History On Your Plate - Fried Chicken

“Our parents had decided to put an end to their calamitous marriage, and Father shipped us home to his mother. A porter had been charged with our welfare — he got off the train the next day in Arizona — and our tickets were pinned to my brother’s inside coat pocket. I don’t remember much of the trip, but after we reached the segregated southern part of the journey, things must have looked up. Negro passengers, who always traveled with loaded lunch boxes, felt sorry for “the poor little motherless darlings" and plied us with cold fried chicken and potato salad."

-          Maya Angelou(I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)

Yard Bird

Every chicken on Earth is the descendant of the red jungle fowl found in South Asia. The chicken is not just a bird that provides us with meat and eggs. It has played more roles across human history than any other animal.

In ancient Babylon (now Iraq), seals were used by people to identify themselves. Some of them had images of chickens sitting on top of columns being worshipped by priests.

The Zoroastrians considered the chicken sacred because it crowed before dawn, and in their tradition, the coming of the light is a good sign. So the chicken became associated with an awakening from physical, and spiritual slumber.

Studies show that chicken soup (or broth) was used to tackle and even cure many diseases like diarrhoea, depression and fever.

In West Africa the chicken was a common but sacred farm animal. They were also important for exterminating pests. So chickens were welcome around the house, unlike, pigs and cows, which traditionally were kept farther away from dwellings. When archaeologists study ancient sites in the Middle East, they find chicken bones right in the living area because they were kept to clean things up, get rid of bugs, and provide with eggs for consumption.

History

In 1619, when indentured servants were brought to the United States (in the Virginia Colony) from West Africa, they came with their deep knowledge of the humble chicken. By the 1660s, large numbers of Africans were being brought to the “Thirteen British Colonies” and by 1790 African-Americans made up nearly one-fifth of the United States population.

The knowledge that African-Americans brought served them very well, because the White colonizers were more accustomed to eating other variations of poultry, leaving chicken as the only livestock the enslaved black Americans were allowed to keep (General Assembly of Virginia – 1692).

Slaves were able to purchase amenities and, even buy their freedom by raising and selling chickens. Black domestic workers would cook fried chicken for their masters and, employers. Women known as “waiter carriers” would sell trays of fried chicken and biscuits to travellers through open windows. African-American women who would prepare chicken dishes on plantations were at the forefront of the chicken and egg farming industry in the United States. They would travel to different train depots selling goods such as chicken dinners, and many black churches would hold chicken dinners. Because chicken was cheap and travelled well, it was also the lunch of many who got on the train as part of the Great Migration. Later in Freetown, Virginia (a town founded by freed slaves), fried chicken became a special dish and was produced once in a year in late spring.

The white colonizers began to eat and like fried chicken. Although variations of fried chicken originated independently in different parts of the world, the one popularised in the United States is a West African cuisine, where one would fry chicken parts in palm oil. The slaves brought that tradition to the American-South and over time it became one of the most important cuisines of that region but, they faced hurdles in this miniature form of entrepreneurialism as well.

The Narrative

European visitors who were fascinated by the institution of slavery noted the relationship between the enslaved Africans and chicken in America.

When Polish poet Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon home in 1798, he mentioned in his diary that the only thing the slaves living on Washington’s property seemed to enjoy were the free-roaming chickens.

“That is the only pleasure allowed to the negroes: they are not permitted to keep either ducks or geese or pigs”, he wrote.

Birth of a Nation, is a 1915 film on the founding of the Ku Klux Klan (an American white supremacist terrorist hate group whose primary targets are African Americans). It is considered to be the first film to cement the negative association of black people with fried chicken. In one of the scenes, a group of actors portrayed shiftless black elected officials acting rowdy and disorganised in a legislative hall - swigging from whisky bottles and putting their bare feet on tables. One man is seen ostentatiously eating fried chicken. The message conveyed in the scene? – The dangers of letting the “blacks” vote. That image had solidified the way white people thought of black people and fried chicken.

Later, in the 1900s advertising posters were printed featuring caricatures of black people with big lips and bulging eyes, eating fried chicken. A chain of restaurants by the name of Coon Chicken Inn had such a character as its logo. The same image was plastered on everything from the menu, to advertisements, silverware, and takeout containers. Around the same time the same caricature and imagery was prevalent in cartoons, comedy skits, postcards and even souvenirs.

