Mama’s Biscuits: Starches Hold Black People Together
MIRRORS by Azure D. Osborne-Lee places us within the ritual of recipe. Our protagonist lets us get to know her world through food. In Suzanne's interview, she discuss this a bit more in depth.
Bird's mama's recipe is still a process like religious experience embedded within her. Her mama's biscuits ring in the background of the story, meeting us at the wake of her lover.
Black Southern food has a basis within slavery, and collecting scraps from the Big House. Food is a staple within the community because of this. So much of Blackness can be found within our food.
You can find love itself there. As well as soul, hence the name Soul Food.
In Soul Food: A Brief History, Roshae Lowe explicates:
“Though our relationship with food dates further than when our ancestors were seized and snatched away to this stolen land ... U.S. slavery forced us to redefine that relationship... From the early years of slavery until the passing of the 13th amendment... enslaved peoples of African descent only received a small number of rations to live off of for a week—five pounds of a starch (rice, sweet potatoes, or cornmeal)... a few pounds of dried, salted, or smoked meat (whatever was the cheapest), and a jug of molasses... Anything else they ate had to be acquired by other means, such as hunting, gardening, foraging, fishing, and/or raising livestock... The enslaved carried with them farming knowledge passed down from West Africa, as well as newer knowledge shared with them by their slavers, poor white neighbors, and, most importantly, the indigenous peoples of the area...”
What is a family recipe that will never leave you? While some of our greatest recipes, surprisingly, can be found on the back some of the most popular biscuit brands... It doesn't change the effects of committing a food's recipe to memory.
And box recipe or not, if it came from Grandma, it's Grandma's recipe.
There is something profound about our recipes of the South that have held the black community together... starches give us fuel, such as Soul Food, although it's a different type of fuel. A fuel that might require a nap before feeling the full effect.
Have you seen MIRRORS yet? Click here for information.