MLK, Black History Month, and Cuisine Correctness
On MLK Day last month, the Denver Public Schools served Southern-style fried chicken, biscuits, and collard greens for lunch.
Despite the fact that MLK was actually from the South and actually liked those foods, the racial grievance crowd raised hell and complained that the menu was RAAAAACIST — prompting an apology from the school system.
Now, we have another p.c. food brouhaha — from the cafeteria halls of NBC News in New York City.
Mediaite has a photo of the network’s Black History Month menu, which includes fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas, and biscuits.
JWF is certainly right to call out the Left for its double standards:
“Could you imagine the media meltdown if Fox” did this?
True enough. And the demogogue race-baiters at MSNBC certainly don’t help.
But the annoying double standard doesn’t justify joining the cuisine correctness crowd and extracting apologies for serving up soul food.
My prescription: Everybody, chillax.
See what others have said
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Categories: Chris Matthews,Double standards,Keith Olbermann,Race Hustlers,Race relations
Does this mean no more margaritas on Cinco de Mayo? Dang!
Shoot, that’s not racism, just good eatin’ If anything were racist about it, it is the sad fact that they seem only to serve sweet, sweet fried chicken one day a year! Those poor souls.
BTW, do they serve meatballs and spaghetti around Columbus Day?
Columbus Day? I thought the PC crowd eliminated that holiday. After all, Chris was a white European who had evil designs on the native populations. According to historical revisionism, he initiated all types of maladies on the people of the New World including genocide.
Awwwww, screw it! Pass the spag and balls.
It’s still called Soul Food: on menu, restaurant name, spice…you name it – at least here in the south where people aren’t hung up on race like they is up north in LiberalLand.
Anybody ever see the episodes on The Food Network when Alton Brown toured the Mississippi River towns, starting in the south, and visited all those wonderful black restaurants in MS, LA, AR and TN? They had the food going on!
So, let me get this straight. We set aside a month to celebrate Black history, and people are branded as racist for acknowledging facts about the Black culture (i.e. cuisine)? I thought the whole point was to acknowledge and celebrate Black history/culture. Does anyone else see the irony of the Left “white-washing” Black history?
Born and raised in the heart of the South, I think this new racist menu is hilarious, as people eat fried chicken, black-eyed peas, cornbread and greens whenever the mood strikes.
New Year’s Day menu for many, many Southerner’s (for luck and prosperity, comfort food, and because our Grandmothers said so)consists of Hoppin’ John (black-eyed peas with rice made with hamhock), collard greens (Emeril’s recipe is the best), and cornbread,followed up with pecan (pe-cahn) pie, racists that we are.
They should have offered pickled pig’s lips, but that would have offended the Muslim crowd. Personally, have never tried this treat, but it was spotted by a Jewish member of our wedding at a gas station near New Orleans when he flew into the Deep South for the first time. His story of culture shock cracked us up.
When are they going to start French Huegonot Month for me to honor my ancestors?
What, no fried okra? As a southern transplant I have come to enjoy just about all southern cuisine – even grits. Just can’t find the stomach for okra green slime balls. Sorry.
No fried okra on New Year’s Day, but in the summer, look out (there is no better summer meal than fresh tomatoes,summer squash casserole, fried okra, field peas and cornbread, throw in some ham for the carnivores, but I liked the vegetables from Daddy’s garden).
My beloved grandmothers had strict rules about New Year’s Day…you could have a year of bad luck or something if not followed (I still do, even with Yankee husband–who loves the South and the food, to avoid questions in heaven).
Just read the comments on the cornbread war: no sweet cornbread for me (Yankee husband likes the sweet stuff). I make Mexican Cornbread now (adding sour cream, jalapenos and corn). Oops, now have offended the Mexicans.
No boiled okra,evah, but ok in seafood gumbo as it can’t be detected.
We’re supposed to praise Obama, but nothing else related to all things blackness.
Which got me to thinking, maybe the menu should be half black and half honkey…deep fried wagu beef, or something on that line…
A delectable carte du jour (for your Huegonot sensibilities) to be sure, save one item.
One question: Were I to join you, would the hound dog under the table eat my okra?
You don’t need to be put down and constantly reminded of being a 2nd class citizen, in order for you to blindly support the left. It isn’t worth it for the politicians. Now, for blacks and hispanics, that’s different.
Black beans, and any sort of blackened fish are also out.
Other than Texas, you can forget anything BBQ.
