Day: September 13, 2020

Coffee Shops as the Grounds for Society

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Mathew, in Du Bois’s Dark Princess, sits in a coffee shop and observes the people around him, ruminating on his place amongst them. He utilizes the space in the same way it has been used for centuries; coffee shops have always served as places to think and to engage with the people around you. It is here where Mathew first sees the princess, saying “never after that first glance was he or the world quite the same.” (Du Bois 8) This is an example of the central role coffee, and the place we gather to get it, can play in our lives. The social role of coffee encouraging us to meet and interact with other people is one that is very present across the world.

Coffee, and consequently, coffee shops can be found throughout societies everywhere. The first coffee shops appeared in Mecca and Constantinople in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and were regarded as “schools of wisdom” due to the candid conversations that occurred there. As they became a hot spot for a direct exchange of ideas, the powerful leaders of the time repeatedly tried to ban coffee shops, but failed as they were already an integral part of society. In the 17th century, coffeehouses had spread throughout Europe.  Zuraw’s NPR article “How Coffee Influenced the Course of History,” discusses the fact that as coffee grew in popularity in Europe, Europeans enslaved people to grow the crops as they colonized other areas. Thus, there is an irony of coffee influencing the progress of society and providing “‘egalitarian places … where people can come together,’”(Zuraw) while the supply was grown by enslaved people. 

The popularity of coffee as a beverage gave birth to spaces where people gather and congregate, cultivating a pattern of meeting and sharing thoughts over a cup of coffee in a cafe that still persists today. The development of the social role coffee plays in our lives began centuries ago, as coffee shops flourished across the world as places for people to be together and for ideas to brew.

DuBois, W.E.B. Dark Princess: A Romance. Harcourt. 1928.

Myhrvold, Nathan. “Coffee.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1 June 2020, www.britannica.com/topic/coffee.

Zuraw, Lydia. “How Coffee Influenced The Course Of History.” NPR, NPR, 24 Apr. 2013, www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/04/24/178625554/how-coffee-influenced-the-course-of-history.

Pastrami on Rye on 165th St

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This week I will be focusing on W.E.B Du Bois’ Dark Princess. In this narrative, our protagonist Matthew Towns is a medical student at the University of Manhattan, which now known as City College of New York. Our story begins in New York, which is home to the famous pastrami on rye. Mapping the bread’s origins, the grain’s earliest existence is recorded in southwestern Asia around 1700 BC. Around the middle ages, it was imported to Europe where it became a favorite in Germany. At the time, Germany had a favorable Jewish population which adopted this popular grain. Since then, it has become a staple in eastern European Jewish communities throughout the world like Israel and most appropriately New York. This bread became a prominent part of New York culture when Sussman Volk put pastrami in between two slices of bread, added mustard, and sold it at his kosher deli on Delancy st back in 1888.

Being that Dark Princess is set in the early 1900s, pastrami on rye would have most likely been a meal many medical students would have consumed on busy study days and medical professionals would have consumed on their lunch breaks. On page 4 of Dark Princess, Du Bois pens “then with bowed head he plunged down 165th street.” I include this quote because 165th st is currently filled with many deli’s that sell pastrami on rye and this is most likely true for the early 1900s.

Salads for the European Elite

Sophia Su on

In Part I of Dark Princess, protagonist Matthew Towns attends a dinner party hosted by the mysterious Princess, who introduces Matthew to a group of proudly high class people of color. The dinner party is lavish and customarily elite—the guests are served “delicious tidbits of meat and vegetables and…a delicate soup” (14), the decadence of which is unfamiliar to Matthew. One of the dishes at the dinner is a “piquant salad” (16) that features at the pivotal moment when Matthew realizes the prejudice among the other guests. How salad has become associated with dinners of the upper class?

Salad originated in ancient Greco-Roman times as raw vegetables dressed in vinegar, oil, or salt. While it was not called “salad” in Roman times, it was a widely consumed dish typically served as an appetizer, but it decreased in popularity with the fall of the Roman Empire. Medical professionals during the Middle Ages disapproved of raw vegetable consumption. Salade, derived from the Vulgar Latin herba salata (meaning “salted herb”), was re-popularized in Europe during the Renaissance, but it did not become common in meals of the upper class until the late eighteenth century. The French salade of this time could become increasingly complex, and its popularity spread to the upper classes of England and other European elites as well. Although by the nineteenth century, commoners in Europe and America alike were enjoying salad, European style salads were initially served to the wealthy in American restaurants before appearing in middle-class establishments.

