Many Italians settled in Louisiana and Mississippi in the late 1800s, bringing their pasta dishes. By the 1930s, Black people from New Orleans to New York patronized spaghetti houses. But it's never the same once we get our hands on something.
Our version is saucy, cheesy, and often baked. Depending on who's cooking, it can be an entree or side dish, like in the South, where it's typically eaten with fried catfish. There are even variations of Black people spaghetti across the diaspora.
In Somalia, once colonized by Italy, locals make spaghetti using spices like cumin, coriander, and cilantro. There's Nigerian Jollof Spaghetti. Haitians make "espageti" which ended up in the country due to US military occupation, using peppers, garlic, and lime. Dominicans love packing their “empaguetadas,” for beach trips. This history has a lesson that goes beyond love for a good plate of pasta. Black people spaghetti is a love letter to our ingenuity.
We've long known how to make something never meant for us distinctly ours. We've involuntarily inherited languages, lands, and foods and made beautiful, Black variations. Here's a powerful reminder of why that matters.
We're shape-shifters. If we can do it with spaghetti, what else about the world can we remix and reimagine for our betterment?