The Economist - UK (2022-03-19)

78 Culture The Economist March 19th 2022

Worldina dish

Makers and shapers

T

he most visually strikingthings on

display  at  “African/American:  Making

the Nation’s Table”, an exhibition at the Af­

rica  Centre  in  Harlem,  are  a  quilt  and  a

kitchen. The quilt (pictured) is made up of

406  squares,  each  depicting  an  African­

American  contribution  or  contributor  to

American  cuisine.  It  invites  study:  work­

ing out who is who, and what each cookie

or tankard represents. The test kitchen for

Ebonymagazine, rescued from demolition

in  Chicago,  is  a  paragon  of  psychedelic

chic,  with  multicoloured  whorls  covering

the walls, cabinets and even the dishwash­

er, along with pea­green countertops and a

dark orange refrigerator.

But the most revealing artefacts may be

the most prosaic: an ice­cream scoop and a

photograph of a man standing in front of a

truck.  Alfred  Cralle  invented  the  scoop

with  a  built­in  scraper,  turning  what  had

been a laborious task usually requiring two

hands and at least two implements (frozen

ice­cream is hard and slippery) into a sim­

ple one. And Frederick McKinley Jones in­

vented the first portable refrigerated unit,

allowing  perishable  food  to  be  shipped

more  widely.  These  two  objects,  now  so

commonplace  as  to  be  unremarkable,

changed how and what the world eats.

They  embody  the  exhibition’s  stated

premise. In the words of Jessica Harris, an

author,  culinary  historian  and  the  show’s

lead  curator:  “African­American  food  is

American food.” Americans, along with the

rest  of  the  world,  can  eat  strawberries  in

February  and  Cape  Cod  oysters  far  from

Massachusetts  because  of  Jones’s  inven­

tion. Ice­cream enthusiasts  everywhere

can enjoy their dessert with ease, and less

risk of covering themselves in frozen goo,

thanks to Cralle’s.

Cralle’s invention also signifies the ex­

hibition’s  tacit  idea:  that  African­Ameri­

cans  have  never  received  the  credit  they

deserve  for  their  influence  on  American

cuisine.  Cralle  patented  his  invention  but

never  profited  from  it.  Nearest  Green,  an

enslaved distiller born around 1820, is not

nearly as well known as the white man he

taught to make and filter whisky—a fellow

named Jack Daniel. In coastal Georgia and

South  Carolina  enslaved  West  Africans

turned  immense  malarial  swamps  into

productive  rice  fields  but  never  enjoyed

the  riches  that  their  labour  produced.

Thomas  Jefferson  is  renowned  as  a  gour­

met and oenophile, but his enslaved cook,

James Hemings, made the food (including

a  “macaroni  pie”)  that  won  the  Founding

Father culinary fame.

This is a valuable corrective. The feeling

visitors  are  left  with  at  the  end  is  admira­

tion at the ingenuity of the brewers, chefs,

distillers,  farmers,  restaurateurs,  writers

and  others  who  persevered  through  un­

imaginable  hardship  and  who  showed  far

more  faith  in  their  country  than  their

country  showed  in  them.  And  the  taste

they’re  left  with  is  sweet:  everyone  who

comes  gets  a  cellophane­wrapped  pair  of

benne cookies as they leave (benneis a Ban­

tu word for sesame). The dessert has roots

in Africa, but is also—initssoftness, com­

forting  delicacy  and nifty  packaging—

thoroughly American.n

N EW YORK

A new exhibition highlights African-American contributions

to the American table

Britishfiction

A smuggler’s tale

I

n 18th-century england, free trade

meanta high­stakesgambleagainstthe

lawsandforcesofthestate.Well­armed

andmerciless,gangsofsmugglerscowed,

orrecruited,seafaringcommunitiesalong

thesoutherncoasts.These“freetraders”

outwittedexcisecollectorstolandandsell

untaxedcargoesofwine,spirits,teaorlux­

uryfabricsbroughtsecretlyfromFrance

andtheLowCountries.Theirdeeds,often

sanitised,passedintofolklore,thenceinto

theswashbucklinggenreofVictorianfic­

tionthatAlexPreston’snewnovelenjoy­

ablyrevives.

Untilitsfinalacts,hisingeniousand

entertaining yarn unfolds in the 1740s

aroundWinchelseainSussex—nowa pic­

turesquevillage,thena decayedport,hon­

eycombed beneath with contraband­

friendlycaves.MrPrestonbowstohisliter­

aryancestors,suchasJ. MeadeFalknerand

Robert Louis Stevenson, but pulls the

smugglers’taleuptodate.GoodyBrown,

hisintrepidifconscience­strickenprotag­

onist, yearns for a “full and uncon­

strained”life,freeoftheshacklesofher

sex.Throughgalloping,cross­dressingad­

venturesshedoesjusticetoan“innerself”

that,gender­wise,feels“neitheronething

noranother”.

Whenherfatherismurderedbyhisfel­

low brigandsafter asuspected betrayal,

GoodyandherbrotherFrancisopttojoin

anevenmoreformidablelocalpower,the

HawkhurstGang—drawnfromhistory,as

Winchelsea. By Alex Preston. Canongate

Books; 352 pages; £14.99

Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie