Having problems with finding good sources to use in terms of foods and slaves. Apparently, from what I've heard and seen, the diet of a slave is hard to pin. Some books, like Beloved for instance, have spoken of slaves eating bread and fish, while others omit fish entirely from it. This is a bit of an odd topic to be posting on an MLP forum, but this little tidbit is important for my story and also an interesting topic to discuss.

[excerpt from the link]

We've determined that they lived low off the hog. Very nearly all had garden plots, and the owners almost universally provided a living, if not nutritionally correct, ration.

I believe it was Sam who provided an African recipe. Thanks for the recipe, Sam, but I'll pass on actually trying it. Okra would have been available, as well as beans and other legumes that could be dried and saved. So what did they eat? Sounds like potatoes, sweet and regular, cornbread, stews with a bit of fat pork in it and, perhaps, an occasional rabbit, squirrel, or fish. Maybe a chicken now and then. Did they have access to fresh fruit? Nuts and greens. I'd suspect that many of them ate as well as some of the hill folks on their subsistence farms.

Page 2, Comment by Ole.

Yet again, I don't know how accurate this is, considering there's no other sources for his claim (except two books and the like), but here's a starting point.