How Black Cooks Humiliated Enslavers With Oxtail

About this episode

This episode explores how Black cooks transformed oxtail from a discarded cut of meat into a sought-after delicacy.

You walk into a restaurant today and see a plate of oxtails for $35 or $40. A century ago, that exact same cut of meat was considered garbage. The white folks tossed it to the side, assuming the tough, bony tail was completely worthless.They were wrong.This is the history of how Black cooks across the diaspora, from the American South to Jamaica took the scraps nobody wanted and built an undeniable delicacy.

People in this episode

Host: Michael Motley jr

Topics covered

• Black history
• cooking
• enslavement
• culinary traditions
• oxtail
• diaspora

Keywords

• oxtail
• Black cooks
• enslavers
• culinary history
• American South
• Jamaica
• delicacy

Mentioned in this episode

Places: American South, Jamaica

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