White ladies cooking in plantation museums are a denial of history
Fall is almost gone and winter is coming, as are hundreds of hearth cooking demonstrations at countless historic homes and plantations throughout the nation.
Like an automated clock, historic kitchens become the center stage for historical storytelling at this time of year.
In New England, these stories sit firmly in the mythos of Thanksgiving, focusing on sterilized versions of the 1621 feast between Pilgrims and Wampanoag. In the mid-Atlantic, these stories blend their Amish, German and Dutch roots to talk about Colonial fare in early America.
But while these two regions must always deal with issues of accuracy, the South’s historic sites have remained locked in a myth of their own.
Misrepresenting reality
I spent a decade researching and writing about enslaved plantation cooks and le...