What was once eaten out of necessity has become celebratory, all the while being the topic of constant debate. Evelyn & Hallease explore the new and inventive ways our generation is honoring and preserving our culinary past while staying conscious of our dietary future.
– All right, I’m out here making my own plate
00:02
’cause I’m woke like that, all right?
00:05
We got the collards, all right.
00:07
Collards make me holler.
00:09
Smoked to oblivion, all right.
00:11
Now we got the chicken, that’s one.
00:16
That’s two.
00:18
Okay, now we gotta be strategic, you feel me, all right?
00:22
We got my cousin’s mac and cheese,
00:24
just a little bit of that.
00:25
Then we got Aunty Mae’s mac and cheese,
00:27
all right, medium-sized portion.
00:30
Then you got my mama’s mac and cheese,
00:31
so let me just, all right.
00:34
Then we got,
00:36
what is,
00:37
baby girl!
00:39
– Hey, uncle.
00:40
– Uh, this you?
00:41
– Yeah, this is me.
00:42
It is a delightful kale, tri-kale blend salad.
00:46
We have baby kale, Tuscan kale, curly kale,
00:51
and a little bit of jicama sprinkled in.
00:53
– Jica who?
00:54
– And then to top it off,
00:55
there’s this lovely, vinaigrette–
00:57
– Uh
00:58
– with a little bit of herb.
00:59
– So it’s raw?
00:59
– Yeah, it’s raw.
01:01
– Give it over.
01:02
– What?
01:03
– Hand it.
01:04
– No.
01:05
– Yes.
01:06
– Uncle, no. This is good–
01:07
– It hurts me more than it hurts you baby girl.
01:08
– This is good for you.
01:08
This is good for you. Your heart condition
01:09
– I’m a grown man, got me out here eatin’ grass.
01:14
– (sighs)
01:17
– [Niece] This is messed up.
01:18
Mom, get your brother man.
01:20
– Millennials.
01:22
– If you’re of the African diaspora,
01:23
you probably have meals that remind you of
01:25
yo skin folk and yo kin folk.
01:26
– Mm hm.
01:28
– Some of these foods were born
01:29
out of the constraints of the times,
01:30
but have since evolved to be celebratory.
01:32
– And protected.
01:33
– Hey.
01:33
– Hallease gets if the collard’s not hit–
01:35
– And I need a hit.
01:36
– If you’ve been to the National Museum of African
01:38
American History and Culture,
01:40
I know you were like okay okay, artifacts.
01:42
But what’s the museum restaurant lookin’ like though?
01:45
– And it’s not just us, all right.
01:47
According to UC Berkeley professor and sociologist,
01:49
Claude Fischler, food is central to everyone’s
01:52
sense of identity.
01:53
The way any given human group eats
01:55
helps to assert its diversity
01:57
and hierarchy.
01:58
And at the same time,
01:59
both its oneness and the otherness
02:02
of whoever eats differently.
02:03
– Hence, Uncle Darnell trying to revoke
02:05
your black card.
02:07
With all that being said from Fischler though,
02:09
some foods were eaten out of absolute necessity.
02:13
So, should you be eating chitlins anymore?
02:16
– Ehh I don’t know why we still do it.
02:19
I don’t know.
02:20
– And we wanna find out.
02:21
So pause this video,
02:22
go take the chicken out the freezer
02:23
before your mom gets home,
02:24
’cause we’re talkin’ soul food.
02:26
(funky jazz music)
02:30
– Soul food comes from the unique circumstances
02:33
of enslaved Africans
02:34
that arrived in what is now,
02:36
the southern United States.
02:37
It’s not just sweet potato pie, mac and cheese.
02:39
– Right.
02:40
It’s the ingredients, cooking techniques,
02:42
and eating habits that were informed by their
02:45
countries of origin and their newfound
02:47
status as a slave.
02:48
– Let’s take corn. Or maize.
02:50
We’re too woke to watch it with the same eyes now,
02:52
but if you remember anything from Disney’s Pocahontas,
02:55
you know that corn is abundant here.
