What is black culture food - Soul Food

What is black culture food - Soul Food

Although the term was used much later, soul food came from South African home-cooked cuisine, using locally grown or collected food and other inexpensive ingredients. After their liberation from slavery in the 1860s, African American chefs added to the excess food provided by slave owners but made less. 

Most of the food they prepared was common to all the rural poor of the South - light and dark-skinned as well - but these foods and cooking techniques were adopted to the north by African Americans during the Great Migration and thus adopted by African American culture. 

African Americans were often hired as cooks in white homes and restaurants, and they added the influence of dishes that their employers liked in their home cooking.

Although there were regional differences, such as the Creole influence from Louisiana, many of the same foods were eaten throughout the South. Maize (maize) was raised as a base, to be ground into cornbread and its various local hoecakes, baked on a griddle, and roasted puppies, usually fried with fish. Maize also provided hominy grits, to be eaten as breakfast or snacks. Biscuits were a popular type of bread. Rice was an important staple, especially in the Carolinas and Louisiana. Molasses and corn syrup brought sweetness.

What is black culture food - Soul Food

Poultry and pigs could not be raised on small farms without special fodder, and pork, fresh or smoked, appeared in many containers. The inclusion of smoked pork, usually in the form of fatback or bacon, is as common in the soul food containers, as is the use of preservatives such as frying or frying. 

All parts of the pork are used; sometimes only bone marrow or minor abnormalities were available for purchase. Pig tails, feet, ribs, ears, jols, hocks, liver and chitlins (chitterlings; that is, guts) become part of the soul's food history. Baking - a little meat cooking over a wood fire - became a special treat, with a variety of region and sauces and roasts. Opossums, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and deer were hunted, and fish, frogs, crayfish, tortoises, mussels, and crabs were collected in freshwater, saltwater, and plains. Freshwater fish was identified mainly by soul food.

African-origin vegetables, such as okra and potatoes, were widely grown, such as watermelons, vegetables (including mustard and cola), turnips, cabbage, and beans. Vegetables, especially collards, served as important sources of dietary fiber and vitamins. Lima beans, crowder peas, black-eyed peas, butter beans, and green beans are used fresh or dried. Vinegar-based pepper sauce (see pepper) is always the most widely used ingredient. Other popular dishes are fried chicken, short beef ribs, macaroni and cheese and potato salad. Desserts include pies and flat cakes, cobblers, and desserts, which often include peanuts, peaches, and berries.

Beginning in the 1940's, soul food restaurants sprang up in every major American city with a large Black population and began to attract a wide variety of customers. More recently, modern health-care chefs have sought to reduce their consumption of animal fats and salts, largely due to the rise in high blood pressure and diabetes among African Americans. In particular, canola and vegetable oils and fatty cuts have been widely used in the preparation of soul food; some cooks even prepare the equivalent of vegetables in traditional soul food dishes.