African American Food: To The Civil War: African American Culinary Professionals

The shock of sudden displacement and cultural separation did not prevent West African cooks from performing culinary duties in the English colonies in America. Colonizers in the North and planters in the South took advantage of this fact, for West African slaves were used extensively as domestics throughout the colonies. Indeed, they were among the most prominent cooking practitioners of the time, interpreting and defining the recipes and food preparations of America’s ever-evolving cuisine. This early culinary role of Africans in North America and their culinary separation from their homeland are evident in the early books on cookery matters by African American authors: House Servants Directory by Robert Roberts (1827); Hotel Keepers, Head Waiters, and Housekeepers’ Guide by Tunis G. Campbell (1847); and What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking by Abby Fisher (1881). Their books all share one thing: a failure to trace any of the foods or recipes to the regions of West Africa. The important thing the books do offer, however, is a significant number of recipes that have been identified with African Americans since that early period.