Caroline Randall Williams
It’s a great time to, ahem, discover Discovery+ and the streaming network’s array of programming. Throughout the pandemic, Maine Cabin Masters has become my late-night calming force to destress before bedtime. House Hunters International has replaced actual travel in our household and is a dinnertime entertainment staple.
An upcoming series is a little more substantial than those bits of escapist fluff, and more importantly features Nashville educator, writer and performance artist Caroline Randall Williams. She will be featured in a new four-episode streaming series, Hungry for Answers, which will be available on Discovery+ starting Wednesday, June 8.
The series is executive produced by Viola Davis and her husband Julius Tennon’s JuVee Productions. Davis met Williams on the set of The Help in 2010. In the official announcement for the show, Davis shares that she immediately knew Williams “was special. Not only as a cook but as a journalist and critical thinker. She pitched Julius and I her idea of this revelatory cooking show. We are both thrilled to invite her into the JuVee family.”
In the premiere episode, William addresses the question “Who gets to cook Black food?” Using the lens of Nashville hot chicken to examine the thorny topic, she will address issues of appropriation from a local’s perspective. She visits with her mother, Alice Randall (who co-authored the book, Soul Food Love with Williams), and grandmother (an integral part of the book) to discuss the history of the iconic dish and how it has exploded in popularity, primarily lining the pockets of what she calls “white-owned hot chicken empires.”
Future episodes will investigate the connection between Nathan “Nearest” Green and Jack Daniel and how the slave and first known African American distiller actually taught Jack how to make whiskey. She will also trace the history of the despicable sugar trade, from slave labor to convict leasing, and address how sugar impacts the human body, another important theme of Soul Food Love. Another episode will tell the story of Black farmers in America and the impacts they continue to make in their communities.
In the announcement, Williams shares: “Hungry for Answers is so many dreams of mine come true — a call and response opportunity to do some question asking, some truth telling, some good eating and fine drinking. I can't wait to share this wild, spicy, complicated and delicious adventure with an audience!”
Hungry for Answers is a show about food, but it’s not just a food show. Shining a light on some of the stories behind Black Americans’ connections with food is something that many activists and scholars have been calling for over the past few years, and Caroline Randall Williams should be an excellent scholar to address some of these issues. All the episodes will be available to stream on Discovery+ starting June 8.