Given this brief history of salads in Europe and America, it is unsurprising that salad made an appearance in the Princess’s high-class dinner party in Dark Princess’s 1923. More notable is how the Princess and the other guests adhere to a strict European definition of class, validating only knowledge of European art/literature or European customs despite their belief that people of color are superior to the ruling whites. The feature of salad, a dish with distinct European associations, at the dinner party is only another demonstration of the guests’ devotion to the European appearance of class.

Works Cited

DuBois, W.E.B. Dark Princess: A Romance. Oxford University Press, 2007.

“Here Is The Definitive History of Mankind’s Finest Food: The Salad.” HuffPost, 29 May 2015, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/evolution-of-the-salad_n_7101632. Accessed 13 Sep 2020.

“Salads.” Encyclopedia.com, 2020, https://www.encyclopedia.com/sports-and-everyday-life/food-and-drink/food-and-cooking/salads. Accessed 13 Sep 2020.

Ice cream and Royalty

Sakura Eguchi on

“The table was very still, save for the very faint clink of china as the servants brought in the creamed and iced fruit” (Du Bois 17).  Upon reading this line, the description of the “creamed and iced fruit” caused me to wonder about the history of ice cream and whether W.E.B. Du Bois deliberately mentioned this dish as a symbol of class or race. According to the International Dairy Foods Association, famous historical figures such as Alexander the Great and Nero Claudius Caesar ate ice cream consisting of snow, honey, and fruits. Additionally, ice cream was solely consumed by royal families in England and France during the 17th century. Supposedly, Charles I and Catherine de Medici (the wife of Henry II of France) frequently enjoyed ice cream. Similar to ice cream’s association with royalty in Europe, in the U.S., the “elite” indulged in ice cream until it was introduced to the public in the mid-1800s. For example, President George Washington spent a couple hundred dollars buying ice cream in 1790, President Thomas Jefferson had a complex, “18-step recipe for an ice cream delicacy,” and President James Madison had “a magnificent strawberry ice cream creation” at one of his banquets.

After reading about the evolution of ice cream, I was surprised to learn how its roots were entrenched in royalty and elitism. In relation to Dark Princess, perhaps W.E.B. Du Bois includes this dish as a representation of the division between Mattew and the other characters sitting in the dining room. As stated by the Japanese, “We Samurai have been lords a thousand years and more; the ancestors of her Royal Highness have ruled for twenty centuries — how can you think to place yourselves besides us equals?” (Du Bois 22). By including ice cream, W.E.B. Du Bois is emphasizing how the other characters uphold the belief that their heritages are superior to Mattew’s.

Citations:

Du Bois, W.E.B. Dark Princess. Oxford University Press, 2014.

“The History of Ice Cream.” IDFA, 25 Jan. 2020, www.idfa.org/the-history-of-ice cream.

How Tea Found A Home in Europe

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After defending the alluring woman from a stranger’s advances, our hero Matthew Townes is invited to drink tea and talk with her. In this post, I wanted to talk about how tea traveled from China to Europe, eventually allowing the main characters in Dark Princess to enjoy this drink. Due to sea exploration and trade, European countries had at least heard of tea by the 1600s. However, the first to bring tea over was the Dutch East India Company in 1610. This is likely due to the fact that they had a much larger starting budget than other trading companies (ten times the initial capital of the British East India Company). In addition, the Dutch East India Company, or the VOC, created a monopoly on the spices of the Maluku Islands by destroying the ships and goods of the Portuguese, who had established ports there already. The new, “exotic” drink quickly became popular in the Netherlands and Germany, which brings us to the scene in W.E.B. Du Bois’s novel. It’s surprising that a drink that is used as a symbol of peace and calm in our current society has a violent history associated with its international diffusion.

