Information AboutSoul Food |
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Soul food is an American Cuisine , a selection of Food s, typically associated with African Americans of the Southern United States . In the mid-1960s, when the Civil Rights Movement was just beginning, "soul" was a common adjective used to describe African American culture, and thus the name "soul food" was derived. ORIGINS The term ''soul food'' became popular in the 1960s , when the word '' Soul '' became used in connection with most things African American . The origins of soul food, however, are much older and can be traced back to Africa . Many culinary historians believe that in the beginning of the 14th century, around the time of early African Exploration , European explorers brought their own food supplies and introduced them into the African diet. Foods such as turnips from Morocco and cabbage from Spain would play an important part in the history of African American cuisine. When slave trading began in the early 1400s, the diet of newly enslaved Africans changed on the long journeys from their homeland. It was during this time that some of the indigenous crops of Africa began showing up in the slaves' new home in the Americas. Tall tales of seeds from Watermelons , Okra and Sesame being transported in the slave's ears, hair or clothing is more likely being true being that cross-pollination is known to occur in such cases. Some traditional African foods became commercially raised crops in America. As slaves, African Americans would "make do" with the ingredients at hand. The fresh vegetables found in Africa were replaced by the throwaway foods from the plantation house. Their vegetables were the tops of , Kale , Cress , Mustard , and Pokeweed . African American slaves also developed recipes which used discarded meat from the plantation, such as pig’s feet, beef tongue or tail, ham hocks, Chitterlings (pig Small Intestines ), pig ears, hog jowls, Tripe and skin. Cooks added Onions , Garlic , Thyme , and Bay Leaf to enhance the flavors. Many African Americans depended on catching their own meat, and wild game such as raccoon, possum, turtle, and rabbit was, until the 1950s, very popular fare on the African American table. The slave diet began to evolve when slaves entered the plantation houses as cooks. Suddenly, southern cooking took on new meaning. Fried chicken began to appear on the tables; sweet potatoes sat next to boiled white potatoes. Regional foods such as apples, peaches, berries, nuts, and grains soon became puddings and pies; thus, soul cooking began to influence Southern food. There was no waste in the traditional African American kitchen. Leftover fish became Croquettes (by adding an egg, cornmeal or flour, seasonings which were breaded and deep-fried). Stale bread became bread pudding, and each part of the pig had its own special dish. Even the liquid from cooked greens, called Potlikker , was consumed as a type of gravy, or drunk. After long hours of labor, the evening meal was a time for families to get together, and the tradition of communal meals was the perfect environment for conversation and the reciting of oral history and storytelling. Another tradition was the potluck dinner, with each family member bringing a different dish to the dinner. When it was their families' turn for a visit by the preacher, it was also common practice for black women to hold up Sunday lunches or dinners until he arrived. If the minister frequently graced one's family table, then that conferred upon the family a degree of prestige in the eyes of the congregation. The tradition of extended family, friends and neighbors gathering at one woman's household at Christmas and Thanksgiving because of her status as a cook also began with the preacher's approval. After slavery in the United States came to an end, many poor African Americans could afford only the least expensive cuts of meat and Offal . Subsistence farming yielded fresh vegetables, and fishing and hunting provided fish and wild game, such as Possum , Rabbit , Squirrel , and sometimes Waterfowl . While soul food originated in the South, soul food restaurants—from fried chicken and fish "shacks" to upscale dining establishments—exist in virtually every African American community in the USA, especially in cities with large African American populations, such as Charleston , Atlanta , Chicago , Kansas City , Indianapolis , Houston , Detroit , New York , Philadelphia , Cleveland , New Orleans , Memphis , Los Angeles , Miami , Birmingham , Sacramento , St. Louis and Washington, D.C . SOUL FOOD BEING THE MOTHER OF SOUTHERN COOKING Impoverished whites and blacks in the South prepared many of the same dishes stemming from the soul tradition, but styles of preparation sometimes varied. African American soul food generally tends to be more intensely spiced than European American cuisine. Many people in the south debate over what the difference is between soul food and Southern cooking. Before the 1870's, the south was made up of a predominately Anglo and black population. Many blacks were cooks on plantations and may have taught the poor whites in the area their culinary traditions. Soul food is the first of the southern cuisines to arise, along with Creole cuisine (a similar cuisine that was isolated in the French Louisiana territory). During the 1870's, Irish, German, Czech immigrants started to come into the south bringing their own traditions coupled with soul food. This is when the larger, broad category of Southern cooking developed. It is also important to note the Native American influence on soul cooking. Natives had been cultivating beans, strawberries, maize (a type of corn, being that any small grain can be