University serves Kool-Aid and watermelon water for Black History Month
Source: CNN
When Kayla Eubanks saw a sign for a Black History Month special menu in a New York University dining hall on Tuesday, she was interested to see what they were serving.
"I figured it would be some type of southern cuisine," the NYU student told CNN.
But she was stunned to see the full menu: ribs, collard greens, cornbread, smashed yams, mac and cheese and two beverages, red Kool-Aid and watermelon-flavored water.
Eubanks said she asked one of the cafeteria managers about it and was told, '"Yeah, it's Black History Month."
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/us/nyu-kool-aid-watermelon-menu-black-history-month-trnd/index.html
doc03
(35,148 posts)Cracker Barral because they have collard greens, catfish and fried okra.
appalachiablue
(41,053 posts)As a southern thang, why not Lemonade & good old Sweet Iced Tea? Never heard of watermelon water. Weird, funky.
doc03
(35,148 posts)Yupster
(14,308 posts)Generally a big office type water cooler with actual melon balls skewered and placed in the cooler. Also cantaloupe is popular and strawberries.
It's very refreshing and of course low cal.
Surprised it had anything to do with Black history month. Our local college has two coolers of the stuff every day.
gabeana
(3,166 posts)some Mexican restaurants serve it, it is quite refreshing drink on a hot day
Retrograde
(10,070 posts)My measure of a good Mexican restaurant is whether it has aguas frescas - fruit juices usually cut with water. Watermelon is indeed a common one - but where one gets decent watermelons in February I don't know.
RhodeIslandOne
(5,042 posts)Like coconut water..... both are highly overrated.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)and at the time I wondered why nobody was offering it in the U.S.... It's the nectar of the gods!
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)in months that are not BHM.
Cucumber water and strawberries water are also popular, except some people are allergic to strawberries.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Not for black history month so much as.... southernish
appalachiablue
(41,053 posts)In New Orleans at a historic property we visited, before the (daytime) tour began the guides asked us if we'd like a Mint Julep. My husband thought that was fantastic, so we had 2 lite ones!
My field is historic preservation and museum interpretation, but I'd never seen that! It wouldn't fly where I was employed, nope.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)appalachiablue
(41,053 posts)Party time in the Latin Quarter, Antoine's one of my favs, Jackson Sq. jazz, Commodore's for Sunday Brunch, yowee!!
Laissez les Bontemps roulez!!
moose65
(3,164 posts)I think watermelon water is some kind of trendy thing right now, but it's not a Southern thing, really. Sounds like it's what a New York university would THINK is "Southern"!
The menu has one little nitpick that's one of my pet peeves: smashed "yams." In America, we hardly ever eat true yams - it's SWEET POTATOES, for crying out loud! They are NOT the same thing!!
sakabatou
(42,083 posts)California_Republic
(1,826 posts)But what should be served?
The menu sounds good to me.
angrychair
(8,593 posts)It was unequivocally a baiting attempt with a racial stereotype or just cringe-worthy ignorance of tone-deaf racism.
Im white and I was raised in the South and this type of racist stereotyping used to be very common. Its the watermelon and fried chicken bullshit. In the context of Black History Month its hard not to take it as a racist jab.
Example:
Inviting your black co-worker to a family cookout in which you are serving fried chicken and watermelon = ok
Telling you black co-worker you made it for them = racist
treestar
(82,383 posts)We had it as kids in a mid-Atlantic State. And we were white. I didn't think of it as associated to black stereotypes, like watermelon is.
Now it just makes me think of Jim Jones.
angrychair
(8,593 posts)I live on the west coast now but spent many years in the south, from Louisiana to Virginia and everywhere in between.
Ive heard it off and on throughout my life but mainly in the context of a jab at being poor but somewhere along the line it got tied to people of color.
It is interesting how these things come up but in the end its just racism.
California_Republic
(1,826 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)I think my mother had us drink kool-aid because we could not have soda every day. Soda was a big treat. Though kool-aid surely did not have any less sugar. Kids could make it themselves since it was simple. It made two quarts per packet and you added the water and one cup of sugar! Later, they removed the need to add the sugar - guess it was already in the mix.
My parents were of an age where a soda was a treat. When I was a teen, they still came in bottles and you could look at the bottom of the bottles to see where they had been produced, and compete with others for whose bottle came from the farthest away. I thought of soda as being for teenagers - like you had to be one before your parents let you drink them.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Or some panel of black people.
