Kindred and cornmeal mush.

This is one of my personal favourites, by my favourite author Octavia Butler. Kindred is a unique text that shows how the excruciating period of slavery has, and will have, ongoing effects on generations to come. This is shown through the character of Dana, an African-American woman, who keeps falling from the current year of 1976,  back in time 200 years to the deep south. With absolutely no clue what's going on, she realises she has to alter her persona and her actions in order to have a chance at staying alive. It makes us realise the importance of not forgetting how wrongfully and horrifically black people were treated, and how these actions have had, and will keep having,  an effect on life as we know it today.
Although not highly focused on food, I feel that this is in actual fact the key in an attempt to understand the Politics of food during this time and how scarce food availability was during this time. However when saying this, this is not because of a shortage, but because of how ingredients were distributed between white and black people.

This novel forces the reader to recognise the everlasting impact the slavery has, signified with the story starting with Dana having her arm ripped off by her ancestor, Rufus, who refuses to let her go. When realising she’d have to fit in with those around her to prevent herself from being killed, Dana finds herself in a cookhouse, segregated from the main house, like animals.
Even before discussing actual food, Dana She describes Luke and Nigel, two of the male slaves, eating from wooden bowls with wooden spoons and children sat on the floor, eating with their fingers. The culinary equipment provided was the most basic way to possible to hold food. 

“Supper was cornmeal mush” (Butler, 75).

Even the name of the food sounds horrendous enough to avoid eating it. Cornmeal mush is simply made by mixing cornflour with water. Slaves were literally just being fed to survive, in the most basic way possible.

She misread my expression “that not enough?” (Butler, 75)- the look of disgust on Dana’s face was at the actual food, not the size of the portion, however Sarah did not interpret this as clearly, she wouldn’t expect Dana to have ever eaten anything else other than mush. It is also interesting that the boys had milk on their mush: milk on their mush was as if it was a privilege, making it smoother to swallow. However my interpretation was that this was because it would help their bones stay strong (for heavy work etc).

Luke then explains that they get better food when the white folk had left, in other words, their table scraps. Of these scraps were boiled meat, bread, peas and potatoes. Which were thrown in a pot to make stew. The most simple items that seemed a luxury to Dana at this point.

African-American writer Frederick Douglas wrote in his biography about cornmush. He said “Our corn meal mush was our only regular if not all-sufficing diet, when sufficiently cooled by cooking, was placed in a large tray or trough… he who could ate fastest got most and he that was strongest got the best place, but few left the trough really satisfied.  (The Fredrick Douglass papers 59)

When comparing this to a recipe I found online that was published in the 21st century. The slogan before the recipe reads
"This recipe reminds me of the 'good ol' days'. I hope you enjoy this great tasting recipe.".
I find this fascinating, as this was a meal distributed to people, particularly black people because they were not considered worthy to eat anything else and I'm sure it did not remind everybody of 'good' old days.
Very interesting to see how food can have a completely different meaning to different groups of people!