02:57
– And Africans were already familiar
02:59
with that ingredient as Portuguese trade
03:01
brought the crop to West African nations
03:03
a long time ago.
03:04
– It became a staple food for enslaved people
03:06
and took many different forms.
03:08
Pone bread is a cornmeal mush.
03:10
Hominy or Indian corn was used to make grits.
03:13
And records show, that while white folks use sorghum,
03:16
or guinea corn to feed pigs,
03:18
black foods used it to make bread or porridge.
03:20
– In South Carolina, a dish called turn meal
03:23
was essentially West African fufu.
03:25
But with corn, instead of cassava or
03:27
some other root vegetable.
03:29
And the act of mixing grain or starch with water,
03:32
is common throughout all of Africa.
03:34
In Kenya it’s called ngima or ugali.
03:37
I didn’t like it growing up,
03:39
but it sticks to your ribs and gets the job done.
03:41
– And remember, if you’re working in the fields,
03:43
you need your meals to be portable.
03:45
So cornmeal and water mixtures evolved
03:47
into hoecakes, pancakes,
03:48
and hot water cornbread.
03:50
– While forced labor fueled American agriculture,
03:53
collard greens were one of the few crops
03:55
enslaved Africans were allowed to grow
03:57
and harvest for their own consumption.
03:59
And plantation owners gave them discarded
04:01
animal parts to eat.
04:03
Ham hocks, hog maws, hog jowl, pig’s feet,
04:07
pig lips, chitlins.
04:09
To a plantation owner, that was actual trash.
04:12
– This is the perfect example of how
04:14
unique circumstances informed our culinary creations.
04:18
African cooks in the big house,
04:19
simmered the greens slowly with these
04:21
throwaway pieces of meat,
04:22
like ham hocks to soften the leaves,
04:25
and transform the bitter taste.
04:27
– Cooks also used deep fat frying.
04:29
A technique they were familiar with back home,
04:31
long before the advent of refrigeration,
04:34
people used both smoking and frying
04:36
as methods of food preservation
04:38
or even flavorings.
04:39
Like how Nigerians use ground up,
04:41
smoked crawfish in a variety of dishes.
04:43
– In this context, soul food is about
04:45
nourishment, community, and survival.
04:48
We have to work together to even have
04:50
the energy to even tend a garden.
04:52
Cooks who worked in the plantation house,
04:54
brought leftovers to share with those
04:55
working in the fields.
04:56
And in the unlikely event you come across
04:58
something as luxurious as sugar or milk–
05:01
– (whistles)
05:02
– Put that on your cornbread and enjoy desert.
05:05
– If you wanna get your ethno-botanist on,
05:07
Yes, that’s a thing.
05:08
We’ll link more resources to information about
05:11
gumbo, okra, and how rice in the United States is,
05:15
(whispers) from Africa.
05:16
– [Hallease] Over time,
05:17
thought our identities shifted from
05:18
being African to being black,
05:20
we still maintained a sense of identity
05:22
through food.
05:23
Like Professor Fischler noted.
05:25
– Because slavery prevailed largely in the South,
05:28
and your meal was likely cooked by black people,
05:30
the food borne of those conditions
05:32
became synonymous of the region.
05:34
– [Hallease] “The Virginia Housewife” by Mary Randolph
05:37
is lauded as one of the most influential cookbooks
05:40
in U.S. history.
05:41
And the first regional, American cookbook.
05:44
And while that’s the case,
05:45
it’s also important to note,
05:47
as later reprints of the book have,
05:48
that her culinary prowess wasn’t a solo effort.
05:52
As a very wealthy lady,
05:53
her kitchen was staffed by enslaved cooks.
05:55
– There’s okra recipes in there.
05:57
We’ll link the book so you can read it for yourself.
05:59
And other 18th Century cookbooks
06:01
directly referenced their cooks’ expertise.
06:04
There’s no doubt that culinary knowledge
06:06
was transferred, shared, blended to make new things.
06:09
Albeit, under forced conditions.