And maybe they did. Are these white people deciding what to have for black history month? That could be based on racist stereotype, but if black people want watermelon, do they decide for themselves not to want it to disprove a stereotype?
d_r
(6,907 posts)appalachiablue
(41,053 posts)Things in this country are becoming so racist and crazy, some days I can hardly believe it, and what to expect next.
A year or so ago there was a huge thread here about Auschwitz Concentration Camp, in Poland providing SHOWERS, outside for visitors because the Summer heat/temperature was so abnormally high there, low 90s, in a country w/o A/C like a lot of Europe.
In the photos, it was clear that the outside showers, intended for people in long lines to use to cool off and for relief while waiting, looked precisely like the ones in the original photos of the gas chambers. The fixtures had similar round, flat heads with sprinkler holes, and looked old fashioned.
Among the visiting bus loads of tourists were Israeli students & families, also using little outside 'water coolers' like some others.
Even with lots of comments, background and history, also clear, current pix of tourists standing under the showers, most people on the thread thought there was nothing at wrong with the shower/sprinklers and there was no similarity to WWII era Nazi-run extermination camps.
It took a couple days to get over that, or more.
Stonepounder
(4,033 posts)appalachiablue
(41,053 posts)Maybe, who knows these days..
htuttle
(23,738 posts)MINCHET ABISH
Minced beef, onions, tomatoes and lentils in a rice blend of spices. Cooked in a spicy berbere spiked brown sauce.
DOROWOT
Chicken, carrots and a blend of spices slowly cooked in a thick red sauce thats berbere spiked
ALICHA
Rich stew in a mild yellow curry sauce with cabbage, carrots and potatoes.
Okay, I stole that from the menu of an Ethiopian restaurant on the other side of the block from me, but the point is, it took me about 2 seconds to come up with a better idea than a northerner's idea of southern food.
jb5150
(1,177 posts)and that menu sounded pretty tasty to me, I'd eat me a mess of ribs and cornbread.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)What then, is the relevant purpose of the kool-aid in regards to the menu?
Or do we simply dismiss the major focal point as well by the irrelevance of whether we on an individual level would "like it" too?
moriah
(8,311 posts)But I've also learned people don't seem to know you can make this great beverage by adding sugar to the hot tea then icing it outside of the Southeast.
For a decaffinated beverage, lemonade, which can be made with low sugar, would have been better too.
moriah
(8,311 posts)My (Southern white) grandmother loved all kinds of greens.
But cooking the fresh ones she grew in the garden, for some reason, made the house REEK. Maybe canned greens don't produhce the stink, but her Greens Nights were my enforced diet nights because I was so nauseated from the stench.
It might have been the mustard greens, not the collards, that did that, also. She really didn't differentiate. She loved them.
It really sucked for her when she started on Coumadin, though. They said she had to either eat them at the same frequency at all times, or give them up, because of how concentrated the Vitamin K was. Her Dilantin already didn't play well with it, so she had to sacrifice eating both greens and organ meats. She loved liver, so that sucked for her too.
But the house smelled SO much better...
IronLionZion
(45,259 posts)everything else sounds great! Maybe southern sweet tea would be OK.
But most any kind of sugary drink is going to go over badly because of history and marketing.
http://www.phillytrib.com/news/blacks-and-sugar-sweetened-drinks/article_38c4b875-9277-5176-bad1-d5dc63d27500.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/brief-history-racist-soft-drinks/318929/
Here's some racism in a popular movie:
unc70
(6,095 posts)Bayard
(21,805 posts)That's the food I grew up with, substituting fried chicken or ham for the ribs. I still hate cooked greens.
What's for desert? My grandmother used to make the most wonderful pies and cakes. Even more so because she was diabetic, and could not eat them.
jmowreader
(50,453 posts)Fortunately, they didn't serve fried chicken.
RhodeIslandOne
(5,042 posts)FLSurfer
(431 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)being African American though. There is said to be an African American culture. Sad we can't have that kind of food without it having to be insulting to them? If we had Italian history month, we could have lasagna without it being insulting to the Italians. We can have Chinese food any day in America without insulting the Chinese. They probably think its great non-Chinese people like it - keeps the restaurants in business. So it seems unfair to black people that the cultural food or anything is not to be liked by anyone else without it being insulting. And fried chicken seems to belong to the South generally, too. Surely white southerners are known for it.
tblue37
(64,980 posts)Adrahil
(13,340 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,283 posts)Golf, KFC, and diet Coke. In memory of Lincoln, of course. And Trump. Were there any other presidents?
