During the era of Segregation in American history, Black Americans were free from slavery, but they were not free from discrimination. One form that discrimination took was that Black people were denied access to certain things. They were not allowed to attend schools with white teachers and students – only schools with Black teachers and Black students – and water fountains were all designated for either white people or Black people.

A lesser-known act of discrimination, however, focuses on ice cream. During the days of segregation, vanilla ice cream was not to be sold to the Black community. It was seen as “pure” due to the white color, and so they were denied the right to purchase it. From there, Black Americans turned to butter pecan ice cream instead. Darryl Goodner from the Butter Pecan Podcast says it best: “Butter pecan is indicative of a lot of things about Black people as a culture: When you don’t have this option, you figure out the other one” (DailyDot).

So what is the history of the butter pecan flavor? Antoine (no last name) was an enslaved man who lived in Louisiana. Not much is known about him, as goes the story of many enslaved people, but there is one thing historians do know: Antoine is the person responsible for figuring out the key to quickly harvesting pecan trees. Before Antoine, many had tried, but the process always took too much time to be of any worth.

Antoine specialized in working on his owner J. T. Roman’s gardens. During this time was when Antoine learned that the trick to promoting the quick growth of pecan trees was to “tie the roots from a tree with premium pecans to those of a lesser tree” and doing this would help the lesser tree produce higher-quality pecans (Feast Afrique) . And the rest was history.

Butter pecan ice cream has been eaten and enjoyed by a large handful of the Black community ever since the discovery of being able to produce and harvest pecans at a greater pace. Check out this TikTok below by nikki.mov to learn all about the history and cultural significance of Butter Pecan Ice Cream, as well as a visual on how to create the yummy treat.