Soul food is an ethnic cuisine traditionally prepared and eaten by African Americans in the Southern United States. The expression "soul food" originated in the mids, when " soul " was a common word used to describe African American culture. The term soul food became popular in the s and s in the midst of the Black Power movement. Soul food restaurants were Black-owned businesses that served as neighborhood meeting places where people socialized and ate together. The origins of recipes considered soul food can be traced back to before slavery, as African mostly West African and European mostly British foodways were adapted to the environment of the region. Enslaved people were typically given a peck of cornmeal and pounds of pork per week, and from those rations come soul food staples such as cornbread , fried catfish , barbecued ribs , chitterlings , and neckbones. Enslaved people needed to eat foods with high amounts of calories to balance out spending long days working in the fields.
If you're thinking ham hocks and hush puppies, you're on the right track
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Also known as Freedom Day, Juneteenth is an American holiday that commemorates the official end of slavery. Despite the Emancipation Proclamation two years prior, Texas was the most remote of the slave states with a low presence of Union representation and increasing slave population. On June 19, , Union soldiers arrived in Texas to announce that the Civil War was over and that the enslaved were to be freed. With 47 states observing Juneteenth, the day is a symbol of total freedom from slave trade across all states.
“Southern food isn’t one thing. Louisiana isn’t Georgia isn’t the Carolinas.”
One hot summer day in Wichita Falls, Texas, congregants of New Jerusalem Baptist Church piled into a line, ready to be served lunch during their annual church picnic. After the prayer was said, we sat down together, ate and laughed late into the afternoon. Photo Stefanie Keeler. As we enjoyed the luncheon, people shared their recipes with each other.
With the rise of the civil rights and black nationalist movements during the s, many Black Americans sought to reclaim their part of the American cultural legacy. The term may have first been used in by civil rights activist and poet Amiri Baraka. Soul food is basic, down-home cooking with its roots in the rural South. The staples of soul food cooking are beans, greens , cornmeal used in cornbread, hush puppies, and johnnycakes and as a coating for fried fish , and pork. Pork has an almost limitless number of uses in soul food. Pork fat is used for frying and as an ingredient in slowly cooked greens. Sweet, cold drinks are always a favorite.
