Foodways also include the songs, stories, jokes, medicines, and beliefs associated with the preparation and acceptability of foods within a particular group. Whether we call it soul food or Southern cooking, distinctive foodways of African American communities are built on generations of cross cultural contacts and occupational roles over generations of African Americans. Blacks were assigned cooking duties in plantation kitchens or, after Emancipation, frequently served as hotel cooks, and, thus, had ample opportunity to put the stamp of an already emerged African American cookery on regional foodways. The foodways presenters in Missouri Performing Traditions learned their food and cooking skills from relatives who were hotel cooks, collected herbs for pharmacologists, or served as family cooks. Their collections of recipes, iron cookware, early African American cookbooks, and stories about cooking and working in the kitchen make up the foodways presentations.
Food is served when possible so audiences can sample traditional family recipes.
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