50 Fun Facts About Soul Food

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

'Soul' was the word of the moment for Black American culture; the phrase 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'?

For families of the Great Migration, the food was a reminder of the Southern homes they had left for northern cities.

Which month is celebrated as National Soul Food Month?

It coincides with Juneteenth, the holiday whose barbecues and red foods are themselves part of the 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?

The seeds were 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?

The Spanish introduced it to the Caribbean and it reached the American South in the early 16th century.

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

The owners kept the smoked ham and left the offal, which is why so many soul food classics come from the 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.

Slave cabin digs found far more bowls than plates. What did that suggest about the meals?

White plantation families used plates and flatware, pointing 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?

James Hemings, who cooked for Thomas Jefferson, was another enslaved chef with unusual autonomy.

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

Field slaves slow-cooked them while they worked; the dish is a delicacy in other cultures too, from Asia to West Africa.

What is 'pot liquor'?

The vitamins that leach out of slow-cooked greens end up in the liquid, so drinking it or sopping it up with cornbread was good sense.

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

The filling is a custard of mashed sweet potato, evaporated milk, eggs, sugar and spices, baked in an open shell.

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

In the Lowcountry, smaller field peas or Sea Island red peas are used instead; the pot always gets bacon or another cut of pork.

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

The peas stand for coins and the greens for folding money; some cooks drop a real coin in the pot.

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

The common commercial variety is the California Blackeye; the South grows countless heirloom types, including the purple hull pea.

Okra, a staple of gumbo and soul food, is native to which region?

It belongs to the mallow family, the same as cotton and hibiscus, and is known as lady's fingers in some English-speaking countries.

Collard greens are the same species as which common vegetables?

All are cultivars of 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?

The Native American technique frees up niacin in the corn; around Charleston, cooked grits were simply called 'hominy' until the 1980s.

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

They are the classic side for fried catfish and other fried seafood.

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

Maryland cooks fried chicken under a lid in shallow fat, half-frying and half-steaming it, and served it with waffles.

Fufu's role soaking up West African stews is compared to which African-American food?

The same comparison is drawn between West African yams and the sweet potatoes of the American South.

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

It is cheap and puts several herbs and spices in one shaker, so it goes on almost everything except desserts.

The first soul food cookbook is usually credited to Abby Fisher. In what year was What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking published?

Rufus Estes, a former slave who worked for the Pullman railway car service, followed with Good Things to Eat in 1911.

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

Many other cookbooks by Black authors of the period were never widely distributed and are now lost.

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

She had worked at the luncheonette on the site since 1954 before she and her husband bought it; the restaurant now sells sauces, cookbooks and even a children's book.

Sylvia Woods was born in Hemingway, in which state?

She moved to Harlem as a teenager and worked in a Brooklyn factory before finding her way into a luncheonette kitchen.

Sylvia's Restaurant stands on which Harlem street?

The address is 328, between 126th and 127th Streets, and the clientele runs from locals to visiting celebrities.

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

Georgia Gilmore's eatery in Montgomery 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 was King's last restaurant meal, eaten at the Four Way in Memphis in April 1968?

The Four Way in South Memphis is still open and still serves both.

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

Chase was known as the Queen of Creole Cuisine; Food & Wine named the restaurant one of the 40 most important of the past 40 years in 2018.

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

Freetown was a community founded by freed slaves, including her grandfather; Lewis championed pan-fried rather than deep-fried chicken.

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

In the series Harris travels to Benin and watches women make a leafy sauce prepared much like collard greens.

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

Among the Yoruba and Bakongo peoples, red represents power, sacrifice and transformation.

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

Slaveholders there had refused to tell people the war was over; the first celebrations followed in 1866, centred on church gatherings and food.

Which New York hotel has served red velvet cake since the 1920s and claims to have invented it?

The other claimant is Eaton's department store in Canada; the cake fell from favour when Red Dye No. 2 was linked to cancer in the 1970s.

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

Ladyfingers are the older alternative; 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?

Tillman based the family on his own; Showtime turned the film into a series that ran from 2000.

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

Williams, Long and Fox play her three daughters; the film was praised for a warmer picture of Black family life than Hollywood usually offered.

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

Discharged servicemen stayed in places like France, Germany and Japan and cooked at first for troops at nearby bases.

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

He blended African, French and Native American traditions in Jefferson's kitchen.

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

They made cakes, wafers and brittles from benne, the West African sesame seed.

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

It took its name from the dish most associated with Black Southerners.

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

The Washington restaurant fed police, student activists and firefighters through the unrest.

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

A 1900 Charleston cookbook preserved recipes used by formerly enslaved Gullah cooks.

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

Susie King Taylor, born enslaved in Georgia, recorded attending an Emancipation Day celebration in her memoir.