When the opening sequence of the first episode of
High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America began to roll, my face flushed and my stomach dropped into the pit of my abdomen. I was overwhelmed by the panning scenes of the marshes of Benin and the clips of churchgoers catching the spirit, gleefully dancing in praise. It felt intimately familiar to me. Benin is not my home, but it felt like North Carolina.
The history of Black American food is the topic of the new Netflix documentary, but food is the center of life, and the show conjures a broad and profound sense of familiarity and reverence. The four-part series takes place across the Atlantic and around the U.S. as the food writer Stephen Satterfield navigates the ways in which Black Americans created the backbone of America’s cuisine and its economy. It’s a fresh lens on a centuries-old truth: Without us, there is no America.