Awww…screw ‘em. Let’s keep eating good ol’ soul food. If the libs don’t like it, more for us.
I will cede the brisket category to Texas, but ribs, chicken and my personal favorite, pulled pork are better elsewhere.
Stupid school, shouldn’t have apologized.
French Huegonot on my pop’s side! Pop and mom both Virginians. Once a week we had southern fried chicken.
Memphis. No question.
Racist!!!
Apparently, as a white (well, white/Native American mix), I am not supposed to like fried chicken, but . . .
DAMN, THAT PICTURE IS MAKING ME HUNGRY!
Seriously, can’t we get past the idea that certain foods are associated with certain racial stereotypes? We like what we like, skin color be damned.
swede,hard to say, but given that he is a Golden Retriever, probably yes, as he will eat anything. Perhaps the fried okra you tried was not up to standards. It could be an aquired taste, like grits.
Am also Scots/Irish and English from the early settlers. Husband is of more recent legal immigrant stock (4th generation): Polish, Irish, German with a tad of Lithuanian. Our sons are Grade A USA casserole conservatives who vote Republican, and, thankfully, loved all meals growing up,not just Southern.
On February 4th, 2010 at 5:09 pm, spaceycakes said:
I’ll never understand this food mentality…I grew up eating greens, beans, turnips, cornbread, fried chicken, squirrel, rabbit & the odd raccoon. Not to mention catfish, carp and most parts of the pig. WTH is wrong with people?? Have they no shame?
BTW; I’m from Missouri.
————————————–
Coolness, a fellow Missourian!
I grew up in High Ridge, then lived in Fenton and now Pilot Knob. I must say, though, my family was not quite as adventurous as yours with food; although fried chicken was a regular dinner, and I loved it (and still do).
Everybody needs a little KFC (and Popeye’s, and Church’s, etc.)
Fried okra is generally eaten with ketchup, which makes everything taste good. Chicken livers too. ** smack, smack **
RSS apparently you have a reading conprehension disability. Please note in the article “sterotypical and offensive” meaning they felt it was racist! Seriously why does everyone have to spell this easy stuff out to you?
Not only is it stupid to call menus racist, the foods in question are eaten and enjoyed by blacks and whites alike in the south.
I am so tired of the Yankee liberals and their cartoonish ideas of the south. BTW, what foods do northerners eat that didn’t originate somewhere else?
What music do they enjoy that didn’t come from the south for that matter?
Interesting, especially when the #1 minority in Denver doesn’t have a cow over the Mexican menu served at least once a week.
Ever notice how it always takes only one black (or gay) to get their panties in a wad and nose out of joint to make the wheels come off and grind to a stop? This is a lot like terrorists and the manufactured fear factor.
Since lobster was once considered such a poor food, it was served to slaves, it, too, is “stereotypical and offensive.”
They forgot watermelon
toysurgeon
Now you’re asking for it.
J S Ragman said:
Too late…
EXACTLY!
Ok, ok…I ate raccoon once. My late father told me, ‘You’re still not a real Missouri gal unless you’ve had possum.’ That’s where I draw the line.
Anyway, I don’t eat much of that stuff nowadays, but my favorite meals still include beans, greens, turnips, okra and beets.
And I don’t hunt, but to paraphrase Jackie Mason, I shop.
It’s real easy to find bad fried okra. It’s important to get it as quickly from the fryer as possible because of the gumminess making the breading gooey.
Try making it at home with a small batch. Just coat it with some breadcrumbs and toss it in a pan with a little oil. Eat it fresh and you may have a completely new perspective on okra.
Born in Virginia of Virginia parents, Virginia grandparents, Virginia and Irish greatgrandparents. Family is English, Irish, Welsh, Scott, with a dash of French way back when.
Except for the collard greens (substitute black eyed peas), that’s what I eat.
So the “perpetually offended” crowd can kiss my grits.
jangar
My apologies.
Mom?
It doesn’t offend me whenever they serve boiled cabbage and kielbasa during Slavic History Month.
Oh, wait…
The PC crowd doesn’t know what a slav is.
Serve potatoes covered in soot, wash it down with whisky & you’ve got Scots-Irish American Coalmine Slave month.
That’s my grandparents’ background.
Perhaps. Am willing to give okra another chance, but am still skeptical. Gooey, slimy, gummy comes to mind.
I finally “got it” re grits when told instant grits is not the real deal. True enough.
How about a big plate of hipocrisy, with some irony on the side.
