49 Fun Facts About Soul Food

The expression 'soul food' came into use in which decade?

The 1960s: 'soul' became the watchword of Black American culture in that decade, and 'soul food' spread alongside soul music and the Black Power movement.

One of the earliest written uses of the term 'soul food' appears in which 1965 book?

The poet LeRoi Jones, later Amiri Baraka, also published an essay titled 'Soul Food' that argued for the cuisine as part of Black identity.

Under what earlier name did Amiri Baraka publish the article 'Soul Food'?

LeRoi Jones was the name Amiri Baraka wrote under before changing his name; his essay 'Soul Food' answered a claim that Black Americans had no cuisine of their own.

Which month is celebrated as National Soul Food Month?

June is National Soul Food Month, a designation introduced by the Culinary Historians of Chicago; it shares the month with Juneteenth, whose barbecues and red foods belong to the same tradition.

Per historian Adrian Miller, Black cooks distinguish their corn bread from white Southern versions by adding what?

White Southerners, Miller notes, say that once you put sugar in cornbread it becomes cake.

Which of these crops was NOT an African food carried on slave ships to the American South?

Maize is a Native American crop; okra, black-eyed peas, millet, rice and yams all crossed the Atlantic from Africa.

By tradition, enslaved African women smuggled rice, okra and millet seeds to the Americas by hiding them where?

In their braided hair, oral tradition holds: the women hid rice, okra and millet seeds in cornrows as a hedge against an unknown future in the land where they would be forced to work.

Which African bird, brought to the Americas via the slave trade, fed enslaved people on plantations?

Guinea fowl, an African bird domesticated long before the Atlantic trade, reached the Caribbean and the American South with the slave trade; enslaved people raised the hardy birds for eggs and meat.

A typical weekly ration for an enslaved person was a peck of corn meal and roughly how much pork?

3-4 pounds of salt pork a week was the common allowance alongside the peck of meal; owners kept the hams and left the offal, which is why many soul food classics come from parts nobody else wanted.

What did enslaved people call the plantation-house leftovers put in troughs on Sundays?

The word appears in many African languages, where folk knowledge records it meaning 'little bits' of food.

What did the abundance of bowls over plates in slave-cabin digs suggest about meals?

They were mostly stews and one-pot dishes: bowls suit soupy food, while the plates and flatware of planter households point to individual cuts of meat and vegetables served separately.

Douglass wrote that enslaved people fished turtles and eels from which Maryland river?

Douglass recorded a monthly allowance of eight pounds of pork or its equivalent in fish, plus a bushel of cornmeal.

Which prized enslaved cook at Mount Vernon had quasi-freedom to leave the house and sell leftovers for money?

Hercules Posey, George Washington's enslaved chef, was let out to sell kitchen leftovers for his own money and dressed like a gentleman on the proceeds; he escaped in February 1797.

Chitterlings, or chitlins, are which part of the pig?

The intestines of the pig, cleaned and simmered for hours, are chitterlings; the organ meat went to enslaved cooks while planters kept the hams, and similar dishes appear across Asia and Africa.

What is 'pot liquor'?

The liquid left after boiling greens is pot liquor, or pot likker; the vitamins that leach out of slow-cooked collards end up in it, so it was drunk from the pot or sopped up with bread.

Which pie is the traditional soul food holiday dessert, in place of pumpkin pie?

Sweet potato pie fills the pumpkin-pie slot on soul food holiday tables; its filling is a custard of mashed sweet potato, evaporated milk, eggs and warm spices, baked in an open shell.

Hoppin' John is a dish of rice cooked with which legume?

Black-eyed peas simmered with rice and a piece of pork make Hoppin' John; Lowcountry cooks often use smaller field peas or Sea Island red peas in their place.

Eating Hoppin' John with collard greens on which day is believed to bring twelve months of prosperity?

New Year's Day is the traditional date: the peas stand for coins and the greens for folding money, and some cooks drop a real coin in the pot for extra luck.

