Friday, May 15, 2009

Why soul food is actually good for you.

The term "soul food" first emerged during the black liberation movement as African Americans named and reclaimed their diverse traditional foods. Clearly, the term was meant to celebrate and distinguish African American cooking from general Southern cooking, and not ghettoize it. But in the late 1960s, soul food was "discovered" by the popular media and constructed as the newest exotic cuisine for white consumers to devour. Rather than portray the complexity of this cuisine and its changes throughout the late 19th and 20th century, many writers played up its more exotic aspects (e.g., animal entrails) and simply framed the cuisine as a remnant of poverty-driven antebellum survival food.

Sadly, over the past four decades most of us have forgotten that what many African Americans in the South ate for dinner just two generations ago was diverse, creative, and comprised of a lot of fresh, local, and homegrown nutrient-dense food.


The point I got from this article is that any type of cuisine that is not in moderation and/or overly processed to fit into the fast food market can be bad for you and the media should stop demonizing certain foods and cuisines.

2 comments:

  1. I love Bryant Terry--the author the article, he's a great food-justice advocate and chef! I have his book, "Grub"--do you want me to bring it when I visit so you can see some of his recipes?

    Thanks for posting the article, I'm going to read it!

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  2. No thanks. I'll stick to my "FYWC cookbook" and the "4 ingredient diabetic cookbook".

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