The PA Melting Pot

Friday, June 26, 2020

The PA Melting Pot - Part 4 - African Americans

HISTORY

The largest influx of African-Americans (1910-1930) from Virginia, Georgia, Alabama and the Carolinas increased the black population 115% in the southwestern PA area. They immigrated because they were recruited by northern industries to break white workers' strikes. They didn't get paid much and were allotted minimal amounts for living.

Even though the Wagner Act in 1935 was passed which gave workers the right to collective bargaining and blacks were allowed to join unions, there was still much discrimination and often they were not eligible for government housing for misplaced families. They lived frugally as they had in the South. More immigration occurred from World War II to 1950.

FOOD HISTORY: From the south they brought the knowledge of wild greens cooked with ham hocks and other slave dishes. What was discarded from the main house by their masters was eaten by their slave ancestors. This was where the term “soul food” originated. Castoffs from the main house included: pigs’ feet, hind-parts, jowls, intestines, cow brains and tongues and others. The southern slaves cooked the bitter collard, mustard and turnip greens with pork leftovers. This “make-do” or “soul food” which was the mainstay at that time and its transformation now has become part of white and black households today.

FOODS:

Collard Greens, Shrimp Pilau (bacon, onion, tomato, hot pepper, parsley, rice, shrimp stock, shrimp), Cornbread, Cracklin’ Corn Bread (cracklins are pork rinds), Sweet Potato Casserole, African Chicken (chicken breasts, onions, tomatoes, garlic, ketchup, peanut butter, cayenne, hard boiled eggs), Shrimp Creole (green pepper, garlic, butter, tomatoes, lemon juice, Tabasco, shrimp, rice), Sweet Potato Pone (sweet potato bread) and Old Fashioned Hoecake (corn meal, flour, bacon fat, etc. – NOTE: This was called Hoecake because out in the fields often they didn’t have cooking pots so they baked the bread on a hot hoe over a fire!!)

MORE FOODS:

Scalloped Pineapple (sugar, butter, eggs, white bread, milk, crushed pineapple baked in casserole & topped with whipped cream or as side dish to meats), Sweet Potato Pie (I think everyone knows what this is), Southern Ham & Brown Beans, Fried Okra, Okra-Corn-Tomatoes, Buttermilk Fried Chicken, Black-eyed Peas and Gumbo, Sausage Biscuits and Gravy, Grits in various ways, Hoppin’ John (a thick, hearty stew of black-eyed peas, ham, and rice served on New Year’s Day for good luck), Pinto Beans with pork, Chow-Chow (not really from the South although they claim it – from the PA Dutch who immigrated to the south), Black eyed-peas, Hush puppies, Corn pone and the list goes on.

NOTE: OXTAIL STEW IS ANOTHER RECIPE TO BE INCLUDED. IT ORIGINALLY CAME FROM JAMAICA.

LINKS TO SOUL FOOD RECIPES BELOW PHOTOS