SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

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Texarkana Mstrici
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Name of Interviewer Cecil Copeland
Sub.iect Foods
The question of eating special food on a particular day immediately
brings in mind Thanksgiving Day, when turkey becomes the universal dish.
Perhaps no other day in the year can be so designated* except among a few
religious orders when the eating of meat is strictly prohibited on certain
days .
The belief that negroes are particularly addicted to eating pork is
well founded, as witness the sales of pork to colored people in most any
meat market. But who could imagine that cotton-seed was once the universal
food eaten in this vicinity by the colored people? That, according to Dbc
Quinn, a former slave, and self-styled exmember of Gullen Baker's Cfejng,
was the custom before and shortly after the Civil War.
The cotton-seed would be dumped into a hugh pot, and boiled for several
hours, the seed gradually rising to the top. The seed would then be dipped off
with a ladle. The next and final step would be to pour corn-meal into the
thick liquid, after which it was ready to be eaten. Cotton-seed, it must be
remembered, had little value at that time, except as livestock feed.
*Yes suh, Cap f n, * the old negro went 6n to explain. *T has never
eaten anything whut tasted any better, or whut would stick to your ribs like
cotton-seed, and corn-meal cake. Rich? Why dey f s ftuthin dat is more nutritious.
Tou never saw a healthier or finer lookin 1 bunch of negroes dan wuz on 6olonel
Hervey's pl&ce.
Information given by Boc C^iinn (colored) _____
Place of residence 1217 Ash g|.» Texarkana, Arkansas
Occupation fx-slave Cites 94)
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