Symbolizing freedom and power, red foods are traditionally featured in Juneteenth holiday spreads. Here's where to find them at Los Angeles' best Black-owned restaurants and markets.
My mother reminded me recently of a family trip we took to Allensworth, Calif., the state’s only Black-founded town , for its annual Juneteenth festival.
Finally, a hazy snapshot emerged: A vast golden field, my extended family spread out around picnic tables, laughing, talking, playing games and eating with other festivalgoers. Aside from the recognizably dry and flat lands of California’s Central Valley, the scene was interchangeable with family reunions, holidays and even summer trips to visit my great-grandmother in Jackson, Miss.
The holiday marks June 19, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform all enslaved people within the state — estimated to be 25,000 — that they had been freed by President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, nearly 2½ years after the order was given. There are different ideas around the significance of eating red foods on Juneteenth. Some believe that early celebrants simply worked with easily accessible and in-season ingredients that happened to be red: watermelon, strawberries, beans and fried or smoked meats. Others say that it honors the bloodshed and suffering of enslaved ancestors.
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