Soul Food Summary

Rozin and Rozin ("Culinary Themes and Variations") touched on the importance of flavor principles and how different flavoring combinations are used to create food flavors distinct to their culture, uniting those of that culture to others of that culture and the culture's traditions. For those that follow Islam, Ramadan is an important part of the year, with food of heavy importance during this time. Cultural fasting is important in Ramadan, where eating traditional foods, using traditional cooking methods, sharing food with others, eating in excessive consumption, and eating the same soup to break their fast symbolizes that all those worshiping Islam celebrating Ramadan are all one people, no matter where they live (Buitelaar "Living Ramadan:
He tells the reader that soul food is the mix of the West African cultures of the slaves and the southern US food that they had access to while working as slaves. The slaves mixed what they had with what they knew to create a new food style unifying all slaves, and then black Americans in the present. This food style and the culture associated with it was passed down, learned, and shared over the years and has been deemed an important part of southern black society. Slave owners loved the soul food cooking of their slaves and insisted that their slaves cook for them in their kitchens. Slave owners tried to take the traditional soul food and take it as their own under the name southern cooking, separating blacks from soul food and attempting to disempower an already marginalized group. But through this marginalization and division comes unification of a group able to bond over food, even if that's the only thing they have in common. The video Soul Food Junkies also touches on the importance of soul food to the southern black community and how the food is key to their identity. The video discusses how the making of a soul food meal is a time for the family to join and work together to create a meal with historical and cultural
Just think of upper class and lower class foods. When thinking of upper class foods you may think of lobster, caviar, steak, organic pesticide free fruits and vegetables, grass fed meats, the freshest seafood, wheat and grain breads, fine wines, and other traditionally opulent and expensive food items; the best of the best is theirs for the taking, or, rather eating. Lower class foods often thought to involve junk foods, fast foods, white breads, and industrially farmed fruits, vegetables, and meats; foods that are cheap and available are theirs to feast on. These food items are used to signify social class and create boundaries. It's out of the ordinary and almost seems like rule breaking to see lower income people eating organic vegetables and a fresh grass fed steak or lobster dinners, as it's also out of the ordinary to see wealthy upper class people eating Pop-Tarts, Doritos, or going for a food run at McDonalds. These foods are used to unify the social classes, but also serves as a divisions to keep the social classes in their place. Lower class foods are notably low in nutrients and are generally unhealthy. These unhealthy foods lead to a large amount of children going hungry or malnourished due to poverty and lack of access to healthy foods (Fitchen "Hunger, Malnutrition, and Poverty in the Contemporary United States"), and the urban foodscapes in black and Latino communities are riddled with processed and unhealthy