My food story follows the lives of my grandmother, Granny (Mary), and her mother, Grandma Penny (Henrietta). Both women had voices soft and sweet as molasses, their words carrying the warmth and wisdom of generations. My great-grandfather, a Southerner who hopped to Connecticut prior to setting roots in Kentuckiana, brought his southern charm into the family’s day-to day life, tending to an herb and vegetable garden beside their home. Meanwhile, my great-grandmother, a fierce and charismatic community leader, connected neighbors and church communities across racial lines, often using food as the common thread that wove people together.

​

Charlestown in the 1950s and beyond was marked by its racism. The neighborhood my grandmother grew up in was called “Nigger Hill”. In this harsh environment, my great-grandparents tried their very best every day to keep the house full of care. The size of the home didn’t match the size of the family, so much so that all five daughters shared a single bed, but they always made do.

 

My great-grandpa carried Southern self-sufficiency with him to Kentuckiana, which, of course, meant growing a food garden.

 

On their acre of land, they grew everything from leafy greens to sweet fruits, with Granny and her siblings helping to weed, harvest, and preserve the bounty. When I interview Granny she spoke of chasing chickens, plucking vegetables, and watching her father tend to the earth. This inspired her, and she has maintained a garden at her own home since well before I was born.

 

The garden was a source of community. Every Sunday, after church, Granny and her family would gather with neighbors for a massive dinner, where food was shared, laughter was loud, and burdens were lightened. They brought dishes made from what they grew and hunted: venison so tender it could be mistaken for steak, squirrel stews, turtle soups, and jars of homemade jams and jellies.

 

Sundays were a day of abundance, despite the scarcity that sometimes marked the other six days of the week.

​

Granny’s childhood meals were imbued with a blend of Southern and Northern Black traditions. The scents of stewed greens, fresh cornbread, and slow-cooked meats filled the air. Her father’s banana pudding was legendary, a favorite dessert that left everyone clamoring for seconds. Grandma Penny’s bread pudding carried a similar legacy, the recipe passed down and perfected over the years. Then there was the white coconut cake, sent each year by extended family in Athens, Georgia. Unfortunately, in recent years, her sister Joyce, the point of contact with them had passed away. When my granny tried to reach out through the last number Joyce had written down, she learned the number had been disconnected.

 

This showed me the importance of handing down those connections to younger generations.

Just one loss can sever us from distant family.

​

Joy and pain of survival so often mix for black folks in this country. Granny often reflected on the inequities her family faced. They didn’t have indoor plumbing for much of her childhood, relying on an outhouse in the backyard and water hauled from outside. She and her sisters endured the cold nights together, huddled under blankets in their shared bed. Their first phone, a black rotary model, arrived later than it did for many families, and even then, it couldn’t connect them easily to the wider world—long-distance calls to Louisville were an extravagance.

​

In spite of their hardships, Granny’s stories of growing up are overwhelmingly ones of resilience and joy. She remembers sneaking calls on that rotary phone with her sisters, only to be caught and scolded by Grandma Penny. She talks fondly about the community they built, not just within the family but with neighbors and church members.

Food wasn’t just sustenance; it was a way to build connections, to foster a sense of belonging in a world that often sought to isolate them.

 

Those same traditions trickled down through the years, their smells, sights, and sounds peppering my childhood. Strife can’t hold when your belly’s full of love, and in my family, food has always been the bridge between past and present, between hardship and hope. Through Granny’s stories and the recipes she passed on.

​

Semi-rural Southern Indiana has its own quiet rhythm, a blend of temperate woodlands and open fields. The landscape stretches between dense patches of trees and sprawling agricultural fields, with houses scattered like afterthoughts along winding roads. As you approach town, the houses begin to cluster closer together, their density marking the edge of suburban life. Nestled within this transition is the neighborhood I knew my Grandma Penny for—a small, quiet enclave near a public park, where the echoes of her past ways lingered, weaving through the days of my childhood and adolescence.

 

The backyard was long and overgrown, a place of forgotten tools, rusting cars, and sagging sheds. It seemed like the land itself was remembering, holding onto its past as tightly as Grandma Penny did. A wooden basketball pole stood in the middle of it all, its basket a hollowed-out milk crate that swayed slightly with every shot. The yard felt alive with stories.

 

The side screen door opened into the heart of the home: a warm, well-loved kitchen that was the soul of our family.

 

The dining table, adorned with tins of shortbread cookies, bore the marks of decades of shared meals and whispered secrets. Wood paneling seemed to frame every corner, its warmth amplified by the smells wafting from the stove. The scent of collard greens simmering with a healthy dollop of bacon fat greeted you before you even stepped inside, mingling with the smell of buttery mac and cheese bubbling in the oven. On the counter, a foil pan of pulled pork fought for space, its rich, smoky scent filling the air.

