The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1920-09-18
BY chas. A. starks.

For serious and honest-to-goodnessI
brains of our Race let people read
The Negro Year Book. Here they
will find what Negroes have contri-
buted to the world of inventions.
They will find there some 1900 pat
ents to the races credit as listed att
the U. S. Patent Office.
But there are many things we en-
joy in this world that we owe to the
discerning skill of the Negro for
which there are no patents or copy
rights to prevent the other fellow
from freely using the same to his
great advantage. For instance, the
Negro taught the packing industries
that all the cast off appendages of
Mr.. Hog, which they deemed only
good for fertilizing the soil, was in
reality the most delectable of foods
The whole list would be exhaustive
of too much space; but here are a
few with their scientific names in
cluded: Pig Shouts trooters), Ears
tlisteners). Feet (walkers or dear
brothers) Tails (switchabouts) and
Cuts gatherings, chidluns, chittlings
and even chitterines) all variations in
naming the same intestinal noun. We
can testify individually that the sub
1ects herein mentioned taste much
better than the appellations warrant.
1t might not be out of order here to
tell the story of the customer who
went into a cheap restaurant which
makes specially of serving the COM
modities under discussion. He was
evidently hungry and wanted nearly
everything about the hog. He ordered
pig ear, pig foot, two snouts,
couple of chitterlings, and tail. Hay
ing enumerated this modest order to
the waiter, this able servitor engaged
the attention of the cook, whose do
minion was some distance from the
dining room, and thus musically gave
in the order; Hear me, o Chef,
walk one, double up on the ROSTERS.
snatch two from the inside and one
from the rear!" We didn't STAY to
see the final clean up.
The prices of the above named eat
ables keep apace with the general or
And to think that the packing houses
used to throw away these jewels. But
Negroes taught them their real value.
Talking about casting pearls to swine,
why here was casting away the jew
els with the swine. However, the in
dustries soon caught the CAB. saved
the jewels and advanced the price, to
cover all refining costs. Yes, they
save the jewels and everything now.
1t has long been suspected that they
even can the hogs squeal! This is
the more apparent when one hears
cheap talking machine grinding out
jazz notes.
But back to the meats. Speaking
again on the subject, who brought
Barbecue to this country? The Ne
gro, of course. l don't know how far
thehistory of the art goes, but l think
1t Is an ante bellum (not our Latin)
discovery. Anyhow, the whites have
just begun to realize what appetiizng
meat Is. They have naturally scented
along with this Negro art a high com.
mercial value and therefore we find
them establishing barbecue stands
out at Swope Park. The stomach af.
ter all seems to make the whole world
akin. But the whites don't seem to
catch the genius of the culinary art
that puts barbecue out of mediocrity
into the heights Of good things to eat.
1t takes the original Colored brother
for this stunt.
Now consider the Cambarus. Here's
real discovery, according to the
name of the food. Perhaps you don't
know what a Cambarus is. l didn't
either until l looked it up in Web
sters International. We found this
to be the Latin equivalent for the very
identical person of the American
Crawfish. Negroes were the first to
make this crustacean a popular deli
cacy. According to the amount of red
pepper used in the preparation of
these fiery edibles they are guaran-
teed to be red hot" The enthusiasts
have dubbed the fish "Crawpaps."
"Crawpappies" and "Crawdads." We
have not learned the reason for this
varied expression of paternity. One
thing Is noticeable, the striking food
has been losing its popularity steadily
since a certain fourth of July. Evil
IDENTIFY soda pop and the nearer stuff
are not so effective in clearing the
tonsorial channel of the peppery
viands. The fact remains, however
that we put this delectable eatable on
the map, and that the other fellow
followed suit.
So we might go on indefinitely,
naming many culinary Inventions" by
the Negro which took well with the
other fellow. Yet this other fellow
tries to make us the patented butt of
jokes based upon ridicule of our sin
ferior" habits and customs, notwith-
standing that they are really indebted
to us for many useful things. For
instance, the famous Saratoga Chips
first came from the cook shop of a
Colored woman in New York. She
was clever cateress, and made a
small fortune in specializing in her
original product.
Wilkins-"I see you have a lot of
Oil and Gas companies in your town"