Episode 404: Diane M. Spivey, How Black Chefs Shaped Early America

Did you know that many of the food traditions that define cuisine in the United States today have roots in African American culinary history?

Diane M. Spivey, a culinary historian and author of three culinary history books, joins us to uncover the rich and complex legacy of African and African American foodways and how those foodways helped establish the United States.

About the Show

Ben Franklin’s World is a podcast about early American history.

It is a show for people who love history and for those who want to know more about the historical people and events that have impacted and shaped our present-day world.

Ben Franklin’s World is a production of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios.

Episode Summary

Diane M. Spivey is a culinary historian who has devoted more than forty years to studying and recording African American food traditions in cooking. She has written many articles and three books on the topics of African and African American cuisine and culinary traditions including The Peppers, Cracklings, and Knots of Wool Cookbook: The Global Migration of African Cuisine and At the Table of Power: Food and Cuisine in the African American Struggle for Freedom, Justice, and Equality.

During our conversation, Diane reveals how African and African American cooking made European colonial success possible. The ways African Americans contributed to and supported the Continental Army and the revolutionaries’ success in the American Revolution. And, how African American chefs, bakers, and cooks worked as culinary activists during the anti-slavery and abolition movements.

What You’ll Discover

No recognition of African people and foods in some 20th-century cookbooks
Cooking as labor-intensive work
Why African Americans were often cooks
Why modern-day chefs and cooks are exalted for skill, flavor, and creativity
French cuisine during the 17th and 18th centuries
French agricultural techniques in the 17th and 18th centuries
How Africans became involved with cooking in early North America
How African cooking lead to the success of European American colonies
The Story of Hannah Till, Continental Army cook at Valley Forge
Samuel Frances, cook and tavernkeeper in early New York City
Hercules Posey and James Hemings, chefs of Washington and Jefferson
How Black cooks used cooking to further the anti-slavery movement
The movement to erase the contributions of African and African American cooks and chefs from the historical record

Links to People, Places, and Publications

1776 in Context

How do you think your research into the contributions and culinary accomplishments of black chefs, cooks, and bakers can help us better understand the American Revolution?