[Smertios]

The Portuguese also imported plenty black slaves into Portugal (many more than the Brits or the Spanish). I guess the ones shipped to Portugal didn't remain slaves for many generations, 'cause they ended up mixing with the native Portuguese (at least with portuguese commoners) pretty much at random.

Well, while that did happen, it wasn't in big numbers. Most slaves in mainland Portugal were Chinese that came from Macao. And even then, slavery there ended in 1761...

The blacks that went into Portugal in huge numbers were all free men form the overseas colonies that migrated there in the 20th century...

[Rainbow Crow]

Dirty secret: everyone in the US loves fried chicken and watermelon.

[Dr House]

Dirty secret: everyone in the South loves fried chicken and watermelon.

Fixed. I mean, Northerners like them too, but it's a Southern food, and it's cheap. Which is why it's so popular with black people.

[Tainari88]

The history of fried chicken. It was a food introduced by Scottish immigrants to the Southern states. The Scottish people thought dipping the chicken in milk or buttermilk and dredging it in flour and frying it a great treat. The Scottish plantation owners would train the housemaids how to do it and it was reserved mainly for special occasions. Such as Sunday dinners. Traditional slave food was very healthy. In fact much healthier than the foods eaten by the master in the big house. Slaves rarely got any kind of meat. That was expensive and reserved for guests and important people. So the slaves avoided the saturated fat and cholesterol from the meat that was either hunted or grown. Hunting was prohibited by the slave owner. Meat was to be hunted with guns and having slaves with guns in their hands was illegal. So no hunting and no eating meat.

What were their staple diet? Interesting black-eyed peas, kale, collard greens, sweet potatoes, corn meal, brown and wild rice, seasonal fruit, and hard black bread. No butter, no sugar, no real oils. No full fat dairy products. The beans were extremely high in fiber, protein and iron and carbs, the collard greens and kale are the most healthy thing to eat in nature practically. An average little bushel of greens have the equivalent of 240 apples in vitamin C. It is also very rich in calcium and iron and minerals, and it is low cal. The sweet potatoes are excellent sources of vitamin A, and fiber, and vitamin c and are found to have enormous amounts of critical micronutrients. The hard black molasses bread eaten back then had enormous amounts of minerals too and also have healthy amounts of every kind of vitamin. Especially potassium and iron that is sweated out in hot climates and hard to replace. In fact, those vegan diets eaten regularly by the slaves for being poor was just about the most excellent diet for warding off heart disease and cancer and strengthening bones and muscles naturally. It is a diet that a lot of body builders use nowadays. They would be allowed to fish regularly. Their only animal protein source. Catfish mostly because the trout and other types of river fish also went to the big house. But, the catfish turn out to be very high in omega and certain vitamins too. It is interesting.

The problem was when there was drought and crop failures. Then the slaves would get nothing to eat and many of the weaker ones would be sold off or died of starvation and neglect. But the 'poor man' diets of the traditional south...was generally excellent.

[Dr House]

Meat is healthy, and actually a basic nutritional requirement for intense manual labor like slaves were obligated to perform. A diet poor in fat and protein followed by intense backbreaking labor is a recipe for complete physical exhaustion.

[Tainari88]

You are thinking like a modern person House. In those days people had no microwaves, and no fridges or freezers. The meat you got you had to raise. You could not just go to your local grocery store and get plucked and cut up and processed chicken in a package. Chickens had to be raised and fed and plucked and their necks wrung out.

Most slave owners did not let the slaves eat chicken regularly at all. Meat in general before refridgeration and indoor plumbing and electricity was a rare ocurrence. Meat even when hunting was not guaranteed at all.

Staple foods have to be dried and or smoked or pickled in vinegar or salt or sugar to be preserved without refridgeration House. Most people who lived in rural plantations had to be self sustaining. It is easy to find out what slave people ate. You do research on the records kept by slave owners. They wrote all the supplies down in notebooks. Ledgers. In fact, gout, heart disease, cancer was a much more common thing with the upper crust House. They ate those foods regularly. The slaves did not. Plus, the slaves would be allowed to have their own small gardens. And ate fresh fruits and veggies in season. Again, meat, butter, oil, sugars and salts were rare. Including fresh milk and cream. That was also considered 'a delicacy' reserved for the richest people in rural societies.