06:12
– It’s for that reason that some people distinguish
06:14
soul food from southern food.
06:16
The latter pertains to the type of food,
06:18
the former pertains to who cooked it.
06:20
Amen?
06:21
Who made the potato salad.
06:22
– What is super important to know,
06:24
because the term soul food wasn’t even
06:26
really a thing until the 1960’s.
06:28
This is where food and identity become
06:30
even more intertwined.
06:32
– [Hallease] First, enough time had passed
06:34
after the Great Migration,
06:35
to the North and out West,
06:36
that black folks had multiple home towns.
06:39
Where they were born and raised,
06:41
and where their grandparents were from.
06:43
For example.
06:44
– You were from Harlem,
06:45
but your people are down in Georgia.
06:47
That’s why it’s called Down Home Cooking.
06:49
– Second, it’s the 60’s and 70’s,
06:51
ya dig?
06:52
Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.
06:54
Food was a political statement.
06:56
You might be movin’ on up,
06:57
compared to your ancestors,
06:58
but Jim Crow laws still exist,
07:00
and the Civil Rights Movement is in full swing.
07:03
– During the 1960’s, middle class black folks
07:06
used their consumption of soul food to define
07:08
themselves ethnically,
07:10
to distance themselves from the values of
07:12
the white middle class,
07:13
and to align themselves with lower-class
07:15
black people.
07:17
Some consider soul food to be part
07:19
of the Black Arts Movement.
07:20
– The Movement’s goal was to shatter
07:22
middle-class decorum, or respectability.
07:24
Author Addison Gayle, called it
07:26
the polluted mainstream of Americanism.
07:28
– Yeesh.
07:29
– But if there’s one thing you learn
07:32
from this show,
07:33
it’s that black culture,
07:33
experiences, and schools of thought,
07:36
aren’t all the same.
07:37
While some use soul food as a point of pride,
07:39
others like Elijah Muhammad,
07:41
the leader of the Nation of Islam,
07:42
and Dick Gregory, entertainer, writer,
07:45
and civil rights activist,
07:46
sought to distance the black community
07:48
from it’s slave past by condemning
07:51
the diet as unhealthy and unclean.
07:54
A practice of racial genocide.
07:56
– Yeesh.
07:57
– According to them, soul food was
07:59
the garbage of white plantation owners.
08:01
And we deserve more than garbage.
08:03
– This is where things get testy.
08:05
Because you’re not just criticizing someone’s dinner,
08:08
you’re criticizing their identity,
08:10
since the two are now linked.
08:11
How do you reconcile that a food made from struggle
08:14
but made with love, can negatively impact your health?
08:18
And how do you have this conversation
08:20
without tying someone’s worth to your
08:22
definition of health?
08:23
– It’s a tall order.
08:25
Especially since the media influences
08:27
and represents how we see ourselves
08:29
consciously or subconsciously,
08:31
wanting to distance ourselves from a history
08:33
of forced labor, created an Uncle Darnell.
08:36
Who sees kale salads as frou-frou.
08:38
Farm-to-table sounds bougie.
08:40
But indigenous people and enslaved Africans,
08:43
created farm-to-table.
08:44
– Clean eating or going vegan
08:46
sounds like a pretentious luxury,
08:48
But what about Rastafarians?
08:49
It’s all brandy.
08:51
– [Hallease] Today, we still use
08:52
soul food as a tool to define ourselves
08:54
and belong to a group.
08:56
As we discuss in the Black Twitter episode,
08:58
signifying via food is always
09:00
in full swing online.
09:01
– [Evelyn] Sugar Grits Versus The Correct Ones.
09:04
– [Hallease] And you wash your chicken, right?
09:07
– And you can’t put raisins in potato salad.
09:09
And the only mac and cheese we acknowledge
09:11
is oven baked.
09:12
– Pumpkin Pie? Ugh.
09:14
– Now, black folks are finding new ways
09:16
to deliver the essence of soul food.
09:18
Love, comfort, and seasoning
09:21
with different ingredient choices.
