Without Black People ...Soul Food Would Have No Flavor
If you prefer your yams candied and your pork chops smothered, you most likely grew up eating the down-home flavors of Southern food. You no doubt have had hominy grits and biscuits with breakfast. You’re all too familiar with the smell of chitlins boiling or fish frying for dinner.
The familiarity of plates brimming to the rim with food that smells and tastes like a hug from granny, or your favorite auntie was born out of survival, and called soul food because it’s not only cooked from the heart, but from the very soul of the people who created it.
Whether it’s down home, healthy, upscale or vegan, soul food originated with Black enslaved people living in the interior Deep South—Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama, otherwise known as the Cotton Belt—with a mixture of European ingredients, Native American techniques, and ingredients and recipes that were first found in Africa. The term became widespread in the 1960s, along with soul music, soul brother and soul sister.
For this year’s Black History Month celebration, we want to reflect on just how much good eating and flavorful options we’d miss out on if Black people had not created soul food.
Without the Influence of African Cuisine, Soul Food Would Not Exist
Southern white women who kept “receipt books,” featuring mostly European puddings and pies, eventually began to include African recipes by the 1800s. Dishes made during slavery with foods that originated in Africa like yams, greens and black-eyed peas, are staples of Southern cuisine even today.
In fact, one favorite soul food side, collard greens seasoned with smoked meat, originated in West Africa, where vegetables were cooked with a portion of meat for added flavor.
Without The Great Migration, Soul Food Would Never Have Been Available Outside of The South
Millions of African Americans left the Southern states during the six decades of the Great Migration, looking for new homes, and bringing their recipes for sweet potato pie and fried chicken to other parts of the country.
Sylvia Wood migrated from South Carolina during the Second World War. By 1962, she opened the renowned Sylvia’s Restaurant on Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem, New York. Serving up catfish fingers, BBQ ribs, and sides of potato salad, the restaurant became a hot spot for tourist and locals alike, as well as for senators and presidents, including former President Barack Obama, looking to partake in her highly acclaimed soul food.
The White House is no stranger to soul food. From George Washington’s breakfast including hoecakes to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1939 state dinner with King George VI including sweet and sour pig’s feet, it was not unusual to find sitting presidents and their guests sharing a meal cooked by Black chefs.
Without Soul Food, There Would Be No Way to Feed the Soul
Soul Food, the 1997 movie, starring Vanessa Williams, Nia Long, and Vivica Fox, was so popular it inspried a series on Showtime. Only the second TV drama at that time to feature an all Black cast. which included Darrin Henson, Rockmond Dunbar, Boris Kodjoe, Nicole Ari Parker, Vanessa Williams, Malinda Williams and Aaron Meeks. The story between the movie and the series remained the same: a Black family in conflict after the matriarch’s death. The one thing that is sure to bring them back together is a Sunday soul food dinner of baked ham, macaroni and cheese, and peach cobbler. It’s said the original cast all gained a few pounds during production.
Having dined at 150 soul food restaurants in 35 cities in 15 states, author Adrian E. Miller food writer and certified barbecue judge is said to be an expert on the matter. His book Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time won the prestigious 2014 James Beard Award for reference and scholarship.
A trip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, in Washington, D.C., would not be complete without a visit to the museum’s Sweet Home Café. The restaurant is a James Beard award nominee and serves up a celebration of traditional and present-day African American cooking.
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Without the Seasonings and Cooking Methods, Southern Cuisine Would Flavorless
Stewing, deep frying, and barbecuing, is at the center of African American cuisine, according to culinary historian Jessica B. Harris, author of The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage Cooking.
Soul food is sweeter, saltier, and tastier. It gets its kick from a mix of seasonings, including black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chillipowder, paprika, salt, thyme, celery seed, parsley, and cayenne. And of course, we can’t forget the cinnamon, brown sugar, ginger, vanilla, and ground nutmeg needed to make cobbler.
Oxtails, ham hocks, and smoked turkey necks are all used to season everything from collards, and cabbage, to black-eyed peas.
Happy Black History Month! Come back next week as we take a look at what could have happened without Black people's contributions to American fashion trends.
