100 Years of Cooking in a Black Family

NASHVILLE, TN — On the heels of a successful showing at The Tennessee State Museum this past Sunday, February 2, 2020, Let’s Eat! Origins and Evolutions of Tennessee Food, closed the exhibition with a special “In Conversation” event featuring mother and daughter, Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams, authors of Soul Food Love (Clarkson Potter, 2015). The event was free and open to the public.

In Soul Food Love, novelist and Let’s Eat! exhibition scholar Alice Randall and her daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, reclaim and redefine soul food by mining the traditions of four generations of black women and creating 80 healthy recipes to help everyone live longer and stronger. They worked together to overhaul the foods they love to cook and eat. They’ve updated the

recipes and traditions handed down by their mothers and grandmothers into easy, affordable, and healthy—but still delicious—dishes, like Peanut Chicken Stew, Red Bean and Brown Rice Creole Salad, Fiery Green Beans, and Sinless Sweet Potato Pie. 

About Let’s Eat! 

Origins and Evolutions of Tennessee Food

Let’s Eat! Origins and Evolutions of Tennessee Food, which opened in August 2019 and closes on February 2, 2020, explores the rich and diverse history of Tennessee’s food. Whether barbecued, fried, roasted, pickled, or chilled, the food of Tennessee, and the southern United States, is a meeting of Southeastern Indian, West European, and West African cultural groups. Many cooks, who were primarily women, took the proteins, vegetables, and cooking traditions of each group, then experimented, taste-tested, and created delicious meals. The evolution of Tennessee food continues as foreign-born recent arrivals inspire new flavors. The exhibition is presented through eight sections that trace the state’s food from its Southeastern Indian origins to contemporary food festival celebrations. All are complemented by artifacts from the Museum’s collection, digital storytelling, graphics, and location photography.

About the TN State Museum

The Tennessee State Museum, on the corner of Rosa L. Parks Blvd. and Jefferson Street at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, is home to 13,000 years of Tennessee art and history. Through six permanent exhibitions titled Natural History, First Peoples, Forging a Nation, The Civil War and Reconstruction, Change and Challenge and Tennessee Transforms, the Museum takes visitors on a journey – through artifacts, films, interactive displays, events and educational programing – from the state’s geological beginnings to the present day. Additional temporary exhibitions explore significant periods and individuals in history, along with art and cultural movements. The Museum is free and open to the public Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Thursdays from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. – 5 p.m. For more information on exhibitions and events, please visit tnmuseum.org.