to-table, artisanal heritage cooking and baking, and the fusion of foods brought by the south's new immigrants from Mexico and Asia. 

Maybe at another time I would have swallowed Potlikker's tales with gusto, but I found the book so well researched and thoughtful, it felt more like a resource guide than a compelling read.