I would agree wholeheartedly with the posting by Tom (Eastern
Shore)--the flood of postings about food, cooking, memories, and culture
has been fascinating. We are what we eat, in more ways than one. The
history of food is a burgeoning specialty. Look at the two fat volumes
of the recent Cambridge World History of Food if you want confirmation
of that.

I don't know whether any of the recent postings has mentioned "chitlins"
(I confess I haven't read every word of every posting). I do recall some
discussion of using every part of a pig. Chitlins are made with the
pig's intestines. I found in the court records of Accomack County what
may be the first documentary evidence that they were, in fact, consumed
by Virginians of African (and mixed) descent, if not by other Virginians
at the time (1679). A grandson of Anthony and Mary Johnson--Richard
Johnson Jr.--was working as a hired laborer on a plantation at Matomkin
along with a few English servants. They were busy slaughtering and
dressing some hogs for their employer. When the Englishmen were about to
dispose of the hogs' guts "a good way from the house for fears of
stinking," Richard interjected, "I wish I had the... hoggs guts at home,
the fatt and offil would serve me to frey with homine all the winter."
(You never know what you'll find in county court records....)

Anyway, food is a very important "marker" of culture and object of
memory, individual and collective.

Doug Deal

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