http://history.emory.edu/home/documents/endeavors/volume3/BrianGoodman.pdf
https://www.alimentarium.org/en/knowledge/history-tea%C2%A0

Cosmopolitanism, Cultural Diffusion, and Chicken Schnitzel

Amrita Chakraborty on

Over the course of Matthew Towns’ visit to Princess Kautilya’s Berlin apartment in Part I of Dubois’ Dark Princess, he feels at turns vitalized by the company and surroundings as well as alienated from the others present. As this portion of the novel begins, Towns crosses from the relatively neutral meeting ground of Tiergarten park, where he and Kautilya cement their chance meeting into a genuine acquaintanceship, into a world that is indisputably hers, and distant from what he has formerly known. Yet at first, this transition for Matthew is not a fearful one but filled with hope and assurance: “Looking about, his heart swelled. For the first time since he had left New York, he felt himself a man, one of those who could help build a world and guide it” (Dubois 13). While he is awed by the grandeur of a single room in this home and the novelty of his situation, these feelings primarily manifest as a sense of belonging and renewed confidence in his ability to impact the world. For an African-American man whose life appears to have been largely influenced by the ever-present white people in power or voyeur, to be in this room filled with other people of color and where only the servants are white, must understandably be an immense change. For Matthew, and as we later learn, for Kautilya, the formation of this dining party alone feels like a step into a possible global coalition of change.

After noting in detail the appearances and national origins of everyone seated at the dinner table, (without, however, naming them) the narrator describes how Matthew experiences both the food and conversation as incredibly unfamiliar and nearly dreamlike. As the meal proceeds, however, the novelty of the conversation amongst his dining partners begins to sour somewhat. While he is interested in hearing more of the subjects they speak of, certain parties such as “the Egyptian and the Indian” (Dubois 15) seem to begin excluding him by conversing in French and of topics he has no insight in. There are, however, refashioned flashes of the familiar: he spends a few minutes in absorbed conversation with the Japanese man about ongoing cancer research before being interrupted by others turning the conversation back to theatre and literature. 

While Dubois does not delve into detailed descriptions of the food served for dinner, there are passing mentions that serve as windows into the material proceedings of the meal. One of these mentions is of a “crisp brown fowl” (Dubois 15) served, after which Kautilya moves the conversation along to the subject of the various “darker” groups of people oppressed by colonialism and bigotry. Although we cannot know the name of the specific dish being described here, one likely possibility is chicken schnitzel, a popular dish in Germany and elsewhere in Europe that can trace its roots back many centuries, although the exact geographical origin is unknown. The chicken variation of schnitzel is similar to versions using other meats such as veal and pork: a breaded cutlet that is typically prepared by dipping a flattened cut of meat or chicken breast into egg, flour and breadcrumbs and frying it in butter or oil (German Food Guide). The result is crispy and golden brown, and it is a dish that has cemented its popularity and versatility over the centuries.

 What is interesting about chicken schnitzel in the realm of this novel, specifically, is that as opposed to the other dishes served at this dinner, this one would likely not be very outlandish or unfamiliar to Matthew, or indeed, to anyone at the table. Although the preparation of the chicken, or whatever exact animal the “fowl” Dubois states may be, may vary in exact terms from any dish Matthew has eaten in the past, he is almost certainly familiar with chicken being utilized as an ingredient in meals. And as a working class boy growing up in Virginia two or so generations after the Civil War and then a student in New York for several years, Matthew has likely eaten fried variants of chicken that might be quite similar to German chicken schnitzel. 

There is a curious globality to the way chicken embedded itself into so many cultural cuisines, even back in the early to mid 1900s. Some of this widespread consumption is owed to its adaptability — often, chicken is used as a cheaper and easier-to-obtain substitute for a dish that may have originally been designed with a more elaborate meat in mind.

 Despite perhaps being originally mostly bred for the practice of cockfighting, the history of how species of domesticated chicken spread throughout the globe is a long and multifaceted one. There are species native to various regions in different continents — Germany, for example has multiple native fowl species, any of which may have been used in the dish that Matthew consumed. But one of the undomesticated progenitors of the animal we know today as the chicken, the red junglefowl, is native to parts of India and Southeast Asia, and may have been selected to breed domestically because of its inability to fly for long distances.