Meat nowadays is a far cry from meat in the 19th or 18th centuries. In those days, the animals were never fed hormones or processed grains. They fed off of naturally ocurring plants and grasses, seeds, and leaves. They roamed naturally and got plenty of exercise and fresh air. They were never treated with chlorinated water or penned up in unsanitary conditions. They had no antibiotics or hormone boosters to get them to grow faster than normal. And the meat was consumed almost immediately upon slaughter. Avoiding too much bacterial growth.

No, House. A high meat diet creates plaque in the heart. Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. J. MacDougall. Dr. Oz and many other cardiologists all say the same thing. A high meat diet kills you very fast in this day and age. No ands, buts or no it is not true about it. Meat if eaten very seldom and the fat taken off and broiled or grilled or steamed (not fried) is acceptable but very sparingly. Once a month or twice a month max. If you eat it and don't exercise enormous amounts you are looking at heart disease guaranteed in your fourties or fifties.

[Emerald Ocean]

All I said is that the aforementioned stereotypes about blacks aren't generally believed to be true by your typical American. Nothing more.

If blacks don't like fried chicken, why are black neighborhoods always littered with fried chicken restaurants? ? ?

However, for most poor folks, it's not because of their gene's it's because of lack of opportunity. I agree with that, and I've NEVER disagreed, so please don't even suggest something like that.

A lack of opportunity??? Schools are forced to accept blacks and Fortune 500 companies are held hostage unless they hire blacks. All you need as a black American is a pulse. 60 years after Brown vs. the School Board, blacks have not assimilated. They constitute a separate people having almost nothing in common with the surrounding European society. They fiercely maintain their identity with their own music, dialect, customs, dress, and names. All attempts to turn them into middle-class whites in darker packaging have failed. Only relentless governmental pressure forces an appearance of partial integration.

[Rancid]

If blacks don't like fried chicken, why are black neighborhoods always littered with fried chicken restaurants? ? ?

I didn't say they don't like fried chicken. Also, everyone likes fried chicken. Koreans make awesome fried chicken for example, and they love their fried chicken + beer + soju.

Anyway, go to any southern city and you will see fried food restaurants even in white neighborhoods (they're all over here in Austin, Tx, even in the rich white neighborhood I live in). I'd argue it's more of a southern thing than just a black thing. Southern blacks took this cooking with them to the north during the great migration. I think this is how the stereotype started. I see the love of fried chicken a southern culture thing that blacks took with them to the north.

A lack of opportunity??? Schools are forced to accept blacks and Fortune 500 companies are held hostage unless they hire blacks. All you need as a black American is a pulse. 60 years after Brown vs. the School Board, blacks have not assimilated. They constitute a separate people having almost nothing in common with the surrounding European society. They fiercely maintain their identity with their own music, dialect, customs, dress, and names. All attempts to turn them into middle-class whites in darker packaging have failed. Only relentless governmental pressure forces an appearance of partial integration.

Way to go, you took my post COMPLETELY out of context. We were talking about the Dominican Republic, not America.

Anyway, I agree 100% that in the US it's more about culture than anything else. I've stated that in numerous other threads as well.

[Emerald Ocean]

I'd argue it's more of a southern thing than just a black thing.

Sure, you can tell yourself that all you want.

[Rancid]

Ok, I'm sorry I was so wrong.

Not only do black people love their fried chicken, but not one else loves it. They also love to smoke menthols, drink grape soda, and eat water melon. White people are awesome.

[Lexington]

Fried chicken was ordained by God.

Next to chicken fried steak.

(although this observant Jew I know refuses to eat chicken fried steak unless it's kosher, although i insist in the very nature of the cuisine that god's hand is in it...apparently the only place that serves kosher chicken fried steak is somewhere in Houston, one could not possibly ship it from Houston to NYC and hope to retain even a modicum of the awesomeness that is this culinary triumph - also I insist that the best chicken fried steak on the planet is at a place called Moonshine in Austin)