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Don't Mess With The Sweet Potato Pie: A Museum Wrestles With 'Authentic' Black Menu

When the National Museum Of African American History and Culture's cafe tweaked traditional Southern black dishes, some customers weren't having it. It just shows how tricky "authentic" food can be.
Sweet Potato Pie served at the Sweet Home Cafe inside the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. When the museum opened in October 2016, the pie contained a twist, ginger. But customers used to more traditional Southern African-American preparations of the dish weren't having it. It just shows how tricky "authentic" food can be.

When Melanie McNeil roused her 8-year-old great-grandson, Byron Ridenour-Wright, out of bed in Ohio last fall, and loaded him onto a bus bound for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, she didn't have high hopes for lunch.

"I thought we were going to have to...work our way around to find some accommodations for food," she says. But after walking the galleries for the morning with her colleagues from the United Black Social Workers, who'd organized the trip, McNeil and Byron found their way to Sweet Home Cafe in the museum's lower level and loaded

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