Instructor: Rebecca Bauman
Course title: Devouring the Screen: Food in Film
Lesson title: African American Foodways and Food-Related Labor
In this course I taught a unit on African American foodways, which gave an opportunity for the class to discuss culinary traditions as connected to labor, specifically the agricultural labor that started with the slave trade in the 17th century. We discussed other forms of food-related labor traditionally performed by African Americans, especially as cooks and servers, and how Black cooks in particular both created their own unique culinary culture (based on African influences and food scarcity) while also being essential to the preparation and serving of food for white people throughout US history. We looked briefly at the Aunt Jemima stereotype, embodied in Louise Beaver’s role in Imitation of Life where she plays a Black cook who becomes an entrepreneur selling her own signature pancake batter (with the help of the main character, her white woman friend, who inexplicably receives most of the profits). The class activity was a prompt to discuss the film Daughters of the Dust, set in 1902, and how it portrays food in relation to the labor performed by women in the film and their different attitudes towards cooking. For homework students had a discussion forum online in which they had to discuss the way the quest for economic advancement influenced the departure from specific foodways (and hence, long-held cultural practices). In looking back, I would include more concrete tasks to help measure this, perhaps in a way that is repeated later in the class (for example in the final class when we discuss migrant food workers and their representation as rodents in the film Ratatouille). Suggestions are welcome!