Building Houses Out of Chicken Legs

Shop Notes: An important and engaging work on food as cultural identification and (finally!) writing that truly honors the full breadth of women who bootstrap themselves, their family, and community through food.  This is powerful stuff, y'all. From the Publisher: Chicken--both the bird and the food--has played multiple roles in the lives of African American women from the slavery era to the present. It has provided food and a source of income for their families, shaped a distinctive culture, and helped women define and exert themselves in racist and hostile environments. Psyche A. Williams-Forson examines the complexity of black women's legacies using food as a form of cultural work. While acknowledging the negative interpretations of black culture associated with chicken imagery, Williams-Forson focuses her analysis on the ways black women have forged their own self-definitions and relationships to the "gospel bird."Exploring material ranging from personal interviews to the comedy of