Rabu, 28 Juli 2010

The Black Zagat Guide and Eating Jim Crow



A rest stop for Greyhound bus passengers on the way from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee, with separate accommodations for colored passengers. 1943



Ran into Tim Zagat CEO of Zagat restaurant rating and review guide at Lexington Market here in Baltimore where I am doing field work. Tim told me that Zagat was launching it’s new guide to eateries in Baltimore and he was there promoting it. There were plenty of local politicians with him taking photos in front of Faidley’s restaurant which makes a mean crab cake, probably the best I’ve ever had. Meeting Zagat reminded me of eating out for black folks before the end of Jim Crow and de-facto Jim Crow. Purchasing food at “coloured” windows of segregated restaurants could be a degrading and even dangerous experience, says Virginia native Eugene Watts; you never knew when some volatile white southerner behind the counter was going to “go off.” As a result Black folks had their own zagat rated list of restaurants passed down through oral histories. This oral black Zagat guide told black folks where they could get inexpensive great tasting down home food with dignity in cities across the country.

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