It’s a tired Thursday evening, and my Mum is wrapped up in a duck egg blue Marks & Spencer dressing gown with her pink slippers on. My phone lies flat next to her arm on the dining table.

‘Okay I’m going to press record now is that okay?’ I ask her.

She nods and sips her ginger tea as I gently tap my screen.

The next 45 minutes are filled with us doubled over and creasing, her re-living her childhood memories from Carriacou in Grenada to Shepherd’s Bush in the UK—some of which I’d never heard before—her eyes glimmering every time I asked her to relive another experience I was trying to unwrap.

‘What is it about souse that you love so much?’

The Christmas season marks the anniversary of the time my grandmother fed my mum the first spoonful of her favourite delicate side-dish souse. My essay uncovering the history and festivity around the dish from my mother’s eyes explores not just the celebratory joy it holds, but also the delicate ways of seasonal food preparation and preservation that are becoming increasingly lost to the diaspora. I didn’t see the joy in pig’s feet until I discovered that it was my mum’s favourite dish. Her joy being in complete contrast to my aversion piqued my curiosity of perspective, bridging a generational gap of lived experiences and tastes.

Recording my mum’s memories for Penguin’s YA anthology Black Joy edited by Timi Sotire and Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff was a personal way of digging deeper into the history of the dish as well as preserving my Mum’s personal memories of the Caribbean alongside my research. My essay sits alongside 27 others from fellow contributors; intimate snapshots of what Black joy means to them. The essays are powerful in their own right and range from wonderfully detailed dives into the historical legacies within Carnival to beautiful memories of Nigerian Hall parties dripping with relatable imagery. The anthology is filled with intimate moments of Black friendship, love and identity.

Described as a much-needed counter to the constant flood of Black trauma that continues to be centred in art and media. Recently, I had a clear out of books that I hadn’t read on my shelves, and many of the ones I got rid of started with detailed descriptions of physical pain from fictional slave characters. The one-dimension of Black trauma is something that the editors address:

‘It’s essential we move towards storytelling that allows for a full spectrum of emotion’
- Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff 

Black people, as a result of living in a world that systemically functions based on anti-Blackness, have become adept at fashioning joy from pain. This is not to say that moments of Black living completely untouched by trauma do not exist, but blues, souse and even jab jab are not marred in their ability to bring joy despite their origins. In my delve into my mum’s favourite dish, this was apparent. My mum’s enjoyment of souse— the texture and the flavour exist complete within its own experience. The context of how it was brought into her life, however, reveals the multi-faceted nature of Black joy. I explore this in a part of my essay:

‘Souse was a meal of choice for runaway slaves, as its ability to be preserved for a long time was critical during their long journeys of rebellion… This well-seasoned dish was eventually passed down as a delicacy, usually served in its own sauce as a side dish. The history of Caribbean souse is one of reserving undesirability and turning preservation into pleasure. It is the radical persistence of the rich flavours of Black joy, even from the margins of deprivation and survival.’

From reading this anthology, I was reminded that despite joy, often made in the midst of sadness or rage, this contextual composition never prevents it from forming something wonderfully unique, something that is simultaneously independent while still being formed of its original contextual parts—our experiences.

‘Through the corner of her eye, she catches her daughter’s nervous glances.

‘Go for it, she instructs, grinning daringly. ‘Bite around the bone.’
        Her daughter lifts the spoon to her mouth, analysing the gelatine and the white butter beans. As she takes her first mouthful and the kick of the scotch bonnet catches against the back of her throat, she understands. She makes a note of the heavily seasoned sauce, taking in the unique flavour of this Black British history now unfolding on her tongue. As her teeth work at the gelatine to break it down, she understands the toughness of preservation, the resilience of survival swallowed into a warmth that fills her belly. The texture is quite unlike anything she’s ever tasted before, and she’s not sure whether she likes it, but she understands. She takes another spoonful to pay tribute to the generations of patience, the stolen souse holding a runaway slave’s hunger at bay for a while longer, the years of trapped heat and endless boiling. Still undecided, she takes one last bite, and when her teeth suddenly graze the centre of the feet, she discovers the surprise of her mother’s joy in the perseverance of the salt, all the way to the bone.’

When we characterise Blackness in emotional singularities, Black Joy or Black Pain, we essentialise them into opposite spectrums of lived experience. Black Joy is not the anti-thesis or counter to Black pain. Learning about my mum’s favourite dish and reading other nuanced essays within the anthology was a refreshing reminder of this. In this book, Black Joy functions as an umbrella term for the beautiful collective and shared lived experience, both collectively and personally individual. As we head into Christmas, I’m sure that souse will feature on the table. I no longer hold an aversion to pig’s feet, now although it’s not my favourite, it’s a cultural celebration of my Caribbean heritage handed down to me in a new perspective and rediscovered through my mother’s joy.

Theophina Gabriel is an award-winning poet, writer, and freelance artist from Slough. Her work has been published through various platforms ranging from Sistah Zine to BBC Radio 1Xtra and she holds a BA in Philosophy & Theology from the University of Oxford. She is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Onyx Magazine (@onyxmagazineox), an award-winning independent publication dedicated to championing Black creatives. @lilaphina on Twitter and Instagram

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