​

The kitchen floor told its own story, the tiles near the sink bowed from fifty years of dishwashing by hand. That jar of bacon fat beside the stove wasn’t just a cooking staple—it was a testament to the continuity of care, an echo of my grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s shared belief that nothing should go to waste.

 

As a child, I thought the kitchen was magical, a place where time folded in on itself, and the past flowed seamlessly into the present.

 

Now, I see it as a living archive, a space that carried the essence of the old ways Granny spoke about so often.

​

Through the archway to the left, the living room opened before you. It's old carpet and tins of caramel candies. The front door was nearly always ajar, letting in the sounds of family life—a symphony of great aunties and uncles teasing and bickering. One great uncle would always make his way to the dining room, sitting with Granny and sharingthe kind of gossip that made you feel like you were eavesdropping on history. By then, the cooking was done for the moment, and the kitchen became a place for storytelling.

 

Grandma Penny presided over it all from her recliner near the living room’s front door. As her health worsened, that chair became her throne. Her short hair, always neat, and her bespectacled gaze gave her a quiet dignity. My grandmother Mary, by contrast, was a burst of energy, her voice quick and sweet, her long hair cascading as she moved through the room. Both of them were magnets, pulling in family and friends from every corner. They didn’t chase after people; people came to them, as if their warmth had its own gravity.

​

The old ways Granny often spoke of echoed in every part of that home. The meals cooked with love and care, the communal spirit that drew the family together, and the belief that food was more than sustenance. As the artist Rhapsody said, “I’m so Southern/I was taught to feed the soul with or without hot ovens/Here’s a plate.” That feels like a mantra for my family.

​

It’s in the way the food itself was a gathering force, a language shared across generations.

 

It’s in the way Grandma Penny and Granny seemed to radiate a quiet strength, like the whole world could flip upside down and everything would be okay. Those afternoons were lessons, a way of understanding how the past breathes life into the present. The rhythms of that kitchen, the smells of those meals, the voices of my family. These living, tangible parts of who we are. And in that small neighborhood, in that warm, overgrown home, those echoes kept us going and growing.

 

Grandma Penny’s home was, in many ways, a hub—a place where connections were forged, traditions preserved, and resilience cultivated. Her kitchen was a site of healing and renewal.

 

It was here that recipes were passed down and adapted, meals were shared, and stories flowed freely across generations.

 

Her table was a space of care and solidarity, a refuge in the face of the daily violence of racism. As Kyle Powys Whyte might describe, it was a centripetal force, pulling people, customs, and even the land’s bounty together into a collective ecology of adaptation and survival.

 

The church and the home were central to Grandma Penny’s world. Both served as sites of community-building and collective action. Every Sunday, the church buzzed with activity—meals shared among families, recipes swapped, and laughter that drowned out the weight of the week. Her role in the church and her work with the union at the power plant were acts of quiet revolution, and she fought for women’s worker rights as a traveling union rep. Her impact was so significant on the town, that a PhD student interviewed her about all her organizing efforts. When she passed in 2018, the outpouring of love at her funeral filled with food, jokes, and tears—was a testament to the impact she had on her community. I have never before seen a funeral full up on both joy and grief, black and white pastors telling stories of Penny’s shenanigans. Deferent yet lighthearted, and so, so full of love. It felt fitting that in 2021, the city honored her legacy by naming a street after her. The mayor at the time was the very same PhD student who had interviewed her years earlier, “Doctor Mayor” Treva Hodges.

 

Despite the joy and connection she created, structural racism’s shadow loomed large. Predatory lending practices forced my mother to relinquish the home she inherited from my grandmother; a painful reminder of how racialized dispossession continues to undermine Black legacies. Yet, the practices that sustained our family—gardening, cooking, sharing—endure.

 

These traditions are our acts of resistance and survival, of our rootedness.

 

As Whyte emphasizes, food is about reclaiming land, fostering community, and creating new models of collective control.

 

Granny often said they always had enough to eat because the land provided for them, even when they didn’t have money. This deep trust in the land and the labor to cultivate it was a central part of her upbringing and became the foundation for the practices she passed down. The collard greens simmering on the stove, the cornbread fresh from the oven, and the jars of homemade preserves were more than recipes—they were acts of remembrance, care, and resistance. These traditions are the threads that connect me to my ancestors, reminding me that our relationship with food is also a relationship with history, land, and community.

​

I often think of the Latin root of the word "companion"—com (with) and panis (bread). Through shared meals, we create connections that transcend time and space.

 

Breaking bread is a form of communication, an offering, a bridge.

