Soul food
Soul food describes food traditionally eaten by African Americans of the Southern United States. With the exception of chitterlings (which are usually characteristic solely of African American cookery), the term soul food can also apply to white Southern US cuisine. The style of cooking originated during the time of slavery, when slaves were given only the "leftover" and "undesirable" cuts of meat (while the white slave owners got the meatiest cuts of ham, roasts, etc.), and only had the vegetables they grew themselves. Later, after slavery, many, being poor, could only afford the off-cuts of meat, along with offal, catfish, chickens they raised, and only certain easily-raised or low-cost vegetables.
Dishes or ingredients common in soul food include:
- Black-eyed peas
- Lima beans (also known as "butter beans," and usually cooked in butter)
- Catfish (normally fried with seasoned cornbread breading)
- Chicken (often fried with cornbread breading or seasoned flour)
- Chitterlings (pronounced as CHIT-lins)
- Collard greens (usually cooked with ham hocks)
- Mustard greens (usually cooked with ham hocks)
- Turnip greens (usually cooked with ham hocks)
- Cornbreads (often baked in an iron skillet and seasoned with bacon fat)
- Ham hocks
- Pickled pigs feet
- cracklins (commonly known as pork rinds)
- Mashed potatoes (usually with butter and condensed milk)
- Ribs (usually pork, but can also be beef ribs)
- Rice
- Yams (often candied (with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and butter or margarine))
- Succotash (yellow corn and butter beans, usually cooked in butter)
- Country fried steak (beef deep fried in flour or batter, usually served with gravy)
Soul food restaurants are mostly located in the South, but can also be found in major northern cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
Traditionally, as noted above, soul food is cooked and seasoned with pork products, and fried dishes are usually cooked with pork/animal fat (lard). Unfortunately, frequent consumption of cooking with these ingredients often contributes to disproportionately high occurrences of obesity, hypertension, cardiac/circulatory problems and/or diabetes in African-Americans, often resulting in a shortened lifespan. More modern methods of cooking soul food include using healthier alternatives for frying (vegetable oil or canola oil) and cooking/stewing (smoked turkey instead of pork).
See also
