soul food, the foods and techniques associated with the African American cuisine of the United States. The term was first used in print in 1964 during the rise of “Black pride,” when many aspects of African American culture—including soul music—were celebrated for their contribution to the American way of life. The term celebrated the ingenuity and skill of cooks who were able to form a distinctive cuisine despite limited means.
Although the name was applied much later, soul food originated in the home cooking of the rural South, using locally raised or gathered foods and other inexpensive ingredients. Following their emancipation from slavery in the 1860s, African American cooks expanded on the coarse diet that had been provided them by slave owners but still made do with little. Most of the foods they prepared were common to all the rural poor of the South—light- and dark-skinned alike—but these foods and food-preparation techniques were carried north by African Americans during the Great Migration and thus became identified with African American culture. African Americans were often employed as cooks in white households and in restaurants, and they incorporated the influence of their employers’ favored dishes into their home cooking.
Although there were regional variants, such as the Creole influence from Louisiana, many of the same foods were eaten throughout the South. Corn (maize) was raised as a staple, to be ground into cornmeal for cornbread and its local variants hoecakes, baked on a griddle, and hush puppies, usually fried with fish. Corn also provided hominy grits, to be eaten as a breakfast food or a side dish. Biscuits were a popular form of bread. Rice was an important staple, especially in the Carolinas and in Louisiana. Molasses and a syrup made from sorghum provided sweetening.
Chickens and pigs could be raised on small-scale farms without special fodder, and pork, fresh or smoked, appeared in many dishes. The inclusion of smoked pork, often in the form of fatback or bacon, is a common thread in soul food dishes, as is the use of lard as shortening or for frying. All parts of the pig were used; sometimes only the bony or less desirable cuts were available for purchase. Pig’s tails, feet, ribs, ears, jowls, hocks, liver, and chitlins (chitterlings; i.e., intestines) became part of the soul food repertoire. Barbecuing—the slow cooking of meat over a wood fire—became a specialty, with regional variations in sauces and seasonings. Opossums, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and deer were hunted, and fish, frogs, crayfish, turtles, shellfish, and crabs were collected from fresh waters, salt waters, and marshes. Freshwater catfish was especially identified with soul food.
Vegetables of African origin, such as okra and yams, were widely grown, as were melons, greens (including mustard and collards), turnips, cabbage, and beans. Greens, particularly collards, served as important sources of dietary fiber and vitamins. Lima beans, crowder peas, black-eyed peas, butter beans, and green beans were used fresh or dried. Spicy vinegar-based pepper sauce (see chili pepper) remains a widely used condiment. Other popular dishes are fried chicken, short ribs of beef, macaroni and cheese, and potato salad. Desserts include pies and layer cakes, cobblers, and puddings, often incorporating pecans, peaches, and berries.
From the 1940s, soul food restaurants appeared in every large American city with a sizeable Black population and began to attract a diverse clientele. More recently, health-conscious contemporary cooks have sought to limit the use of animal fat and salt, especially in light of the prevalence of high blood pressure and diabetes in the African American population. In particular, canola and vegetable oils and leaner cuts of meat became more widely used in the preparation of soul food; some cooks even prepared vegetarian equivalents to traditional soul food dishes.