Go Fish, Food Supplements in Antebellum America
Courtesy of the New York Public Library, Circa 1900
How crabs arrived in ones kitchen, who cleaned, prepared, and served it at one's table has historically served as an important indicators of one's status, power, and income. As a food source crab was versatile as well as tasty as made into crab cakes and crab bisques among other dishes. During the antebellum period the great majority of enslaved Africans in the Chesapeake region might have starved if they did not supplement the niggardly allotment of rations that masters distributed to them. As a result most enslaved folk foraged for plant foods, hunted for wild game fished and crabbed. This was done in the evening after working in the fields or days off on Sundays and holidays.
