It’s a longstanding question: Why do Black people love chicken so much?
Think about it, this love for chicken is fervent from Luanda to Madeira, Rio de Janeiro to Soweto. It is one of the few things Themba from Diepsloot informal settlement in South Africa has in common with Mekhi from Upper Manhattan, USA.
Attempts to get to the bottom of this have yielded everything from funny comedy skits, tasteless perspectives to extreme cases where people (instead of the chicken) lost their lives! And who can forget our learned friends at that university-that-is-famous-for-conducting-research-on-everything-including-research-itself who confirmed that there is nothing in any Black person’s genetic makeup that predisposes them to the famed ‘no chicken shall cross the road’ mentality. After picking 25 Black people from all over the world and placing them on a strict no-chicken diet for 3 months, they also concluded that there was a noticeable dip in their outlook on life. Doh…
To understand the relationship between Black people and chicken one has to go way back to the early years in Africa. The Dark Ages. To increase their survival odds, everyone belonged, and remained loyal, to a tribe. This group of people stayed together and did all the survival things like gathering fruit, looking for fresh water and hunting together. Mostly, it was the men’s duty to go hunting for game and as in today’s world; meat was a rarity compared to, say, African potato. A tough task it is, hunting always had individualistic elements to it – every man hunted for his family. However, when a big animal was killed it was expected of that hunter to invite his tribesmen over to his house for a feast. When a hunter came home with a small catch, it was him and his family who had smiles on their faces come dinner time. In most cases the meat was shared according to age and logically, meatier catches like guinea fowls and other bigger birds brought more joy to everyone in the family.
Fast forward to the years when Westerners decided that Blacks were a commodity of sorts and started shipping them all over the world. The Slave Trade era. Slave owners fed their chattel as cheaply as possible, often with throwaway food from their tables and plantations. Corn, tops of turnips, beet and dandelion were the main ingredients in slaves’ meals. On those rare occasions they gave them offal, pigs’ legs and chicken skins. The slaves started adding garlic, onions and thyme to the food to enhance the flavour and this is where the renowned ‘soul food’ started. Later on laws were relaxed and slaves were allowed to own small pieces of land where they grew vegetables and started rearing chickens and pigs. Because of its ample size and by-products, especially lard, pork rivalled chicken as the meat of choice in many ‘soul food’ dishes at some point. However, when it was discovered that the high fat content in pork causes obesity, hypertension and other ailments such as Type 2 Diabetes, chicken flew to the number one spot as the meat of choice amongst the new-age slaves. Chickens were slaughtered on special occasions and added something extra to the ‘soul food’ come mealtime for the families.
This practise was visible everywhere in the world. With Black people living under more or less the same conditions, a chicken coop in the backyard became a similar feature in many households. Plus it counted for a lot that chickens are easy animals to rear: egg, a chick weeks later, a hassle-free diet of maize and other food scraps and voila, you have a sizeable fowl to make a memorable family meal. Many families will eat vegetables during the week but come Sunday lunch, one of the few occasions where Black families sit together for a meal, chicken will be on the menu. I even thought my friend had a point when she said that ‘the mere thought of eating chicken for Sunday lunch gave many Black people enough hope to carry them through the week’. Is chicken a liberation icon of sorts as well, maybe? Don’t even get me started on how every Black neighbourhood has a legendary ‘chicken cook’…
Time flew. The world evolved. The family model changed. Cooking methods expanded yet the connection between Black people and chicken is as intense as ever. Be it at funerals, parties or weddings, chicken is considered the special meat. The fights over who should be served this meat during these occasions at many a Black gathering is stuff of legends. And as we all know, men like Colonel Saunders of KFC fame and Nando’s Fernando Duarte and Robert Brozin owe a lot to the Blacks/ chicken link.
My conclusion is, even in the modern day, chicken is not only the meat for us. Subconsciously or otherwise, whenever a Black person takes a bite of that piece of chicken it’s a deep-seated journey to ‘something real’. To a time when the family got together. The mother’s inimitable cooking. Laughter. The graduation from the little piece to having a choice. Love. Bond. Something inside so strong…
In short, the chicken takes us home.
* Many thanks to Wikipedia for fortifying my general knowledge, especially with the ‘soul food’ bit, on this one.