 There is, then, what might be called almost an equalizing force in serving a dish such as chicken schnitzel to a group as diverse as the one in Princess Kautilya’s dining room. Not only does it move across the cultural and racial lines amongst the members of the party, it would also be familiar to people as high ranking as a genuine royal family and to working and middle class people such as Matthew alike. In a way, this points to how the conversation eventually evolves, as Matthew faces the assumptions the others make about himself and his people not by denying his origins, but by arguing that they are the cultural roots of everyone else in the room as well. 

Works Cited

Adler, Jerry, and Andrew Lawler. “How the Chicken Conquered the World.” Smithsonian.com,
 Smithsonian Institution, 1 June 2012,
 www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-chicken-conquered-the-world-87583657/.

Dubois, W.E.B, Dark Princess, Oxford University Press, 2014.

Endolyn, Osayi. “Fried Chicken Is Common Ground.” Eater, 3 Oct. 2018,
 www.eater.com/2018/10/3/17926424/fried-chicken-is-common-ground. 

German Food Guide. “Wiener Schnitzel.” Wiener Schnitzel,
 www.germanfoodguide.com/schnitzel.cfm.

Harris, Ann Pringle. “Hearty Schnitzel, a Staple of Vienna’s Kitchens.” The New York Times, The
 New York Times, 11 Nov. 1990,
www.nytimes.com/1990/11/11/travel/fare-of-the-country-hearty-schnitzel-a-staple-of-vienna-s-kitchens.html?auth=login-email.

Cigarettes Over Tea

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She sat for a full moment , frowning and looking at him . Then she fumbled away ather beads and brought out a tiny jeweled box . Absently she took out a cigarette ,lighted it , and offered him one . Matthew took it , but he was a little troubled . Whitewomen in his experience smoked of course — but colored women ? Well — but it was delicious to see her great , somber eyes veiled in bazy blue .

In the first half this week’s reading in Dark Princess, Matthew Towns, a well educated black man, leaves the US after being shut out of medical school. During his “exile” Matt runs into the Dark Princess sitting in a cafe and they settle down for a cup of tea. Although I could talk about tea forever, one specific interaction during this conversation caught my attention.

On page 16, Matthew is regaling what pushed him to “flee” the US. I thought that it was notable how him explaining race relations int he US to a foreigner was such a clever device to explain to the reader from the Negro perspective what its like to be in America.He arrives at the part of the story where the dark princess asks about options for Black doctors in America Matthew says that in confining himself to these hospitals and only treating “colored patients” that he is “surrendering a principle” of equality (Du Bois 16). In that moment, the dark princess takes out a cigarette and Matthew remarks how he was troubled by this, as he associated smoking cigarettes solely with white women.

Tobacco, while not typically an edible food, is one of the oldest and longest surviving plants used in daily life, and subsequently has a fraught history for its cultivation and hazardous effects. Stemming from Aztec use in AD, this cash crop and its cultivation was driven by chattel slavery in the transatlantic slave trade.

Du Bois, W. E. B. Dark Princess: a Romance. Kraus-Thomson Organization, 1974, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001020933?signon=swle:https://shibidp.cit.cornell.edu/idp/shibboleth.

Tobacco Use in America – a History | Swedish Medical Center Seattle and Issaquah. https://www.swedish.org:443/classes-and-resources/smoking-cessation/history-of-tobacco-use-in-america. Accessed 13 Sept. 2020.

The Universal Seasoning

Jae Bucknor on

While not necessarily a food, salt has had plenty of historical, religious, and economic significance (to name a few).

While Towns was on his trans-Atlantic journey to Europe, Dark Princess kept accentuating the sea. I thought of the saltwater and how salt has been a universal seasoning and wanted to explore its roots.