The connecting of Blacks to chicken and watermelon was done with the intention of dehumanizing Blacks, to subject them to ridicule, and to justify and solidify the discriminatory practices of Jim Crow. Anti-Black imagery often shows Blacks living in poverty. They are dressed poorly and speak in stereotypical dialect.

A narrative began to shape that African-Americans were content with a poor standard of living. Their ambition does not extend to education, wealth, social and political power. Rather, they are such a lower life form, so lazy, that chicken and watermelon are all it takes to satisfy their ambitions.

Modern Times

By 1970, anti-Black chicken and watermelon imagery had largely disappeared, but adults from that era had no trouble identifying the theme and its racial connotations.

After the old Black minstrel shows, ignorance of the hatred and degradation associated with anti-Black imagery was a theme explored in films like, Bamboozled (2000).

Golfer Tiger Woods has been the target of racial remarks regarding fried chicken on two separate occasions. The first occurred in 1997 when golfer Fuzzy Zoeller said that Woods should avoid choosing fried chicken and collard greens for the Masters Tournament Champion’s Dinner the following year. The second when golfer Sergio García was asked in a press conference in 2013 whether he would invite Woods to dinner during the U.S. Open to settle their ongoing feud. García, was unaware of the existence of the stereotype in American culture, ended up saying: "We will have him round every night ... We will serve fried chicken", which Woods said was "wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate". Both Zoeller and García subsequently apologized to Woods.

During the campaign and election of Barack Obama, America’s first African-American President, White American racists had agonized over the prospect of a Black president. For months, they relieved their anxiety by creating and posting "photoshopped" images and animated gifs of Obama, to type-cast him as the stereotypical lazy, ignorant, sub-human coon--the very product of the White created racist imagery of a bygone era. These images found their ways into the local and national politics of the Republican Party as well.

While the US was trying to unpick the racist issues surrounding fried chicken, the UK’s Conservative government was stoking the flames. The Home Office’s decision to put anti-knife crime messages on fried chicken boxes perpetuated yet more racist stereotypes about knife crime and chicken shop customers.

Despite the ignorance of some Americans, especially young Americans, about the history of these imageries and associations, its use to degrade, dehumanize and inspire hatred of "the other" is very much alive in the 21st century.

The American Dream

Before Columbus arrived, there were almost no chickens in the Americas, and today it is the most popular choice of meat in America.

While fast food restaurant chains like KFC, Popeyes and Chicken Licken have helped inform the culinary tastes across the world, the contributions of the African-American cooks and homemakers who effectively invented Southern food or Soul Food, were erased in the process. The white people took the credit for its creation, while the black people were mocked and parodied merely as greedy consumers. It is considered to be one of the most outrageous examples of cultural theft in the history of mankind.

Having said that, ignorance about the racial history of this humble bird cuts across racial lines today. If a chef of color serves a special menu of fried chicken, collard greens, and black-eyed peas in honour of Black History Month or Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday it draws mixed opinions from the Americans. While some consider it to be a racial joke, others welcome it as an honour to the history of the African-Americans. Unfortunately, all too often Whites use instances such as these to excuse their own use of racist slurs and imagery.

Today, the African-American population is divided. While some would avoid eating fried chicken in public due to the obvious implications, others are celebrating their roots by addressing these issues through comedy and opening up restaurants that serve quintessential Southern Food.

Where do we draw the line between authentic and stereotype?

Throughout the American history, White chefs have borrowed recipes of the fried chicken and have served the same in restaurants outside of the American-South. Historically, it is also believed that, the White people enjoyed the fried bird but, wanted a “safer” place to do so, hence the demand for such joints rose in the first place. Such restaurants are the tenants of the original culture so they carry the responsibility of being respectful towards it.

One of the most important things that food can do for us is to remind us about its origins and the history that comes with it. Time has come to start undoing the negative associations and start giving fried chicken its dues. The African-Americans today, should be proud that this food, which is a part of their heritage has taken over the world. Its most famous purveyor may be a white, bespectacled moustachioed colonel, but fried chicken is firmly rooted in black innovation and creativity. It should be a source of pride for the African diaspora.