SOUL FOOD AROUND   THE NATION 

History Dating All The Way Back To Africa 

Soul food to African  is not just something you eat. Soul Food is an expression. Soul Food dates back to the early 1400's, when many Africans were slaved owned. Many African Americans  would cook for their masters in these times. Many African would often create their own dishes. They often fried foods in the palm oil or vegetable butters toasted and roasted on a fire and baked in ashes. Some of the meat used was smoked for flavor and soups were often thickened and garnished with nuts and leaves. A coomon African meal consisted of rice, chicken and milk. Poor Africans often ate coucous with lafy vegetables.

    This made the African diet healthy and satisfying. When Soul Food dinners were made, it was a time where everyone gathered around and shared meals, had many conversations, recited history and told many stories, which made a perfect enviorment for everyone. Simplicity was another factor in the African cooking. Utensils for cooking and eating were made from earthen ware, or prepared gourds or other squashe. Africans cooked in boiling water and steamed food using leaves as steamers.

 Mnay Aficans did not cook from recipes. It was you knew how to cook, or you didin't. Many slaves were so talented in the field of cooking that they often had to eat leftover scraps from slave owners. Some of the foods they ate were black eyed peas, corn bread, bread pudding, collard greens, sweet potatoes, pie, and chitlins.

Every ethnic group has what they call "Soul Food", soothing comfort food that brings back warm memories of family dinners. In America the term "Soul food" means African-American cuisine. To fully understand the traditional foods of Africa. Grains, legumes, yams, sorghum, watermelon, pumpkin, okra, and leafy greens, which can be found as early as 1,000 B.C.. On the continent , egg plant, cucumber, onion, garlic are believed to be of African orgin. Foods such as turnips from Morroco and cabbage from Spain would play an important part in history of African American cusine.

During the 1400's some Africans American grown crops were beginning to show up in the Americas. Seeds form watermelons, okras and seaseme began transported in the slaves. African slave traders themselves brought the food over for trade. The food quickly became America's southern crops. Popular southern foods, such as the vegetable okra(brought to New orleans by african slaves), are often attributed to the importation of goods from Africa. The legacy of African and West Indian culture is woven in many recipes and food traditions that remain popular today. The staple foods of African Americans, such as rice, have remained largely unchanged since the first Africans and West Indians set foot in the New world, and the southern Ynited States, where the slave population was the most dense, has developed a cooking culture that remains true to the African American tradition.

       Cooking was one of the most important skills a young woman needed to learn. One traditional dish was called Fufu. It was made of pounded yams. Fufu wa served with soup, stew roasted meat and different sauces.

     African-American cookin techniques and recipes were influenced by Native American Indians all across the United States . When Africans were first brought to Americain 1619. Indians taught themthem how to hunt and cookwith native plants. Cajun and creole cooking originated from the french and Spanish but were transformed by the influence of African cooks. African chefs brought with them specific skills in using various spices, and introduced okra and native Americanfoods, such as crawfish, shrimp,oysters, crabs, and pecans in both cajun and creole cuisine.More recently, the immigration of people from the Carribean and South America has influenced African American Cuisine in the south. New spices, ingredients, and combinations, and cooking methods have produced popular dishes such as Jamaican jerk chicken, fried plantains, and bean.

         Soul food cansometimes take alot of time to prepare. Collard greens is a dish that is slowly simmered overnight causing the leafs to smothe under heat. Collard greens are usually cooked with different spices such as: seasonig salt, Garlic salt , onion salt,, and sometimes added to the green vegetable are jalepenos and a hamhock. That is a more American way of cooking collard greens.. Alot of recipes still remain the same. Like Fufu. It consisited of pounded yams. Today they are known as just sweet potatoes or yams. Many African Americans often cook these dishes on Thanksgiving and very big gatherings.

    Soul food has many fans. Soul food restaurants can be found in alot of southern states such as: Georgia and Louisiana. Soul food is very big in these southern states. The South is where all the soul food cooking took place. Even today there are many soul food restaurants that are all you can eat, considered a bouffet. The bouffets are not expensive neither, soul food is not an upscale food.Though soul food originated in the south, soul food restaurants, from fried chicken to fish "shacks" to upscale dining establishments are in evry African American communitys in the nation. Especially in large cities with large numbers of black populations such as, Chicago, New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Washington D.C. Soul food does not just attract Blacks. Soul food atrracts all ethnicitys. People come together  for the flavors and spaices of soul food. In the early 60's and 70's the traditional food of of black american was very popular.Candied yams okra.

    The cultivation and use of many agricultural products, such as yams, peanuts rice and okra, grits,indigo dyes and cotton can be traced to African American influences. African American foods reflect creative responses to racial and economic opression. Under slavery, African Americans were not allowed  to eat better cuts of meat. The time that emancipation had came around many were still not able to eat high quality meats because they were too poor.

    Over centuries of years, soul food has been cookedand seasoned with pork products and fried products are usually fried in hydrogenated vegetable oil which is a Trans fat. unfortunately high consumptions of these food without excercising and burning these calories can cause, dispropotionately high occurences of obesity, hypertension, cardiac and circulatory problems and/or diabetes.

    Unhealthy weight is more prevalent among those who are of African American Americans with 60 percentof African American menand 78 percent of African American women identified as overweight.In addition, 28.8 percent of African American men and 50 percent of African American women are obese.For some African Americans, a family tradition of soul food may pose a problem for today's less active lifestyle. Soul foods traditionally depend on fat, sugar and sodium for their flavor. By modifying recipes and decreasing portion sizes, African Americans may reduce their weight and the chronic diseases that accompany it. 

   It is not surprising that African American food has a distinctive culinary heritage with diverse flavors, as it includes traditons drawn from the African continent, the West Indies and from North America. While the European nations were busy establishing new societies, they did not realizethat the African and West Indian slaves who worked for them brought their own vibrant and rich culture a culture that would withstand and adapt to the harsh centuries of slavery.