The U.S. Embassy in Pretoria celebrated Black History Month with an ECA Speaker Program called ‘Soul Food and Civil Rights: History Around the Table’. This online event took place on Friday, February 26, 2021.
The global theme for Black History Month 2021 is “The Black Family,” and the U.S. Embassy in South Africa celebrated this with a free webinar featuring accomplished American chef and author Adrian Miller and South African chef, author, businesswoman, and 2016 Mandela Washington Fellow Mogau Seshoene, The Lazy Makoti. Together, the two prepared a traditional American Soul Food dish – minted pea soup and cornbread – and discussed the culinary traditions of the American South. Traditions which are inexorably tied to the African-American community, that are indigenous to African-American people, and the perennial issues of race and social justice in the United States.
The discussion focused on the commonalities of the amazing food of both the United States and South Africa and the history behind it, and also highlighted entrepreneurship in the culinary arts.