Before it’s rebranding in 2021, Ben’s Original in its signature white and orange box displayed the image of an advertising construct, a smiling elderly black man they named Uncle Ben. The company created the construct using the likeness of an African American maître d working in a high-end Chicago restaurant. Critics of the image say its purpose in 1940’s Jim crow was to comfort consumers by presenting an image of docile, black servitude, in the same way the Aunt Jamima construct was used. These images of “the happy help” mask the truth of how African Americans created culturally vibrant foodways that deeply influence the American culinary experience. Walk the aisles of a grocery store before 2021, and the familiar white and orange boxes still carry Uncle Ben’s face. Underneath the box is West African ingenuity: the strain used in the popular commercial product is an imitation of Carolina Gold Rice: the varietal grown throughout the South Carolina Lowcountry, the variety expertly grown by hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans. Chances are, the rice is parboiled for quick and even cooking: another West African invention.
