Oral Food Narratives, Sacred Memory & Folklore: How Family History is Passed Down at the Kitchen Table

This discussion explores some of the ways we catalog and document the Black, Latinx, and Indigenous cultures in our foodways systems, focusing especially on how history is passed down in the preparation of hand-patted foods at the kitchen table. Here is where we can reclaim the art of oral history, of inducting new griots in the skill of retelling our stories. Some attention will be given to food storytelling through film and television, including the 1997 Black film classic, Soul Food, Norman Lear’s classic 1970s sitcom, Good Times, and the 2001 comedy, Tortilla Soup. A cursory look will be given to Idiomatic and cultural expressions, like this food is so good you put your foot into it, or this food is bucklin’ or you did that! as a means of gratitude and extension of the social mores and values that are learned at the kitchen table.