09:22
– [Hallease] Take The Slutty Vegan in Atlanta, Georgia
09:25
owner, Pinky Cole, creates vegan burgers
09:27
and sandwiches to show her community
09:29
that it’s not expensive or bland
09:31
to have vegan comfort food.
09:33
Lindsey Williams, grandson of famed restaurateur,
09:37
and Queen of Soul, Sylvia Woods,
09:39
dedicated his career to continuing her legacy
09:41
while being mindful of salt, sugar, and fat.
09:45
Neo Soul, isn’t just an Erykah Badu
09:47
Spotify playlist,
09:48
it’s a whole movement of redefining
09:50
this type of food.
09:52
In fact,
09:53
we took a ‘lil drive to Houston, Texas
09:54
and met Chef Jonny Rhodes,
09:56
at his restaurant, Indigo.
09:58
– [Hallease] His definition of soul food
09:59
blew our minds.
10:01
(oven whooshing)
10:02
– Soul food is to me,
10:03
the survival of agricultural oppression.
10:06
– What do black folks have access to now?
10:09
How can we reclaim some of that branding,
10:11
and take ownership of things like farm-to-table?
10:14
– [Jonny] So, you have the uh, the summer gourds,
10:16
which is gonna be zucchini, cooked in a squash,
10:18
which is gonna be rolled with a pea
10:21
and miso butter,
10:22
and then gonna cook it over embers
10:24
and smoke it on a skewed wood.
10:25
And then smother it in a bearnaise sauce.
10:28
Give you a gourd pickle from 2016,
10:30
– Wow.
10:31
– [Jonny] Fresh sunflowers.
10:32
– Vintage.
10:33
– Appreciate it.
10:34
– This is so good.
10:35
I am not even like,
10:38
skilled enough to explain why it’s good.
10:42
(laughs)
10:44
But it’s like smoky and kinda peanut-y,
10:47
– Yeah, there you go.
10:48
– Um, and there’s like a sweetness to it.
10:55
– And then that pickle cuts through all that–
10:57
– Oh yeah.
10:58
that acidity from that pickle cuts through all that
10:59
marries it all together.
11:00
– [Jonny] So this dish is actually called,
11:02
titled Cornrows and Convictions.
11:04
This is what we essentially talk about
11:06
mass incarceration.
11:07
One of the easiest things to grow
11:09
in modern day prisons,
11:11
also known as modern day plantations,
11:13
– Uh huh.
11:14
– Is gourds. Of any variety.
11:15
They grow tons and tons of those
11:17
and sell ’em to grocery stores.
11:19
– Instead of treating food as a personal choice
11:21
tied to damaging diet culture,
11:23
maybe we can think about it as a system.
11:26
– Where does our food come from?
11:27
How are those people treated?
11:29
Would we know how to feed ourselves
11:31
if the system that stocked our grocery stores,
11:33
suddenly stopped?
11:35
– I mean, I grew green onions on my windowsill once,
11:38
and felt like a God.
11:40
– So this is part three of our third course
11:44
which is titled, Institutionalize.
11:46
So for this dish you’re lookin’ at
11:47
smoked oysters with a caramelized potato cream,
11:50
and a fresh oregano on top.
11:53
– Fun fact: I’ve never had an oyster before.
11:55
– Really?
11:56
Well hopefully this is–
11:57
– Okay.
11:58
– Your best first one.
11:59
– So do I just?
12:00
(yelps)
12:01
It’s like attached.
12:03
– [Jonny] Yep.
12:04
– Okay.
12:08
– [Jonny] It’s a lot of flavor–
12:09
– That is good.
12:10
– [Jonny] It’s a lot of flavor in just one.
12:14
Yep and eat all that sauce to grind with it.
12:17
– Whoa.
12:18
Now, what was the inspiration for this?
12:19
You talked about like,
12:20
different regions of the U.S.
12:22
So can you speak more about the inspiration?
12:24
– So this dish, we titled this dish as
12:26
Institutionalize.
