Slavery in America

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Slave Diet Web Resources

Web site Evaluators
Kent Willmann - Silver Creek High, Colorado
Hallie Williamson - Acaciawood School, California

Web site Reviewer and Compiler
Barbara Bureker - Evergreen Internet Academy, Washington

Site Ratings

1 = Poor

2 = Fair

3 = Good

4 = Excellent

The Congo Cookbook
http://www.congocookbook.com/index_55.html
This is part of a large and complex site called The Congo Cookbook. It includes links to many African recipes as well as a great deal of information about African food and customs surrounding food. The entire cookbook can be downloaded as a PDF file for $3.00, while most, if not all, recipes are also available as part of this site. Images are sprinkled throughout, and excerpts from primary sources add richness and depth to the information. Examples of these include excerpts from "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African" by Olaudah Equiano (1750) and "Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar" by Emily Ruete (mid 1800s). A negative aspect of this site would be the many advertisements and other distracting banners. If students can ignore those, this site is an extremely valuable resource on African food, especially if authentic recipes are needed. Both middle and high school students will find this site of interest.
Overall Rating: 4

Soul Food
http://www.foxhome.com/soulfood/index_frames.html
This is a Fox Home Entertainment site built around the movie/video Soul Food. Although portions of this site are obviously commercial, one of the four available links leads to an in-depth look at "The History of Soul Food." This is an extremely informative site, and includes a nice list of sources. The article begins with the typical African diet of hundreds of years ago, and examines how slavery affected that diet. This exploration of "soul food" history continues into the present. Included are interesting stories about how some dishes, such as hush puppies and hoe cakes, gained their names. The text is well written and would be a valuable resource for both middle and high school students. Although there are no pictures, the text should keep most students interested.
Overall Rating: 3

Stamp on Black History: The History of African American Cooking
http://library.thinkquest.org/10320/History.htm
This Thinkquest site was created by students and is a good model of such projects, particularly for middle school students. It includes brief historical information about African American food and cooking, and a number of recipes for typical dishes. The text is easily read by upper elementary students as well as middle and high school students. Since the information presented is very brief, this site should not be used alone for research. The recipes appear to be good ones and are simple enough to be useful for students wishing to cook some of these traditional dishes.
Overall Rating: 3

African-American Foods
http://www.wvu.edu/~ghacad/africa/food1.html
Part of an African-American Culture web site, this site describes some of the staple foods of Africans and describes the changes in the diets of Africans who were brought to America as slaves. It is a “good source of information about the slave diet and indirectly, the life of a slave in the American South.” One link leads back to the home page and on to other aspects of African-American culture, including history, religion and others. No external links are offered. The site is colorful and attractive; the reading level and content “are appropriate for middle and high school students.” It could be a “good place to start research on foods or to generate topics.”
Overall Rating: 3

History of Soul Food
http://www.jimworks.com/Trinas/history.htm
An informative part of Trina’s Soul Food Café web site, this site describes the history of soul food as it relates to the history of Africans in the United States. It is “simply written so that both middle and high school students will be able to understand it,” and it “offers information and terminology that may be difficult to find in other school resources.” It includes no bibliography or list of sources, and the links available lead to information about the Café, rather than other useful material. This site could serve as a “beginning point for research and cooking projects,” or as “one resource that a student may use as part of a research project.”
Overall Rating: 3

Our Vegetable Travelers: Okra
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/publications/vegetabletravelers/okra.html
Okra is the focus on this page of the "Our Vegetable Travelers" web site. The origins and history of this Southern vegetable is examined, although its place in the slave diet is not mentioned in the article. Although fairly brief, this is a valuable site for middle or high school students who are researching foods that originated in Africa, and which were a part of the slave diet.
Overall Rating: 2+