Just checked with my 88 year old mother (she and we were all raised in southern Texas):
Slice across, roll in a little flour but mostly cornmeal, and S&P. Then fry in some kind of “grease” (bacon grease comes to mind).
I’m offended. As a white southerner, this kind of food is not proprietary to the black population. I’ve never tasted better fried chicken that what my Mama used to make during my entire childhood. She learned to cook these foods from her mother and so on. To suggest that it’s “black food” excludes my cultural experience.
Who can I sue?
Apparently, most of Michelle’s readers have never had correctly cooked fried okra. Fried correctly, it is not slimy. It is crisp and taste great. I would never even think of using catchup on fried okra.The proper way of frying okra. Cut, dredge/shake in flour, dip in buttermilk, then dredge/shake in cornmeal mixed with salt, pepper, and red pepper per taste. Fry in vegetable oil with a tablespoon or so of bacon grease in the mix or 350 degrees. Fry to a golden brown, drain on paper towel. Enjoy!
I tried this, but the paper towel tasted soggy and greasy…
Hey, wait a minute! I leave for a little while and I’m raked over the coals for sweet cornbread? We make sweet and regler cornbread….I just prefer sweet thats all. And pdv’s recipe above is exactly how you come out with excellent okra. If it’s slimey….you ain’t cookin’ it right!
And “regler” is the correct spelling and punctuation for the son of a Kentucky coal miners daughter!
Michelle, Lewis Grizzard wrote the definitive smackdown on the whole soul food is racist line back in the 90s. I wish I could find it on line.
spaceycakes, my Arkansas grandpa used to eat armadillo. Claimed it tasted like pork; I was never brave enough and didn’t get his recipe.
ooops.
Swap “punctuation” with “pronunciation”.
If I had one hour to live, I would spend it at Johnny Harris in Savannah, Georgia (If Walls was closed for the day which it often is).
Those heathen NBCers. There isn’t watermelon on that menu. You can’t do a proper sterotype without watermelon.
Hey—nobody, and I mean nobody can ever make me eat them damn chitlins again. Once was enough. Puhleeze, since when is Fried Chicken a racial thing! I got hungry jest lookin’ at that picshure….
We can cook black eyed peas up at our high altitude only with the aid of a pressure cooker. They are DEE-Lishous.
Have you tried crumbling into chunks your cornbread and put it in a glass of cold buttermilk? Just add salt and pepper, then enjoy!!!!
Almost all other southern food is great (will pass on chitterlings [chittlins] and possum).
we call that ‘possum on the half-shell’
Got home last night to find dinner was KFC.
ECS
I remember about 18 years ago…my then-mother-in-law took me to some little cafe in downtown Pine Bluff. The cook was named Mutt, a heavyset black woman with bare feet. The blue plate special was chicken and dumplings. To date, the best I ever had. Too bad I couldn’t keep my mother-in-law after the divorce.
A couple years ago I planned a spaghetti & meatball lunch fundraiser for a non-profit group I’m a member of. After all the announcements went out, someone noticed it was on St. Patrick’s Day. Woo Boy! Did I get a lot of complaints about that one.
You ain’t had my okrie.
I just killed one, tearing holes in my yard…Supper!!
(no kidding, but I doubt I go so far as to eat him)
I’m intrigued…
http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/262/Texas_Armadillo35982.shtml
Ah, the memories…
Anybody got a good biscut recipe? Mine make the dog choke.
My grandmother made the best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten and biscuits. Here’s her recipe Jangar:
preheat oven to 4500
2 cups of flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup crisco shortening
3/4 cup milk
mix dry ingredients, add shortening and mix with flour until you get pea sized pieces of shortening. You can use a fork or a pastry mixer thingy–I forget what they’re called.
add the milk and mix only enough to wet the dry mix. Don’t over mix or you will have dry and tough biscuits.
My Grandmother would drop by spoonfuls into a cast iron pan that was greased with crisco. But you can roll them out and cut them, too. You can bake on a sheet or in a cake pan but cast iron gives you a crispy bottom crust.
Bake for 10 or 12 minutes until tops are brown.
Are you heat treating or just melting this chickie.
j/k I know what you said. I will try the recipe
Thanks!
oops, that’s blasting them to eternity.
It should be 450 degrees. That pesky little degree sign doesn’t work.
You’re welcome.
At least my oven is clean now
Scrapple? Ya oughta try it. What is it? Everything but the oink….lol