Shrek
(3,970 posts)Sorry if I should know that already, but that part of the story baffles me.
JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,283 posts)... it has some relevance in Guyana's history.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Though I read, they could not afford actual Kool-Aid and bought instead a cheap knock-off called Flavour Aid (it was British) and put the poison into that.
Someone up thread pointed out Kool-Aid is cheaper than soda, but as a white kid, I never experienced getting soda as part of white privilege. We drank Kool-Aid too.
FrodosNewPet
(495 posts)Coming from a working class white family with southern Indiana roots, we ate "soul food" all the time. Chicken, greens, beans and cornbread, a glass of Kool Aid, a big slice of watermelon on a hot summer day. Nothing special about it.
It stumped me and pissed me off that delicious, affordable food was used by ignorant racists as an attack vector. At least one positive place, the Sweet Home Café at the National Museum of African American History and Culture is proudly serving traditional soul food dishes for Black History month.
https://nmaahc.si.edu/visit/sweet-home-cafe
Full Menu
The Agricultural South
. Buttermilk Fried Chicken, served with 2 sides
. Lexington Style BBQ Pork Sandwich, Slaw, Pickled Watermelon Rind, Potato Salad
. Slow Cooked Collards, Cornbread Sticks & Potlikker
. Sweet Corn Pudding
The Creole Coast
. Duck, Andouille & Crawfish Gumbo, Carolina Rice, Green Onions
. Gulf Shrimp & Stone Ground Grits, Smoked Tomato Butter, Caramelized Leeks, Crispy Tasso
. BBQ All Natural Chicken, Alabama White Sauce
. Pan-fried Louisiana Catfish Poboy, Smoked Red Pepper Rémoulade, Green Bean Pickles
. Louisiana-style Catfish, served with 2 sides
. Red Beans & Rice
. Candied Yams
. House Pickled Vegetables, Okra, Green Beans, Chow Chow, Green Tomatoes, B&B
The North States *Except during seasonal promotions
. Smoking Hot Pepper Pot
. Smoked Haddock & Corn Croquettes, Gribiche Sauce, House Made Brown Bread
. Smothered Turkey Grillades, Fried Apple, Sage Gravy, Johnny Cakes
. Thomas Downing Inspired NYC Oyster Pan Roast
. Yankee Baked Beans, Smokey Molasses Sauce
. Roast Sweet Potatoes, Cranberry Walnut Vinaigrette
The Western Range
. BBQ Beef Brisket Sandwich, Sweet Potato Bun, Charred Peach & Jalapeno Chutney
. Pan Roast Rainbow Trout, Cornbread & Mustard Green Stuffing, Hazelnut Brown Butter
. Black Eye Pea, Golden Corn & Chanterelle Empanada
. Sweet Tendril Salad, Shaved Radish & Crisp Carrot
. Skillet Cornbread
. High Mesa Peach & Blackberry Cobbler
Core Menu Offerings
. Hamburger / Cheeseburger
. Chicken Tenders
. Hot Dog / Half Smokes
. Chili
. French Fries
. Grab & Go Sandwiches, 2 Types
. Grab & Go Salads, 2 Types
. Grill items available
Home Made Sweets
. Praline Bread Pudding, Bourbon Caramel Sauce
. Banana Pudding Trifle
. Key Lime Cupcakes
. Pumpkin Spiced Cupcakes
. Johnston County Sweet Potato Pie
. Wild Turkey Pecan Pie
. Deep Dish Pumpkin Pie
House Made Beverages
. Sweet Earl Grey Tea & Late Harvest Peaches
. Cranberry Maple Fizz
. The Mix aka. Arnold Palmer
moriah
(8,311 posts)I do have to say this was something I noticed working on the road. You get out of the Southeast, and nobody seems to know how to make sweet tea, or serve it.
Instead you get regular iced tea and either have to sweeten it yourself with artificial sweetener, or stir FOREVER for real sugar to pretend to dissolve.
Still, I promise, it's easy. You add the sugar to the hot tea, then ice it.