Fun facts (see Works Cited):

  • Salt (sodium chloride [NaCl]) has a plethora of unique applications outside of consumption: medical treatment, religious practices, and so forth
  • The first recorded history of salt was in 2700 BC by the Chinese
  • The word “salary” was derived from “salt” as salt has been used as currency
  • Salt can be used as a preservative, texture aid, binder, fermentation control, and color developer, not to mention a seasoning
  • Humans, animals, and plants require salt for a healthy diet (all in moderation and certain amounts)
  • The current top five producers of salt in the world are China, the United States, India, Germany, and Australia though salt can be found almost everywhere

Through Matthew’s experiences in Europe, we get to meet a unique set of individuals of prestige from various backgrounds. They indulge in muffins, soup, and many other foods which all include some form of salt. It is interesting to think that some sweet treats have salt, but realistically salt just enhances its innate flavor. Eating in this environment is one that requires skill, knowledge, and proper etiquette. Matthew is still learning the ropes and getting acquainted with his environment while learning when to stand up and when to stand down and I look forward to exploring the other themes of food within this text.

 

Works Cited

https://seasalt.com/history-of-salt

https://seasalt.com/salt-101/about-salt/salt-in-food

https://seasalt.com/salt-101/about-salt

Potatoes in Dark Princess

Nikki Bregman on

In Dark Princess, Du Bois describes the mind-numbingly boring task of paring potatoes (37).

Potatoes were domesticated by the Andeans in a South American mountain range with highly variable temperatures. Early potatoes contained toxic chemicals, so they would submerge them in a slurry of clay and water to draw out the toxins.  Later, less toxic potatoes were developed. When Spaniards arrived in 1532, they copied the indigenous peoples and started eating potatoes. Potatoes took a while to catch on in Europe, but were useful during famine, like in Prussia in 1744 (Mann).

In the book, these potatoes are on a cross-Atlantic journey back to the Americas with Matthew.  He’s paring, or peeling the skin off the potatoes.  This could be the first step for the preparation of many dishes. Andeans used many cooking techniques for potatoes, like boiling, baking, and mashing (Mann).

The language is repetitive and restrictive, reflecting the nature of the work Matthew is doing. Importantly, Matthew notes that there is a machine that can do the same work but it’s cheaper to have him do it. This speaks to the dehumanization of black people in America during this time – how they were valued only for their labor, exploited to such a level that it’s cheaper to have someone do rote manual labor than employ a machine already in the boss’ possession. It emphasizes the depth of his commitment to deliver this letter – he puts aside his pride to do menial tasks during his voyage when he left the US for the sake of his pride and dignity originally.

 

Mann, Charles C. How the Potato Changed the World. 1 Nov. 2011, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-potato-changed-the-world-108470605/.

Curry: An Unexpected Staple in Berlin

Andrew Gordon on

In Part 1 of WEB Du Bois’s Dark Princess, we meet Matthew Townes, an African American college student who is pursuing a career in obstetrics. It is quickly established that Townes feels separated from the white people he observes and engages with. After arriving in Berlin, Germany, he finds himself at the Viktoria Cafe and feels just as ostracized as by all of the white people he saw New York (7). This imagery prompted me to wonder what these customers might have been eating in this cafe.

One of Berlin’s most famous dishes happens to be “currywurst”, a mixed sauce consisting of ketchup, Worcester sauce, and curry powder on a sausage. Most people would suspect that curry has Indian origins, but the history is much more complex. The word “curry” is an English misnomer for the Tamil word “kari” which means sauce. Curry is a generalized term for a meat and gravy dish that derives from South India, but the word is only used in the west. Curry powder is a mix of spices which include cumin, black pepper, dry mustard, turmeric (for color), and several other possibilities. The mix is a British interpretation meant to emulate the flavors of South India, but the true spice mix is likely to be garam masala.

https://www.thrillist.com/eat/berlin/berlin-s-most-iconic-dishes-9-iconic-berlin-dishes-and-where-to-eat-them

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/what-is-curry_n_592d5ea2e4b0065b20b82803?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACmXaYU9TG62W-g9GKTzxHM1Yz9yFJhwme2DRrg7Uyw8xuzbb31NwU2LAMtDp0cF5t0Ab0ocVD0hAvcyYBuxV-7M29ogOig-Urf45ud3eDv6Wjf1bJ4BuzGHmOT7bWpFegl3YLgk3L5HNH3L7dYtEljWcxXlKWWxMpEpnpsxWCCL

https://www.thespruceeats.com/curry-powder-and-indian-food-1957468