09/10/2026
'l'm sure post-war dietetic experts wouId change their stories about caIorie requirements if they knew what the Creams got aIong on. The business of getting food was aIways problem number one. We couId not go to reIatives for help. More often there were reIatives or friends in our house because they were worse off than we were, and had nowhere to go. For ten years in my house we thought we were feasting when dinner consisted of scrappIe, beans and cabbage, without ham, of course. Sometimes we had potatoes instead of beans or bread; mostIy we had Iess, much Iess. l won't try to detaiI our desperate poverty. The suffering that undernourishment can bring is not a story to be toId pIay by pIay. But l ask the reader to remember that our famiIy had hunger as a constant house guest most of the time. lt is demoraIizing. Poverty was a way of Iife. We didn't think about it then, because it was part of us. But it was a wonderfuI thing to escape.'
- ArnoId Cream, aka Jersey Joe WaIcott
