Glossary of Slave Foods

Cala: Sweetened rice cake, African in origin, served with morning café au lait, formerly sold by black women in the French Quarter of New Orleans. In Georgia, this sweetened rice cake was called saraka.

Coffee: Word derived from Kaffa, region in Ethiopia.

Cowpeas: Black-eyed peas. Used in the southern U.S. by both blacks and whites. Travelled from Africa to North America in holds of slave ships as food for the cargoes.

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Fufu: Called “turn meal and flour” in South Carolina. A mixture of cornmeal and flour is poured into a pot of boiling water. From this fufu mixture, enslaved Africans made “hot cakes” in the fields, which were sometimes called ashcakes or hoecakes. These evolved into “pancakes” and “hotwater cornbread”. Also a common food throughout Africa and the New World consisting of yams, plantains, cassava roots (tapioca, manioc), Indian corn, pepper and okra.
Goober: Bantu word for peanut.
Grits: Enslaved Africans took hominy (the hulled dried kernels of Indian corn) and made grits by grinding the corn hauls and cooking them.
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Guinea Corn: Also called sorghum and millet.
Gunger Cake: Gingerbread, which is a dark molasses cake flavored with the powdered root of the ginger plant, is thought to have originated in the Congo and been carried to North America by enslaved Africans.
Hop’n johns: Traditional West African dish of black-eyed peas and rice cooked together. It is common in Black southern cuisine.
Okra: Originated in what geo-botanists call the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) center of human food zones. It has become the essential ingredient of Louisiana gumbo.

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Peanut Oil: First introduced by enslaved Africans in the American South, especially in deep-fat frying, a cooking style that originated in western and central Africa.
Kola: Trees were native to western Sudan, and their fruit, the Kola nut, became the principle ingredient used in making modern cola drinks. During the slave trade, kola nuts were given enslaved Africans to suppress their hunger and thirst. They were used also as a medicine of sorts.
Rice: In 1685 indigenous varieties of rice were imported from Madagascar to South Carolina. Some historians contend that enslaved Africans first showed white Americans how to cultivate rice. By 1740, rice had become a major staple in the South Carolina farming and slave-based economy.
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Sesame: Also known as benne seed. Brought over by West Africans. Slaves raised large crops of sesame, being fond of the plant’s nutritious seeds for making soups and puddings. They also used the sesame oil for cooking and light8ing lamps within private estates as well as on the public roads.