Here's Why Your Fried Chicken and Watermelon Lunch Is Racist

[CitizenLeft]

211. someone up-thread mentioned chitlins ("chitterlings")

My family (black) is from New England, but my aunt married a man from the South, so she used to cook chitlins for him. Every so often, she'd cook them for herself and her sons, too. The smell was Godawful. I tried it one of those times and I couldn't overcome the texture. Ugh.

I'm bringing this up because DL Hughley told a story about chitlins last week on his radio show. He said his mother served chitlins in his childhood, but he hated them. But when she explained to him the history of chitterlings, he changed his mind and even started to like them. Chitterlings are the intestines of a pig. They were throw-away garbage that the master on the plantation gave to the slaves for food. Sometimes that’s all they were given. So the slaves found a way to make them taste good. DL Hughley’s mother told him that, to her, a mother in bondage making a meal taste good so that her children would have something to eat was a supreme act of love. And so he thinks of it this way today.

For Black History month, that kind of background info behind certain foods would be educational. BBQ ribs had the same genesis, I think. I’m sure there are people better schooled about it, but that’s my take on food and black history.