WATCH: ‘High On The Hog’ Tells The Untold Story On How Blacks Shaped America’s Kitchen

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Season 2 of Netflix’s acclaimed docu-series sees host Stephen Satterfield travel across the country to uncover the impact of African-American cuisine.

Transcript

00:00 Why do you think African-Americans have such a spiritual

00:03 and emotional connection to food

00:05 and the culture that surrounds it?

00:07 - Brief answer, because for many years,

00:09 we didn't have enough.

00:12 I think it also goes back to a kind of,

00:16 and this is a gross generalization,

00:18 which we all know we shouldn't do

00:20 when we come to black people.

00:21 I think we are inherently a spiritual people.

00:26 And I think that that spirituality reflects itself in food

00:31 and in our looking at food and in our ways of preparing it,

00:36 serving it, eating it, and all of the rest.

00:40 - When we've sung that song,

00:42 when we've painted that painting,

00:43 when we've done all these creative things,

00:48 it's not done until we eat.

00:49 - Dr. J and I are continuing our journey

00:55 to uncover the stories of African-Americans.

00:58 - We are implementing something that black people

01:00 have a right to, and that's a right to eat.

01:03 - Through the food we grow.

01:04 - Who we are is our connection to land.

01:07 - Prepare.

01:07 - This is a little bit of everything.

01:10 - And commune over.

01:10 - Oh, wow.

01:11 - Food is that thing that can create home wherever you go.

01:15 - I like to hope that food can bring us together.

01:17 - The best part is the last three words.

01:20 - Pass hot sauce.

01:21 (laughs)

01:22 - Being as though we have such a vast history

01:24 in this country, even after post-emancipation,

01:27 how did you identify what stories and dishes

01:31 you wanted to highlight this season?

01:33 - I think that really as much as anything,

01:35 we were trying to tell a story about movement,

01:39 about migration, and that story in particular,

01:44 especially after emancipation,

01:46 where the first season left off,

01:48 brings us to places like Louisiana,

01:52 to places like Chicago, to places like Atlanta,

01:56 as cities that can function as a microcosm

01:59 for this 20th century Black American story.

02:03 And of course, there's food stories everywhere,

02:07 there's history.

02:08 So I think we sort of worked backwards from there,

02:12 identifying what cities best embody

02:15 this particular version that we were telling.

02:18 - So Dr. Jessica, can you tell me,

02:22 do you think that our relationship,

02:24 African-Americans' relationship with food

02:26 changed from the time during slavery to the time post?

02:31 Like, do you think our relationship changed at all?

02:33 - I think it did.

02:34 I think it has always been a communal thing,

02:39 a celebratory thing, a familial thing for us.

02:44 I think that post-emancipation,

02:49 as we moved and spread and became more affluent,

02:54 many of those things continued,

02:58 but also our diet changed.

03:01 I think that as we, in the great migration,

03:06 moved all over the country,

03:09 we ended up with regionalisms

03:13 and different kinds of regionalisms,

03:15 eating other things, doing other things.

03:17 But I think basically food as a connector

03:21 of family, community,

03:24 and as a representation of hearth and home

03:28 has remained a constant.

03:30 - So Steven, this next question is for you, my brother.

03:33 What has been the most fulfilling thing

03:36 in working on "High on the Hog" for you?

03:39 - I think simply that it's been a dream

03:42 for Black foodways and Black culinary history

03:47 to be used as a way to understand our own history.

03:53 And that so many, especially Black people,

03:58 have come to me and expressed to me

04:00 how much this work means to them.

04:04 And I can't express to you or to them

04:06 how much that means to me.

04:08 - Dr. Jessica, now that's the same question for you.

04:10 What has fulfilled you the most in working

04:12 on this amazing docuseries?

04:14 - Well, thank you for the amazing docuseries part.

04:18 I think the thing that has just moved me extraordinarily

04:23 is, you know, this is something I've been working on

04:27 since literally I was at Essence.

04:30 I was the travel editor of Essence in the mid '70s.

04:34 And so watching it come to,

04:39 in some kind of ways, fruition,

04:41 seeing it go out into the world to the 190 countries

04:46 that are going to be, you know,

04:49 able to watch this docuseries,

04:52 it's like unbelievable.

04:55 It's extraordinary.

04:57 I've had friends call from as far as New Zealand,

05:00 Brazil, certainly France, the continent itself,

05:07 and say how much the first series meant to them

05:10 and how it enabled them to have conversations

05:13 with their own elders about their traditional foods.

05:16 It's not just African-American friends.

05:19 Apparently it has elicited conversation among the Maori

05:24 in New Zealand about their traditional foods,

05:28 Afro-Brazilians about theirs and so on and so forth.

05:31 So it has just been an extraordinary moment in my life.

05:36 I feel very blessed to have been able to experience it.

05:39 (upbeat music)

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