Civil War Foodways Series: Black Cooks in Confederate Camps

Dandelion salad with beets and cheese, recipe below

Throughout the U.C. Civil War, some confederate armies depended on the labor of slaves and free blacks pressed into service to construct fortifications, transport materiel, tend cavalry horses, and cook mass camp meals for both officers and the rank and file soldiers. Historically enslaved Africans had learned how to hunt and cook wild game like turkey, raccoon, and rabbit, and also how to cook local plant foods like dandelion greens. Except for the turkey, most Africans had already hunted and cooked corresponding animals in West Africa. Similarly, Africans had also cooked with oysters before arriving in the Chesapeake Bay region and the Carolinas. The same is true with plants, but much of the knowledge of local edible plants in North America they had learned from Native Americans during the early colonial period. Here is recipe for a great dandelion salad with beets and cheese. I had this at a Southern Foodways Alliance Conference down in Oxford Mississippi and it was out of this world good.

Dandelion Green Salad with Beets and Goat Cheese recipe: http://flapperfood.blogspot.com/2009/07/dandelion-green-salad-with-beets-and.html