Soul Food In African American Culture

Soul food brings the sensation of love and pride that has been perfected over decades of African American Culture. It first emerged around 1619 when the first enslaved Africans arrive to Jamestown, Virginia. There, Soul food was able to provide enslaved Africans an identity and a sense of belonging among all the challenges and hardship that they had to endure. One of the many obstacles that slaves have to face is obtaining the right amount of nourishment for survival because often times slave masters control every aspect of an slave's diet. Thus, providing slaves with very little options of food sources such as corn and bacon, which is given out at the corncrib and smoke-house…. each one receives, as his weekly allowance, three and a half
pounds of bacon, and corn enough to make a peck of meal (12 years of slave, 168). Infact sometimes slave masters will also give their slaves there left over foods which is why soul food use to be known as “slave food, the master’s leftover, and Negroe food” (Miller, xiii). During the Antebellum Age, Soul Food began to gain more popularity in both the South and the North.
Infact there were many new dishes incorporated into Soul Food, representing how each region in America take on this cuisine such as the way Louisiana and Mississippi cooking style of Soul Food is branch off to a similar cuisine known as Creole and Cajun which is where the famous dish gumbo is from. While Soulfood is gaining more recognition throughout time, it is also gaining the negative health reputation. Soulfood is believed to be apart of the serious health issue epidemic in the United States which causes many Americans to stay away from this cuisine.Although soul food has a negative health connotation, it has a huge significant impact on African Americans by providing a culture in America that has new traditions but at the same time a continuous connection to their ancestral roots.

Soul Food has an influences on new traditions that provides African Americans a sense of cultural pride in America. Thanksgiving is one of the most crucial national holidays in the United States. What many do not know is how much Soulfood had influence the dishes, modern Thanksgiving includes. Although the concept of Thanksgiving emerged from the Native
Americans and Pilgrims, “Thanksgiving, in fact, wasn’t even around during slavery; it was embraced by some black families during Reconstruction and beyond, and even then not everyone celebrate” (Michael Twitty, Washington Post). The significances of “black families” being one of the first Americans to fully embraces Thanksgiving, give them the advantages to infuse their cuisine of Soul Food into today’s Thanksgiving menu. Hence, it’s no wonder that several popular dishes during Thanksgiving such as mash potatoes, mac and cheese, and peach cobbler were all influences from Soul Food. Besides Thanksgiving, many other traditions in America were also impacted by Soulfood. This is due to the fact that Soulfood has many essential ingredients that are constantly use in numerous of its dishes such as cajun seasoning and lurd. One of the many traditions that makes southern's extremely prideful is BBQ. Oftentime, different type of meat are actually seasoned in cajun seasoning since cajun seasoning is able to “help blackening rubs or to give a Creole flair to dishes” (The Spruce). It is also important to acknowledge that right after the American Civil War ended in 1865, many African Americans still remained in the South, thereby continuing to face poverty. BBQ was a way for African Americans, “to easily and cheaply procured foods. Slow-cooking methods can transform tough and stringy meats and vegetables into delicious meals… and cooking with pork adds flavor without expensive seasoning” (Barbeque and Southern Foodways). Surviving off food that is not only inexpensive but simply delicious was one way African Americans express how their culture adjust to whatever challenges that they have to face and conquer it with the help of Soul food. Overall, Soulfood provide a rich culture that is able to transform American history through strong traditions fill with honorable recognition of African American Culture.