I probably didn't summarize his point the best way in the title so here is the clip in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Y1u8J2sxE
While I love southern cooking, one thing that it isn't is overly complicated, so I just don't really buy the argument that rich white people were incapable of recreating it. Not to mention that rich white people still had "servants" or de facto slaves during Jim Crow.
On the other hand I can understand how certain culinary traditions might have become lost among white people due to severe racial segregation at the time.
So is there truth to what Alton Brown said? (Don't get me wrong I love the guy.)
Edit: I think it was an episode of The Layover, not No Reservations. My bad.
As you say, if you were rich after the Civil War, it's very likely you were not exclusively cooking for yourself.
Secondly, cuisine is always evolving and changing. After the Civil War, railroads were booming, trade was expanding, and foods were being shared. You can check out this 1881 Maryland cookbook and you'll find some surprising recipes like Indian Binderloo [Vindaloo]. You'll also find French recipes and more traditional southern foods like biscuits, gumbos, bacon, etc. What Brown perceives as the South "forgetting" was really just changing preferences that included both newly available food and traditional favorites.
Related question: During the time of Slavery, blacks were given the undesirable bits of the animals that the slave owners wouldn't eat: intestines, organs, skin, etc...
Why do these traditions persist (soul food), when it's no longer a necessity?
Follow up question: There seems to be a common conception that most of the population of the south were either slave owners or slaves. Does anyone know the percentage of southerners before the civil war that were neither slaves or slave owners? If this is a relatively high number, wouldn't it mean that Alton's statement has to be false?