Throwback Thursday: The Black Thanksgiving Menu, Explained

This week, we give thanks to Black Thanksgiving with a series of tutorials on navigating one of the greatest holidays of all time.

(Envato)

As part of ContrabandCamp’s ongoing efforts to demystify the cultural customs of Black America, we are exploring one of the oldest and most heralded traditions of the African-American community: the ceremony known as Black Thanksgiving.

This post originally appeared on NegusWhoRead on Nov. 24, 2015.

On Sept. 29, 1526, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón landed on the present-day South Carolina coastline with 600 people, including soldiers, wives, farmers, laborers and, of course, dozens of stolen Africans. After the undocumented immigrants got through customs, they had a ceremony to christen San Miguel de Gualdape—the first European settlement in the continental U.S.

Unfortunately, the white people weren’t very good settlers. After an infectious disease killed most of the settlers within two weeks, the illegal aliens split into two factions, with half wanting to self-deport and half wanting to stay.

The Washington Post reports:

Then, the Spanish historian wrote, “it happened that some of the Negro slaves independently set fire to [a leader’s] house … and as the fire burnt they all gathered to kill him; and in this way they managed to escape.”

Thus, the first enslaved Africans known to have been brought to the continent were also the first to revolt.

“It appears that the Africans ran into the forest, never to be seen again,” Cameron wrote. Weeks later, when the remaining Spanish bailed on the settlement and sailed away, there was no mention of any enslaved Africans onboard.

Many historians believe the first Africans in the place that became America assimilated with the indigenous people of South Carolina. In any case, there is no doubt that they thanked their gods when they saw their enslavers heeding this glorious final boarding call. This white-people-free existence is worthy of giving thanks.

Yes, Black Thanksgiving predates the feast of colonizers by nearly a century.

As you learn more about Thanksgiving, many of you will say: “This is almost exactly like white Thanksgiving, but not quite.”

It is always the “not quite” part that is important. I am just as handsome as Idris Elba, but not quite. Donald Trump’s Thousand Island-colored skin bronzer looks very natural, but not quite. America has always treated Black people the same as its Caucasian citizens, but not quite.

See the difference?

Nowhere is that subtle difference more apparent than in the food at Black Thanksgiving. The food at Black Thanksgiving is the syrupy-sweet essence of Blackness, deep-fried and then covered with aluminum foil. The menu at Black Thanksgiving closely resembles any other Thanksgiving menu …

But not quite.

Turkey

Unlike white Thanksgivings, the turkey is one of the least important parts of Black Thanksgiving. It is a necessary ingredient because the turkey is what separates a Thanksgiving meal from a family reunion, a cookout or a post-funeral dinner. In fact, Black Thanksgiving ain’t nothing but an interior-based cookout with a turkey.

The turkey is the one part of the dinner that involves uncles. Many uncles have begun deep-frying turkeys lately (because what doesn’t taste good when it’s deep-fried?). And because every self-respecting uncle carries a knife (or at least a box cutter), they are often responsible for carving the turkey. This is not patriarchal. This is simply because any self-respecting Black man always carries a knife anyway.

This might be different in other cultures’ homes, depending on the tool of choice. For instance, Cardi B’s family might use a box cutter to slice the turkey. White people might use racism to divide the turkey into parts. I think I read in a Rolling Stone interview that some people even tried to cut their turkey with Taylor Swift lyrics at last year’s Thanksgiving.

Unfortunately, they were too dull.

Dressing

White people eat stuffing. Black people eat dressing.

There’s nothing at all wrong with stuffing, but I personally believe that the continued ingestion of stuffing can lead to behavioral changes like the inability to recognize the downbeat or the desire to masturbate publicly. I’m just saying, I’ve eaten dressing all my life and have never once felt the desire to masturbate in a room with more than one person. Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K. and Mark Halperin ate stuffing all their lives, and look what happened.

That’s just science.

Macaroni

Macaroni is the Beyoncé of the Thanksgiving dishes; it’s the headliner. I know that some white people build their Thanksgiving dinners around mashed potatoes, which is the second-whitest thing I’ve ever heard (Louis C.K.’s polite request is currently atop the charts). Mashed potatoes require no skill at all. The entire recipe is literally in the name. You just mash potatoes. That’s it.

Conversely, macaroni is a big fucking deal. The person who makes the macaroni at Black Thanksgiving requires a majority vote by the aunts, two-thirds of the uncles and still must go through a cousin confirmation hearing. In fact, my Aunt Phyllis, our family’s designated maker of dressing and macaroni, suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease, and we have already selected our cousin Tasha to serve as an apprentice under her tutelage as Aunt Phyllis’ immediate successor.

