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Work Projects Administration

"Arkansas Narratives, Part 2"


"All the slaves ate together. They had a cook special for them. This
cook would cook in a long house more than thirty feet long. Two or three
women would work there and a man, just like the cooks would in a hotel
now. All the working hands ate there and got whatever the cook gave
them. It was one thing one time and another another. The cook gave the
hands anything that was raised on the place. There was one woman in
there cooking that was called 'Mammy' and she seed to all the chilen.

Feeding the Children
"After the old folks among the slaves had had their breakfast, the cook
would blow a horn. That would be about nine o'clock or eight. All the
children that were big enough would come to the cook shack. Some of them
would bring small children that had been weaned but couldn't look after
themselves. The cook would serve them whatever the old folks had for
breakfast. They ate out of the same kind of dishes as the old folks.
"Between ten and eleven o'clock, the cook would blow the horn again and
the children would come in from play. There would be a large bowl and a
large spoon for each group of larger children. There would be enough
children in each group to get around the bowl comfortably.


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