The black-eyed pea is a subspecies of which Old World plant domesticated in Africa?

The cowpea, Vigna unguiculata, is the African-domesticated species; the black-eyed pea is one of its subspecies, sold commercially as the California Blackeye and in heirloom forms such as the purple hull pea.

Okra, a staple of gumbo and soul food, crossed the Atlantic from which region?

West Africa: okra came to the Americas with the Atlantic slave trade, and the Bantu word for it, ki-ngombo, gave Louisiana its 'gumbo'; the plant is a mallow, kin to cotton and hibiscus.

Collard greens are the same species as which common vegetables?

Cabbage and broccoli, like collards, are cultivars of a single species, Brassica oleracea; collards sit in the loose-leafed kale group and have been eaten since classical antiquity.

Hominy is corn treated with an alkali in a process called what?

Nixtamalization, a Native American technique, soaks corn in limewater or wood-ash lye, loosening the hull and freeing the niacin; Lowcountry cooks long called cooked grits 'hominy'.

A hushpuppy is a deep-fried ball made from what kind of batter?

Cornmeal batter, usually with chopped onion, is dropped by the spoonful into hot oil to make hushpuppies, the classic side for fried fish.

Chicken and waffles, a soul food staple, originated as a meal of which American culinary tradition?

Pennsylvania Dutch cooks paired waffles with stewed chicken and gravy long before the fried-chicken version; Harlem's Wells Supper Club popularized the soul food pairing in the 1930s.

Cracklins, stirred into crackling bread, are fried pieces of what?

Pork skin with its fat attached, fried until it puffs and crisps, makes cracklins; cooks stir the crunchy bits into corn batter for crackling bread.

Which mid-20th-century seasoned salt is a staple in Black American kitchens?

Lawry's Seasoned Salt, created in 1938 for the Lawry's Prime Rib restaurant, puts several herbs and spices in one cheap shaker, so it goes on almost everything except desserts.

In what year was Abby Fisher's What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking published?

1881 is the date of Abby Fisher's book, printed in San Francisco; it was long called the first cookbook by a Black American until Malinda Russell's 1866 volume resurfaced.

Rufus Estes, author of the 1911 cookbook Good Things to Eat, had worked for which company?

The Pullman railway car service employed Estes as a cook on its luxury dining cars; born into slavery in Tennessee, he later self-published Good Things to Eat in 1911.

Sylvia Woods, the 'queen of soul food', opened her Harlem restaurant in which year?

1962 is when Sylvia and Herbert Woods bought the Harlem luncheonette where she had waited tables since 1954, renaming it Sylvia's; it grew into a brand of sauces and cookbooks.

Sylvia Woods was born in Hemingway, in which state?

South Carolina: Woods was born in 1926 in Hemingway, a farm town in Williamsburg County, and moved to Harlem as a teenager, working in a Brooklyn factory before a luncheonette kitchen.

Sylvia's Restaurant stands on which Harlem street?

Malcolm X Boulevard, the co-name of Lenox Avenue, is where Sylvia's stands at number 328, between 126th and 127th Streets, drawing locals and visiting celebrities alike.

Which Atlanta soul food restaurant did Martin Luther King Jr. use to eat, meet, plan and strategize?

Paschal's, the restaurant the Paschal brothers opened on Hunter Street, fed and hosted King and the SCLC as they planned campaigns; Georgia Gilmore's Montgomery kitchen played a similar role during the bus boycott.

At which D.C. soul food restaurant did King eat days before the 1963 March on Washington?

The grill on Florida Avenue NW is one of the oldest soul food restaurants in the country still operating.

What is the New Orleans restaurant of the 'Queen of Creole Cuisine', a civil-rights-era meeting place, called?

Dooky Chase, opened in 1941 in Tremé, was where Leah Chase, the Queen of Creole Cuisine, fed Freedom Riders and hosted strategy meetings of Black and white activists in its upstairs room.

