Publisher's Synopsis
African-American cuisine may suffer from the stigma and stereotype of being based in fatty pork-based dishes and butter-heavy comfort foods, but in truth, that kind of meat-heavy, indulgent decadence was scarce for millions struggling under the oppression of segregation before the industrialization of our food system. When we peel away the negative stereotypes and reductive portrayals of African-American food, we see a diverse and complex culinary tradition with nutrient-rich foods like collards, mustards, turnips, butter beans, black-eyed peas, green beans, sugar snap peas and the like at the cuisine's core.As of 2011, for 57% of African-Americans, the Southern United States is still home, and most of them come from families who have been close to the land for generations as sharecroppers and migrant agricultural workers. My grandparents, and those of many other Southerners, cultivated home gardens that yielded a number of the crops mentioned above. Many still do. First lady Michelle Obama's advocacy of home gardens isn't trendy for her and millions like her who descend from the South: it's traditional.
