Tea at Trianon: Cooks Who Lived in Slavery

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Cooks Who Lived in Slavery

From Atlas Obscura:

A historical archaeologist at the University of Glasgow, Brunache has investigated the meals that enslaved African people created in the French Caribbean, food that she calls “slave cuisine.” Through excavations on the islands of Guadeloupe, she and her colleagues have catalogued bones and shells, and analyzed remains of pottery to clue into the ingredients and types of food enslaved people cooked for themselves.
Those studies, along with the work of many other scholars, provide a window into the day-to-day experiences of people who lived in slavery. In discussing such meals, Brunache pairs the words “slave” and “cuisine” because these ideas may strike some listeners as a jarring juxtaposition. Her use of “cuisine” is an intentional homage to the skill and creativity of enslaved cooks, typically Black women, who made these foods that are still celebrated today.

In Brunache’s kitchen, the aroma of soup joumou entices her family long before it’s ready to eat. But Brunache also cooks for audiences of dozens or hundreds, using food to broach the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. (Read more.)