High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America serves up food, history lessons and a travel guide.
Producers of the Netflix docuseries hope season 2 also opens “hearts and minds” about Black American culture.
Based on the book High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America by Jessica B. Harris, Ph.D., the series takes viewers around the U.S. to restaurants and historic sites to trace the connection between soul food and its roots in the West African slave trade.
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At a recent FYSEE event at Sunset Las Palmas in Los Angeles, promoting the series for awards voters, the team behind High on the Hog discussed what prompted them to bring the project to the screen.
“I’ve taught English for 50 years at Queens College. Trust me, I know we don’t all read,” Harris said to laughter. “So the idea of having something that would then take something that I had written and bring it to life… was kind of extraordinary.”
Harris, who describes herself as a “food anthropologist,” travels to New Orleans, Chicago, New York City, Atlanta and Los Angeles with food writer and host Stephen Satterfield in season 2.
They visit chefs, a former sharecropper, and a 99-year-old Black Pullman porter to learn how African-American food and traditions were transported North during the Great Migration — when approximately six million Black people moved from the South to other parts of the country in search of new opportunities.
“The second series begins in New Orleans and the whole idea of looking at the first series with the West African import,” said Harris, “But then we look at New Orleans to begin to see how that comes together, to begin to see — this is now a new world, with new people, with new foods and the way that those new foods connect.”
The series also looks at the power of food to help families gain economic independence.
Co-executive producer Fabienne Toback said the show’s production team set out to raise awareness.
“The moment we read the book, it was like so clear that this was a series. There was a lot of turmoil going on in the world and what better way to change the hearts and minds of people than through their stomach,” said Toback. “We felt like this was such an important way to tell our story and one that was, for lack of a better word, palatable.”
In addition to Toback, Satterfield, and Harris, executive producers include Roger Ross Williams, Geoff Martz, Craig Piligian, Sarba Das, Karis Jagger, and Michele Barnwell.
Season 2 of High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America premiered in November. The series is currently streaming on Netflix.
Watch the trailer below:
