Foods

The question of eating special food on a particular day immediately
brings in mind Thanksgiving Day, when turkey becomes the universal dish.
Perhaps no other day in the year can be so designated, except among a
few religious orders when the eating of meat is strictly prohibited on
certain days.

The belief that negroes are particularly addicted to eating pork is well
founded, as witness the sales of pork to colored people in most any meat
market. But who could imagine that cotton-seed was once the universal
food eaten in this vicinity by the colored people? That, according to
Doc Quinn, a former slave, and self-styled exmember of Cullen Baker's
Gang, was the custom before and shortly after the Civil War.

The cotton-seed would be dumped into a hugh pot, and boiled for several
hours, the seed gradually rising to the top. The seed would then be
dipped off with a ladle. The next and final step would be to pour
corn-meal into the thick liquid, after which it was ready to be eaten.
Cotton-seed, it must be remembered, had little value at that time,
except as livestock feed.

"Yes suh, Cap'n," the old negro went on to explain. "I has never eaten
anything whut tasted any better, or whut would stick to your ribs like
cotton-seed, and corn-meal cake. Rich? Why dey's nuthin dat is more
nutritious. You never saw a healthier or finer lookin' bunch of negroes
dan wuz on Colonel Harvey's place.