Like most culinary traditions, African-American cooking was long a balance of wholesome and unwholesome elements. The soul food I thought I knew, however, turned out to be little more than a grease-spattered cliché. Turns out she was half-right: The term was coined in 1964, according to Webster's-though the cuisine has features that go back millennia, to precolonial Africa. "Soul food didn't even exist before the 1960s," said an in-the-know friend over lunch one day. It was set in motion by an offhand remark. And I presumed that this cuisine was responsible, in some vague and sinister way, for the rash of obesity-related health problems that have beset African-Americans.įortunately, my journey to enlightenment was neither arduous nor greasy, though it did require frequent stops to sample-er, research-the subject.
I believed that its essential ingredient was pork-especially the less savory cuts: trotters, snouts, tails, and entrails-and that deep-fat frying was its definitive technique. I assumed, for instance, that it originated roughly 200 years ago, give or take a few decades.
Here's a confession: I thought I knew a thing or two about soul food, but I didn't.
African-Americans have been doing it for 200 years, and their vibrant, veggie-centric traditions are worth reviving. Eating organically, sustainably, and locally is just the latest eco-foodie trend-right? Hardly.
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