12:27
So one of the biggest misconceptions
12:28
about the Antebellum era for African Americans
12:31
is that slavery was strictly about labor.
12:35
But as Africans came over
12:37
and other people came over,
12:39
they were also architects, engineers,
12:41
and all these different things.
12:42
So with them being all of this,
12:44
you see them eating oysters,
12:45
and then taking the oysters and mixing them
12:46
with water and limestone to create stucco.
12:49
It’s to create what they need the foundation
12:52
for them to build buildings.
12:53
Some of these buildings still last to this day
12:55
in New Orleans, Savannah, Georgia, and
12:57
in Charleston, South Carolina.
12:58
– (whistles)
13:00
And this oregano though?
13:01
– [Jonny] Yeah, all that oregano’s
13:02
a big pop for it.
13:03
– And what went into the potato cream sauce?
13:06
– So it’s caramelized dairy, caramelized potatoes,
13:09
and caramelized onions.
13:10
All together just to make that sauce.
13:13
– Who knew?
13:14
– It’s almost like our version of surf-n-turf.
13:17
We see, chips and potatoes being a classic pairing.
13:21
This is no different than what potatoes and oysters
13:23
just in our own variety.
13:25
– (claps)
13:26
That’s so good.
13:27
– [Jonny] Thank you, thank you.
13:28
– So then, the purpose of the meal
13:31
is not just to eat,
13:33
it’s to have a conversation, right?
13:35
– Right.
13:35
A lot of times, people come to the table
13:37
they come to the table with a problem,
13:38
which everybody knows.
13:40
The idea’s to come to the table with solutions.
13:42
So that way we can stop having the same conversations
13:45
over and over again.
13:47
– Mm hm.
13:47
– So that we can have conversations about how
13:48
to fix things.
13:49
Not just what’s wrong.
13:51
– Yeah.
13:52
(dish clinks)
13:53
– [Jonny] So this dish is titled
13:54
Turtlenecks and do-rags.
13:55
This is where you’re gonna have
13:57
crab warmed up in milk and butter
13:58
with crispy shallots on top.
14:01
– [Evelyn] I’m down.
14:03
Mm hm.
14:05
That’s good.
14:06
– Turtlenecks and do-rags are one of the
14:08
largest misconceptions that you have
14:09
that you see happen in our community.
14:11
And sometimes, some of us make it out of poverty
14:15
but sometimes when we make it out of poverty,
14:17
we become very critical of our own community
14:20
without providing any real relief or aid to it–
14:22
– Right, respectability, you know.
14:24
– Right all those things to it.
14:25
And when we do that, we often revert to
14:28
capitalism as being our way to doing it.
14:30
So when we do that we, like I said,
14:33
being very critical of our own people,
14:35
while being super capitalist,
14:37
while being very well-
14:38
not providing anything for the community.
14:41
And that’s often reverted to the crab
14:43
in the bucket mentality.
14:44
Where they feel like they’re trying to
14:46
make it out of the bucket
14:47
and all the crabs are trying to pull them back in
14:49
since you’re saying we’re hating on them.
14:50
But this is what we’re saying,
14:52
you can wear your turtleneck and your do-rag
14:54
at the same time.
14:55
– Mm hm.
14:56
– [Jonny] You don’t have to decipher between
14:57
the two, so this is why we gave you
14:57
that crab warmed up in butter sauce to
14:59
challenge that crab in the bucket mentality.
15:02
One of the biggest things about tasting menus,
15:04
is that they’re not filling,
15:06
but we’re still soul food,
15:07
so we still want it to be filling
15:08
and intellectually challenging as well.
15:11
– Soul food is community.
15:13
It’s how we took care of each other.
15:14
My father didn’t grow up with much in Virginia,
15:17
but through career in the Air Force
15:18
raised a middle class family in San Antonio, Texas.
15:21
He would often say,
15:22
“true grit, mother wit, and don’t forget.”
15:25
While my mother, who had a similar upbringing,
15:27
served these traditional dishes during holidays.
15:29
True grit, fortitude, determination.
15:32
Mother wit, common sense.