 

My family’s recipes, from the holiday feasts to the simplest weeknight meals, embody this ethos. They are acts of love, binding us together in moments of celebration and mourning, joy and struggle. Food sovereignty, as Whyte discusses, is about creating systems of care and connection that adapt to and resist the forces of oppression. Grandma Penny’s backyard garden, Granny’s mac and cheese, those Sunday dinners—these are all small acts of liberation. We sit around the table, spill out into the living room, and regroup for the next day’s challenges. It is a way to reclaim space and build our future.

 

My family’s story also reminds me of the work of Monica White. She described the everyday acts of existence as a form of lateral resistance to oppression. That acre, churchdinners, and my great-grandpa's hunting made sure that the community was fed, even in the face of rural poverty and discrimination. And that way of relating to place and to each other has been handed down, even when land is lost. We continue to revisit our connection to each other and the places that raised us because that is where we have our power. As the older generation enters their twilight, I’m not afraid. I know their commemoration will be a jubilee of laughter and tears, because I’ve seen it. My mom and auntie host the holiday dinners. My cousins have begun to pick up the reigns, and one of them is already becoming the family historian. I hope by telling their stories here, I can do my part too.

 

In tending to these traditions, I honor the resilience of my ancestors and the communities they built.

 

I carry forward their wisdom, their warmth, and their belief in the transformative power of food to heal, connect, and sustain.

 

The recipe which was a throughline from my great-grandparents to me was banana pudding: a Southern classic with Nilla Wafers and all. I adored it as a child, and I still remember my mother at the kitchen island laying down the layers for this yummy treat. It was only in doing my research and interview for this project that I realized love for this dessert had been passed down through 4 generations. Granny wasn’t able to provide me with her parents’ version, so I searched for one that seemed rich and inspired. The recipe I found was through The Soul Food Pot website. I hope to make it for our Christmas meal, and maybe it will live up to my Granny’s memories of her dad’s version.

​

To make the Southern black banana pudding recipe, you’ll need the following things: 3 ripe bananas sliced into rounds, 8 ounces of whipped cream, 8 ounces of cream cheese, a standard box of Nilla Wafers, and a 4.6 ounce box of instant or cook-and-serve vanilla pudding mix. Start by preparing the pudding according to the package instructions, set aside and chill in the refrigerator. In a medium bowl, mix the whipped cream and cream cheese til smooth, then set the mixture aside. Begin by lining the bottom and sides of a baking dish with Wafers, add a layer of banana slices, and then a layer of whipped cream/cream cheese on top. Repeat this until you’re out. Then sprinkle the crushed cookies to top it all off. Let it sit in the fridge for 2 hours and then enjoy.

​

My heart skips a beat when I think of my mother and grandmother trying it out. I wish that Grandma Penny could as well and that it would make her think of all those years ago. Nevertheless, her tastes and her love live on in all her descendants. I’ll end this in a way that Penny would like: with a short prayer/meditation. This one is from the book Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human by Cole Arthur Riley:

​

Christ's death begins with a meal. "Eat, drink." That we would remember him in our bodies. Then, God kneels in his body to wash the bodies in his company. This is more than mere symbolism. The path to liberation is to stay in our bodies.

​

Embodied God,

​

At the door of trauma, you remind us that it is glory to be in our own flesh. We thank you that when you asked us to remember you, you asked us to eat, to drink— that we would meet something of you in the act of nourishment. Guide us back to an embodied existence, and help us to be patient and gentle with those times when we feel we must leave our bodies to survive. God, we ache. The traumas and tragedies of this worldland heavily on our physical selves. Would you grant us a liberation that is not simply a project of the mind or the spirit, but that has implications for our daily physical conditions. That as we attune to our bodies, our shoulders could relax, our jaws slacken, our breath become deep. As we move toward justice and solidarity, may we befriend the gloried physical in all tenderness and compassion. May it be so.

 

Breathe

​

INHALE: Suffering surrounds me.

​

EXHALE: God, help me stay in my body.

​

​

​

​

References

Rhapsody. (2019). Afeni [Song]. On Eve. Jamla; Roc Nation.

Whyte, K. P. (2016). Indigenous food sovereignty, renewal, and US settler colonialism. In The Routledge handbook of food ethics (pp. 354-365). Routledge.

White, M. M. (2018). Freedom farmers: Agricultural resistance and the Black freedom movement. UNC Press Books.

Necole, S. (2024, November 19). Black Folks Southern Banana Pudding Recipe. The Soul Food Pot. https://thesoulfoodpot.com/southern-banana-pudding/

Riley, C. A. (2024). Black liturgies: prayers, poems, and meditations for staying human. Convergent.