Bernard Jones said
“For millions of African Americans like me, Thanksgiving Day means sweet potatoes, not pumpkins, and we love sweet potatoes so much that we won’t settle for having a sole side dish of candied sweet potatoes (we call them “yams,” but that’s another story) or sweet potato casserole. No, we have to double down on this tasty tuber and serve up sweet potato pie for dessert, too.
Sure, we eat this soul food classic year-round, but this is the week that the sweet potato pie really shines.
It doesn’t have to be the only dessert option on the holiday table, but it has to at least be part of the lineup.
As much as sweet potato pie is beloved within the black community and in the South, it doesn’t seem to get much love elsewhere. Our national pie divide is deepest when people choose between pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie on Thanksgiving Day. And that got me wondering: How did sweet potato pie become a soul-food favorite over its chief Thanksgiving rival? It started happening centuries ago, and it didn’t follow the path that you might expect...”
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FROM WAPO
Read More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/how-sweet-potato-pie-became-african-americans-favorite-dessert/2015/11/23/11da4216-9201-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6_story.html?utm_term=.bd79d903dc8b
NEXT UP:'
PATTI LA BELLE'S SWEET POTATO PIE RECIPE
BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM
“For millions of African Americans like me, Thanksgiving Day means sweet potatoes, not pumpkins, and we love sweet potatoes so much that we won’t settle for having a sole side dish of candied sweet potatoes (we call them “yams,” but that’s another story) or sweet potato casserole. No, we have to double down on this tasty tuber and serve up sweet potato pie for dessert, too.
Sure, we eat this soul food classic year-round, but this is the week that the sweet potato pie really shines.
It doesn’t have to be the only dessert option on the holiday table, but it has to at least be part of the lineup.
As much as sweet potato pie is beloved within the black community and in the South, it doesn’t seem to get much love elsewhere. Our national pie divide is deepest when people choose between pumpkin pie and sweet potato pie on Thanksgiving Day. And that got me wondering: How did sweet potato pie become a soul-food favorite over its chief Thanksgiving rival? It started happening centuries ago, and it didn’t follow the path that you might expect...”
* * * * *
FROM WAPO
When tracing the history of African American cuisine, it’s best to take stock of what was inherited from West Africa, our ancestral homeland. I’d thought and hoped that sweet potato pie had West African roots, but the trail begins in Peru, where sweet potatoes originated.
As early as the 16th century, Spanish traders shipped sweet potatoes from the Americas across the Atlantic Ocean on two different routes, one headed to West Africa and the other to Western Europe.
West African cooks [in the Americas] first experimented with sweet potatoes as a possible substitute for the other root crops (cassava, plantain and yams) that they used to make a typical meal of some sort of starch served with a savory sauce, soup or stew typically made with fish and vegetables. One particular specialty was fufu, in which a root is boiled, mashed or pounded and shaped into balls. For those who have made sweet potato pie, it doesn’t seem to be much of a leap to add eggs, milk, sugar and spices to make a dessert out of a savory mash.
Read More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/how-sweet-potato-pie-became-african-americans-favorite-dessert/2015/11/23/11da4216-9201-11e5-b5e4-279b4501e8a6_story.html?utm_term=.bd79d903dc8b
NEXT UP:'
PATTI LA BELLE'S SWEET POTATO PIE RECIPE
BLACKCHICKROCKED.BLOGSPOT.COM
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