Nineteenth Century Life in these Houses: Food Trays

Food Trays

Figure 21: Food trays

As a boy, Archie Waiters had seen, in Ruska Gregg’s home, a food tray that African Americans had eaten from when all cooking was done in a single kitchen prior to emancipation. Waiters said that the trays were placed on either side of a long table. Here are three trays made in 1991 by Otis Waiters and Richard Waiters, attempting to reproduce the tray that their father had described. Probably the tray on the left is closest to the one that Waiters described. It is interesting to note that Charles Ball, a slave who was brought to South Carolina from Maryland, commented that he had not seen people eating from trays until he got to South Carolina. (Charles Ball, Slavery in the United States, [1836; rpr. New York, 1969], 85). (Photo 1998)