called a corn), and chile peppers. For years Natives prepared hotwater cornbread and strawberry bread, which Europeans appropiated the recipe to become strawberry shortcake. COOKBOOKS Since it was illegal in many states for enslaved Africans to learn to read or write, soul food recipes and cooking techniques tended to be passed along orally, until after slavery. The first soul food cookbook is attributed to Abby Fisher, entitled ''What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking'' and published in 1881. ''Good Things to Eat'' was published in 1911; the author, Rufus Estes, was a former slave who worked for the Pullman railway car service. Many other cookbooks were written by African Americans during that time, but as they were not widely distributed, most are now lost. Since the mid-20th century, many cookbooks highlighting soul food and African American foodways compiled by African Americans have been published and well received. Vertamae Grosvenor 's ''Vibration Cooking, or the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl'', originally published in 1970, focused on South Carolina "lowcountry", Geechee , or Gullah , cooking. Its focus on spontaneity in the kitchen—cooking by "vibration" rather than precisely measuring ingredients, as well as "making do" with ingredients on hand—captured the essence of traditional African American cooking techniques. The simple, healthful, basic ingredients of lowcountry cuisine, like shrimp, oysters, crab, fresh produce, rice and sweet potatoes, made it a bestseller. At the center of African American food celebrations is the value of sharing. Likewise, African American cookbooks often have a common theme of family and family gatherings. Usher boards and Women's Day committees of various religious congregations large and small, and even public service and social welfare organizations such as the National Council Of Negro Women (NCNW) have produced cookbooks to fund their operations and for charitable enterprises. The NCNW produced its first cookbook, ''The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro'', in 1958 , and revived the practice in 1993 , producing a popular series of cookbooks featuring recipes by well-known and celebrity African Americans, among them: ''The Black Family Reunion Cookbook'' (1993), ''Celebrating Our Mothers' Kitchens: Treasured Memories and Tested Recipes'' (1994), and ''Mother Africa's Table: A Chronicle of Celebration'' (1998). The NCNW also recently reissued ''The Historical Cookbook''. Celebrated traditional Southern chef and author Edna Lewis wrote a series of books between 1972 and 2003, including ''A Taste of Country Cooking'' (Alfred A. Knopf, 1976) where she weaves stories of her childhood in Freetown, Virginia into her recipes for "real Southern food". Another organization, the Chicago-based Real Men Charities, in existence since the 1980s, sponsors food-based charitable and educational programs and activities around the nation. As its primary annual, celebrity-studded fundraiser, Real Men Charities sponsors "Real Men Cook" events and programs in fifteen cities nationwide, where African American men gather to present their best recipes—some original, others handed down for generations—for charity. The event is timed to coincide roughly with Juneteenth and Father's Day and is promoted with the slogan "Every day is Family Day When Real Men Cook." In 2004, Real Men rolled out its Sweet Potato Pound Cake Mix in select food retail establishments in several cities, and published a cookbook in 2005 titled ''Real Men Cook: Rites, Rituals and Recipes for Living''. Proceeds from these events and from the cookbook help fund the organization's varied operations and activities. SOUL FOOD AND HEALTH Soul food was developed by enslaved Africans who lived in difficult, impoverished conditions of grinding physical labor. The entirety of soul food is not the roots of slavery, but of traditions stretching back to Africa. It is humble, hearty fare, traditionally cooked and seasoned with Pork products. Fried dishes were usually cooked with Lard . An important aspect of soul food is the use of "old grease." Many cooks were too poor to throw out shortening that was already used. They began to pour the grease when it was cooled(not firm) into containers. During refrigeration, the grease would firm up to its original composition and would be ready for re-use. This is in no way any more "unhealthy" than going out and buying new shortening or grease. This is just simply a way to reuse ingredients and the old grease gives a savory taste to whatever is fried in it. One would use just as much old grease as they would new grease. Remember pan-fried foods are not unhealthly because of the stability of the grease's temperature with the lack of water in the food, giving no chance for the oil to enter to meat or vegetable. Frequent consumption of these ingredients without significant exercise or activity (which was lost when African-Americans made the transition from being a rural community to inner city) can contribute to disproportionately high occurrences of Obesity , Hypertension , cardiac/circulatory problems and/or Diabetes , often resulting in a shortened lifespan. The slaves who survived the passage were the ones that absorbed more salt. Hypertension is not a result of the actual ingredients of soul food, but because of the stress of the slave trade on the Africans. Additionally, trans fat consumption (not only used in soul food but in bakeries across the world) is a known contributor to Cardiovascular Disease , though most diabetics and heart disease patients in the United States are from the white middle class demographic. |
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