15:34
And don’t forget.
15:35
Meaning literally
15:36
don’t forget who your people are
15:38
and where they come from.
15:39
– (voice cracks)
15:41
That is beautiful.
15:41
– [Hallease] Yeah.
15:42
All that being had said though,
15:43
chitlins are a once a year food in my family
15:45
because even though we’re far removed
15:47
from the circumstances that boards creation,
15:49
is it even New Year’s without fried chicken?
15:52
Greens?
15:53
Black-eyed-peas?
15:54
And chitlins?
15:55
No. It’s just another day.
15:56
But.
15:57
Can I also make a mean gluten free fried chicken?
16:00
– Oh.
16:01
– That gives you a nice hearty crunch.
16:02
– Oh.
16:03
– Without gastrointestinal distress?
16:05
Yes I can.
16:06
– There are more options now.
16:08
Which isn’t a bad thing.
16:09
So should we keep eating soul food?
16:14
– I say everything in moderation.
16:16
This food, for better or worse,
16:17
is part of my personal identity
16:19
as a black American, descended from slaves.
16:21
I take responsibility to make food choices based on
16:24
what I’ve learned about my body.
16:26
And create alternative versions when necessary.
16:28
After all, food is meant to be shared.
16:30
And what good is it if my family and friends
16:33
can’t enjoy it without a slight alteration?
16:35
– Mmm. A nice almond milk cornbread.
16:37
– Sure.
16:38
– Or like, sodium free veggie broth for your greens.
16:41
– Yeah sure. Okay all right.
16:44
– For me, as a child of Kenyan immigrants,
16:46
I am but a culinary tourist
16:47
when it comes to soul food.
16:48
And I gracefully bow out of all Black Twitter debates.
16:52
But it’s interesting ’cause my family
16:53
is from a place where it’s cheaper to grow your own food.
16:56
– [Evelyn] Indoor supermarkets are the luxury
16:58
and not even that good.
17:00
You have to grow something yourself
17:02
in order to eat.
17:03
Or at least buy it from an open-air market.
17:06
It’s farmer food in the purest sense of the word.
17:08
Stateside, I could be more mindful of
17:11
where my food comes from,
17:13
and learn how my access to food doesn’t have to
17:15
contribute to someone else’s unethical treatment.
17:18
– Yeah, community responsibility.
17:19
What a concept.
17:22
– I can also do the work to unlearn
17:23
all the lies we were taught about that food pyramid.
17:25
Grain got me out here sluggish, y’all.
17:28
– Soul food has evolved and will continue
17:30
to do so as food culture access, education,
17:33
and identity shift.
17:34
But we’ve proven that no matter what we eat,
17:37
we always make it with love.
17:39
What are some of the traditional dishes
17:41
your family eats?
17:42
And how have you updated them?
17:44
Let us know.
17:45
– Give this video a like.
17:46
Follow us on social media @sayitloudpbs
17:49
and subscribe so you don’t miss us next time.
17:51
– Bye.
17:52
– Bye.
17:53
– I’m super hungry.
17:54
– Me too.
17:55
– Yeah let’s get food.
17:56
– Let’s.
17:57
– [Hallease] Hey everyone, PBS Digital Studios
17:59
wants to hear from you.
18:00
They do a survey every year that asks about
18:02
what you’re into.
18:03
Your favorite PBS shows,
18:05
and things you’d like to see more of
18:06
from PBS Digital Studios.
18:08
You even get to vote on potential new shows.
18:11
All of this helps them make more of the stuff
18:13
you want to see.
18:14
The survey takes about ten minutes
18:15
and you might even win a sweet t-shirt.
18:17
Link is in the description.
18:19
Thanks.
18:21
– (Evelyn laughs)
18:21
Hold on.
18:22
Be a man.
18:23
– [Hallease] Perform some masculinity, girl.
18:26
(both laugh)
18:29
(gentle chimes)
—
What’s your take? Comment below or write a response and submit to us your own point of view or reaction here at the red box, below, which links to our submissions portal.
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