Lines Lead (T)here
This piece is a part of a series that explores the legacy of slavery and colonialism on identity, history and culture in Africa and the Black diaspora. Read the primer piece here.
Fish stew – photo courtesy of Shainah M. Andrews
Written by Shainah M. Andrews
Gold potatoes, tomato paste comparable to Ghanaian soil and canned mackerel (or tuna, which my household prefers) are only some of the ingredients sprawled across the countertop whenever I make Mama Sheila’s Fish Stew. It’s my ultimate comfort dish regardless of the weather and one of the best outward displays of my cultures — Black American, Black Southern and Ghanaian.
The tissue that connects them all—evening after evening in the Andrews’ home—is made possible by my heavy-bottomed pot packed to its brim with the stew. The connectedness becomes even more evident in my bowl because fufu (typically a combination of pounded yam/cassava and green plantain in Ghana) always accompanies the dish that’s lightly peppered with scotch bonnet.
I’m not sure how much other people think about what they eat, but I’ve always deeply thought about food as it relates to cultural roots — even when I didn’t always know my more specific ancestry in West Africa. Language throughout Africa and the African diaspora links folks in remarkable ways, too.
In a world where African American English is erroneously called a “meme”, “stan”, or “internet language” and stunted views about food that’s enjoyed by Black people persist, it’s important that Black folks—my age, younger and/or older—aren’t “losing recipes” as I saw it put on Black Twitter.
Truthfully, I didn’t know the difference between yams and sweet potatoes until I studied abroad at the University of Ghana from August through December 2018. All my life, I’d heard family, friends, fellow community members and even televised chefs use both terms interchangeably! And after all, I personally never saw anybody that I knew cut into and eat the white tuber vegetable in my home state of Connecticut or during summer trips to North Carolina. When I saw YAMS galore in 2018 (throughout Ghanaian markets I had learned to weave through seamlessly and within local dishes), the distinction between sweet potato and yam became very obvious. And I saw, through history, how this phenomenon came to be.
Though white yams were transported during the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, enslaved Africans clung to the sweet potato crop that was more readily available in the present-day United States; it was similar to the African yam, a word that even echoes “nyami,” “nyam”, or “enyame” — words in various West African languages meaning “to eat.” Foods such as black-eyed peas, okra and crab are enjoyed throughout Africa (where colorful, nutrient-rich food has always been plentiful) as well as Diasporic places in the U.S. and Salvador de Bahia in Brazil, just to name a couple.
Okra—called “okro” in Ghana and throughout other countries in West Africa like Nigeria—came to the U.S. by way of enslaved Africans. But that thread of history may not be apparent among customers every time the vegetable is fried at a restaurant or enjoyed in a stew. Nevertheless, realities like these are no coincidence; they are the tissue that connects all Black people.
To me, it’s very possible AND important that Black people continue enjoying beloved desserts like sweet potato pie and heaps of collard greens while having space to learn about, prepare and eat foods throughout the Diaspora that have helped to sustain the adaptive, creative and resilient ones who came before us. In fact, many of these versatile foods STILL sustain our brothers and sisters across the globe.
Language, spoken and signed, is yet another bridge that connects Black people worldwide. I’ve been a lover of words since as early as 2nd grade; I’d incorporate lists of synonyms and antonyms from class into my fiction stories (mostly starring talking animals). I’d wonder if city names like “Naugatuck” and words such as “chauffeur” were English. But it wasn’t until college in 2015 that I learned that linguistics—the scientific study of language—could explain so much of what Standard American English often tries to explain AWAY.
Though most of my favorite TV series—like Top Boy in the U.K. and the U.S. sitcom titled Moesha—make way for English dialects spoken by Black people on-screen, the fact still remains that the ways Black people speak and sign English over Sunday dinners, within social circles and sometimes at work have always been considered improper. English varieties invented and used by Black people in places like Philadelphia, Accra and on Caribbean islands such as Jamaica and Barbados have always been called incorrect, broken, slang and just flat-out wrong. If we take a descriptive approach (instead of prescriptive), THAT stance is invalid. Research (like my own since 2017) shows that Ghanaian English and other English varieties—like African American English at cookouts summer after summer—are rule-governed just like versions that are highly esteemed throughout Europe and are considered the “right” versions in business settings.
Whether wrist-deep in a bowl of fufu and light soup in Osu or on a second helping of mac & cheese in Bridgeport, I love that different dialects of English spoken by Black people worldwide aren’t TOO unfamiliar to my ears, signaling that I ain’t too far from my many homes. For most Black people in the United States, our mother tongue(s) is/are unknown because colonization fragments our history; how remarkable it was of our people to take a language so distant from our own and make it home. To be quite frank, many ways that Black people take up space have always been extremely villainized because those with an allegiance to white supremacy cannot fathom how we managed to innovate pig intestines and overall fly with wounded wings — even now in the 21st century.
This celebration of Black culture (specifically food and language) barely scratches the surface. But I hope that it can serve as a compass pointed forward — a resource that has equipped you with reassurance and faith that you, too, can discover within your Blackness and personal family tree the more covert lines that lead t(h)ere; they may be right in your frying pans and group chats.
Shainah M. Andrews (she/her) is a 24-year-old Black artist and educator who loves looking at the world through the lens of food, languages and heritage travel. Her faith + time throughout the U.S. and abroad inform her writing and entire existence.