Soulful Style Recipes

Recipes from our Cupboard Cooking Collection -
Soulful Style Cooking

The essence of this style of cookery comes from the hands of folks that knew how to really cook what is known as 'soul food.' While growing up, I easily understood that James Brown had soul, no doubt about that, but somehow, I never made the connection to the foods until much later in life. I have always understood the relation of African-American cuisine to the meager ingredients available to the slave and sharecropper black families of that dark period of time, of folks trying to balance a simple-to-cook yet hearty meal of whatever was available into something nutritious. Being southern, that is one of many things that is taught to us by our mothers. Back in the day, for these black families, finding good food to eat was hard to come by and a meal often consisted of meager ingredients in order to survive. To me, to put it in context, the term 'soul food' means eating and nourishing the body so that your soul has a chance of survival. Today may be a little different, yet we see the term used more often as 'food for the soul' and thanks to churches, shelters and food kitchens, feeding the souls of many who have no way of obtaining food to survive is a generous act all of us should support. < adapted from from Smothered Collard Greens