Are There Really American Foods of African Descent?
You may be surprised to know what foods were brought to this country through the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Hundreds of years later, we can still find some of them in pantries and on kitchen tables across the country, from sesame seeds and black-eyed peas to peanuts. Originally brought to Africa from Brazil by the Portuguese slave traders, the popular peanut was introduced to the colonies through the slave trade. Likewise, yams and watermelons, both products specific to African agriculture, traveled across the ocean to take root in southern soils. Another food item in American cuisine that benefited from the African influence is one we often don’t associate with either Africa or America—rice. In fact, just as cotton and tobacco were cash crops cultivated by enslaved labor, which generated millions of dollars for this nation’s colonial and pre-Civil War economies, rice played a major role in the agricultural development of America. The success with rice was the direct result of enslaved
