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[CHAPTER 4]
[Page 1]
SLAVE FARE AND CUISINE
The predominance of starchy foods in the diet of the slave over a period of 250 years is best noted in the physical deficiencies of his descendants, the eating habits of many rural Negroes, jokes and folk-tales of the people, and the cuisine of the State. The Black Code demanded that every owner should give to each slave one barrel of Indian corn or rice, beans or other grain, and one pint of salt once each month. He was never to give the equivalent in money under penalty of a 10 dollar fine. It further said that no master was excused from the duty of feeding his slaves by permitting them to work certain days for their own benefits.1
Many slaves added to their regular diets in various ways. The hogs that were raised by De Bore’s slaves “were sold at the market price to master or mistress, or to any other bidder, when not slaughtered by their owners for their own alimentation,”2 says Gayarré. He further says that they caught catfish, sheep’s-head, shrimps, and eels in abundance; while from the woods they caught raccoons and opossums.3 Hunting and fishing served as additional sources for food supply and an agreeable change in the monotonous diet of most slaves. These were usually the traditional sources of food for slaves whose allowances of food were insufficient, or during those times of warm weather when their meat supply spoiled. In summer, when the “worms got into the bacon,” and “the weekly allowance of meal scarcely sufficed to satisfy,” the
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