At some blended Black Thanksgivings, there may be more than one macaroni-maker. In these cases, you will often hear family members inquire as to who made the macaroni. The easiest way to identify a superior crafter of macaroni and cheese (see what I did there?) is to listen when people ask the question. Because there is no tact or subtlety in macaroni-related areas at Black Thanksgiving, someone will eventually yell: “Which one of these macaronis is Aunt Phyllis’?”

That’s the one you want.

Cornbread

Like dressing, there is a divide surrounding cornbread. Some people prefer sweet cornbread, while others prefer white people’s cornbread.

Also, never use Jiffy. Trust me, one of your aunts is a forensic scientist with a tongue more delicate than an electron spectrometer. I used Jiffy for a year (not for the standalone cornbread, but for the dressing), and my family’s Thanksgiving turned into an intervention/prayer service. After Uncle Otis prayed for 47 minutes and my Aunt Earline re-anointed my forehead and pleaded the blood, I never tried it again—not because I was saved from carnal mind …

Do you know how hard it is to get the Blood of Jesus out of your pillowcase?

Fried Chicken

Fried chicken must be served at all Black Thanksgivings. It must be seasoned with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt and cooked onsite. It must be fried in grease (not cooking oil—“grease.” Cooking oil is for cooking. Grease is for frying) and then laid on a bed of paper towels. Here is the key to Black Thanksgiving fried chicken:

The grease can’t be new.

It must be pre-used from the last time you made fried chicken. I know you’re thinking, “Well, at some point the grease has to be new!”

Listen, white people, I don’t have the answer to which came first, the chicken or the grease. All I know is my grandmother’s grandmother passed down her chicken grease through six generations, and we are still frying chicken in the grease of our ancestors.

Yams

Black Thanksgiving is a very yam-based holiday. I am a candied-yam person myself, but some Black families will allow sweet potato casserole.

The sweet potato pie is second only to macaroni in importance of “who made this.” Every Black family has a designated sweet-potato-pie person, and it is rarely the macaroni-maker. A dual macaroni- and sweet-potato-pie-making aunt is a Black unicorn. Many people do both things well, but almost no one is the best at both things.

I don’t recommend dual macaroni- and pie-making because it is very dangerous. Any freak accident to a dual mac-and-pie-maker could ruin Thanksgiving. We don’t even let my Aunt Marvell (our designated sweet-potato-pie-maker) in the room with Aunt Phyllis. Even though they live literally down the street from each other, they can only talk by phone. They hadn’t seen each other in 34 years, until I showed them how to FaceTime, which was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. (Have you ever tried teaching two 70-year-old Black women how to use an iPhone? It’s like explaining devil magic!)

Hopefully, once Tasha finishes her master’s in macaroni, Phyllis and Marvell can reunite.

Greens

Greens are a low-key dish with an important value. The only thing you must know about collards is that it matters who cleaned them more than it matters who cooked them.

Speaking of cleaning …

Chitlins

I am neither anti- nor pro-chitlins. I grew up in a no-chitlins family, so it is not part of my family tradition, but I recognize that some people equate Thanksgiving with chitlins. There is only one thing I want to say to bougie Black people:

Stop chitlin-shaming!

I am from the Deep South and was surrounded by chitlin eaters. They are just like you and me. They put on their dingy overalls one leg at a time. If they want to spend hours rinsing dooky off pig intestines, who am I to judge? Maybe it’s the Black version of kissing dogs in the mouth.

Let them live.

Racism

I understand that white people are excited about trying new things like jumping off cliffs with kites strapped to their backs and public masturbation, but Thanksgiving is not the time for adventures. And I’m not one of those people who think that pineapples don’t go on pizza. It’s your pizza, do whatever the fuck you want. But there are times when Caucasian shenanigans are not appropriate, and Black Thanksgiving is not the time to gentrify recipes with new shit.

No one wants vegan pork chops or gluten-free cornbread at Thanksgiving. I want the same Thanksgiving meal my great-grandmother ate in 1919. That’s right; I want Red Summer yams and Jim Crow collards. Now that I think about it, that’s probably how my Aunt Rosalind noticed I was using Jiffy. The cornbread didn’t taste oppressed.

This is in no way a complete menu. These are simply the staples of Black Thanksgiving. Notice that everything at Black Thanksgiving is homemade. If you bring a store-bought dish to Black Thanksgiving, you might as well bring Louis C.K. because it’s the same thing: an inappropriately gross public display.

If you are ever invited to Black Thanksgiving, now you know what you will eat. This menu is as universal as it is Black. And I’m not saying that white people can’t understand this tradition, because white people have as much ability to infuse their culture and love into their food as Black people …

But not quite.