Edna Lewis wove memories of her childhood in Freetown, Virginia, into which 1976 cookbook?

The Taste of Country Cooking, published in 1976, is arranged by season around Freetown, the Virginia community founded by freed people, her grandfather among them.

What is Jessica B. Harris's 2011 book on African-American food, later a Netflix docuseries, titled?

High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America traces the food's path; in the Netflix series Harris visits Benin, where women cook a leafy sauce much like collard greens.

Per Michael Twitty, why are red foods like watermelon and red velvet cake eaten on Juneteenth?

They recall the blood of enslaved ancestors and West African symbolism: among the Yoruba and Kongo peoples red stands for spiritual power, sacrifice and transformation, which Twitty links to the red drinks and cakes of Juneteenth.

Juneteenth commemorates General Granger's order enforcing emancipation in which Texas city in 1865?

Galveston is where Gordon Granger issued General Order No. 3 in 1865, announcing that all enslaved people in Texas were free; the first anniversary celebrations in 1866 centred on church gatherings and food.

Which New York hotel popularized red velvet cake in the 1920s and claims its invention?

The Waldorf-Astoria popularized the cake in the 1920s and calls it the Waldorf-Astoria cake; Eaton's department store in Canada is the other claimant, and the cake slumped after Red Dye No. 2 was linked to cancer in the 1970s.

Traditional banana pudding is layered with sliced bananas, custard and what?

Vanilla wafers, usually the Nilla brand, are layered with sliced bananas and custard; ladyfingers were the older choice, and the top is finished with meringue or whipped cream.

Who wrote and directed the 1997 film Soul Food, about a Chicago family and Sunday dinner?

George Tillman Jr. drew the Joseph family from his own family's Sunday dinners; Showtime spun the film into a series that ran from 2000 to 2004.

Which actress plays the matriarch Big Mama in the 1997 film Soul Food?

Irma P. Hall plays Mother Joe, the Big Mama whose Sunday dinners hold the family together; Vanessa Williams, Vivica A. Fox and Nia Long play her three daughters.

When, per food historian Adrian Miller, did soul food's global spread really take off?

After World War II, when Black veterans opened restaurants overseas: discharged servicemen stayed in places like France, Germany and Japan and at first cooked for troops at nearby bases.

James Hemings, Thomas Jefferson's enslaved head chef, trained under French cooks in which city?

Paris is where Hemings trained from 1784, apprenticing under caterers and the chef of the Prince de Condé before running Jefferson's kitchen at the Hôtel de Langeac.

What Gullah word did enslaved cooks use for the white plantation families they baked for?

Buckra, a Gullah and Caribbean word for a white person, comes from the Efik and Ibibio 'mbakara'; Gullah cooks baked cakes, wafers and brittles for the buckra households.

Jim Crow-era nightclubs in Black communities were collectively known by what name?

The Chitlin' Circuit was the string of venues safe for Black performers under Jim Crow, from the Apollo in Harlem to the Royal in Baltimore, named for the soul food staple chitterlings.

Which SNCC leader asked Ben's Chili Bowl to stay open during the riots after King's assassination?

Stokely Carmichael, the former SNCC chairman, asked Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street to stay open past the curfew; the restaurant fed police, student activists and firefighters through the 1968 unrest.

Benne seeds, eaten by enslaved Gullah people raw with sugar or milk, come from which plant?

Sesame is the plant behind benne, the African name that came over with the seed; Gullah cooks pressed it for oil and baked the benne wafers that became a Charleston specialty.

Gullah people celebrated emancipation on 1 January 1863 at Camp Saxton, in which South Carolina town?

Beaufort, on Port Royal Island, hosted the Camp Saxton reading of the Emancipation Proclamation to Higginson's regiment of formerly enslaved soldiers; Susie King Taylor, born enslaved in Georgia, described the day in her memoir.