DOI 10.60531/INSIGHTOUT.2023.1.3| WILLIAMS-FORSON: SEEKING THE ABSENT POTENTIAL_ INSIGHTOUT 1(2023) 46case that sat below the larger banner contained anadvertisement for a 1769 slave auction that tookplace in Charleston, South Carolina, as well as fauxfish and coffee beans that were created to illustratesome of the foods that were bought and traded(Fig.3 and 4 Banners 2 and 3“Producing Food/Negotiating Power”)The layout of these first three banners echoed thecontent focusing on enslaved Africans whose culinary labour included work both inside and outside ofthe slaveowner’s home and the plantation at large.These installations were outside of the actual exhibition space to reflect the public sphere. Once visitorsentered the library, they came into contact with theremaining three banners, all of which presented information about what took place within the domesticrealm.Fig. 3: Large display banner representing power negotiationsby an enslaved man and other representations of maritimecommerce. Photo taken by the author, 2016.Banners 4, 5, and 6 – TheKitchen and the“Big House”Banners 4, 5, and 6 moved the visitor into the library installation space, and they emphasised activitiesthat took place inside the home. Banner 5,“KitchenContradictions”, illustrated the chaotic, noisy, smoky,smelly, sweltering, and dangerous nature of an earlyAmerican kitchen, particularly hearth cooking. Usingthe“Cooks Day” entry, we stated,“Enslaved cooks,such as Lucy and Nathan at George Washington’sMount Vernon, started work at 4:00 A.M.” The workof preparing tasty meals over an open fire requiredhard and precise work. This latter point was necessary to state because it is and was often believedthat Black cooks lacked culinary skills and simply intuitively knew how to cook. Research indicates thefallacies of this thinking, with records showing thatseveral of the most esteemed early African cooks—especially those who cooked for presidents and thewealthy—were trained in and throughout Europe.Skill and precision were also necessary becauseif not, cooks and scullions, even children who werebeing watched, could get burned. If cooks unintentionally misgauged fire temperatures, they might destroy food. The changing seasons could spoil meatsand turn vegetables to mush.Fig. 4: The display case flanking banner 2 held a book withan article on the“Natural History of Coffee”, a glass plateon cocoa beans, and faux coffee beans to complement the discussion of maritime trade. Photo taken by the author, 2016.The“Kitchen Contradictions” banner held an imagetaken from the paintingWashington’s Kitchen, MountVernonby Eastman Johnson(1864). The centralimage is taken from a painting that shows an enslaved
