Title Building houses out of chicken legs : Black women, food, and power / Psyche A. Williams-Forson

Published Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, ©2006

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 317 pages) : illustrations Series Black women writers series Contents We called ourselves waiter carriers -- "Who dat say chicken in dis crowd" : Black men, visual imagery, and the ideology of fear -- Gnawing on a chicken bone in my own house : cultural contestation, Black women's work, and class -- Traveling the chicken bone express -- Say Jesus and come to me : signifying and church food -- Taking the big piece of chicken -- Still dying for some soul food? -- Flying the coop with Kara Walker -- Epilogue : from train depots to country buffets Summary Chicken--both the bird and the food--has played multiple roles in the lives of African American women from the slavery era to the present. It has provided food and a source of income for their families, shaped a distinctive culture, and helped women define and exert themselves in racist and hostile environments. Psyche A. Williams-Forson examines the complexity of black women's legacies using food as a form of cultural work. While acknowledging the negative interpretations of black culture associated with chicken imagery, Williams-Forson focuses her analysis on the ways black women have forged their own self-definitions and relationships to the "gospel bird." Exploring material ranging from personal interviews to the comedy of Chris Rock, from commercial advertisements to the art of Kara Walker, and from cookbooks to literature, Williams-Forson considers how black women arrive at degrees of self-definition and self-reliance using certain foods. She demonstrates how they defy conventional representations of blackness and exercise influence through food preparation and distribution. Understanding these complex relationships clarifies how present associations of blacks and chicken are rooted in a past that is fraught with both racism and agency. The traditions and practices of feminism, Williams-Forson argues, are inherent in the foods women prepare and serve Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 269-302) and index Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL English Print version record digitized 2011 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL Subject Chickens -- Social aspects Meat -- Symbolic aspects African American women -- Food African American women -- Social conditions African American cooking. Cooking (Chicken) Food habits -- United States Food preferences -- United States SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Customs & Traditions. African American cooking African American women -- Social conditions Cooking (Chicken) Food habits Food preferences Soziale Situation Schwarze Frau Essgewohnheit Kochen Vrouwen. Kippen. Koken (natuurkunde) Matvanor -- Förenta staterna. Afro-amerikanska kvinnor -- Förenta staterna. Afro-amerikaner -- Förenta staterna. Kyckling -- symboliska aspekter -- Förenta staterna. Kött -- symboliska aspekter -- Förenta staterna. Afro-amerikaner. United States USA Verenigde Staten. Genre/Form cookbooks. Cookbooks Cookbooks. Livres de cuisine. Form Electronic book ISBN 9780807877357 0807877352

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