Ok I'm one really pissed off Black chef and foodie right now...
We need to have a talk about this soul food/health article.
Right
Now.
We need to have a talk about this soul food/health article.
Right
Now.
You mad at "soul food?"
Do you actually eat soul/Afri-Creole etc food every day?
Do you ORDER it or do you actually know how to cook?
Do you know the real history and not the fakelore?
Do you actually eat soul/Afri-Creole etc food every day?
Do you ORDER it or do you actually know how to cook?
Do you know the real history and not the fakelore?
You know....I love being of African descent. I am proud of being part of the African Diaspora. I am proud of my African roots and American branches...my Caribbean and Afro-Latinx, Afro-Brazilian&Haitian cousins. I love my cousins.
But.....sigh. stop the bullshit.
Patois is beautiful. Kweyol is beautiful. AAVE is beautiful. Our musical cultures are wonderful, our dancing...our churches, Afro-Atlantic religious houses, mosques and synagogues and our hair, humor and literature and ALL OF US IS WONDERFUL.
Today many of us have passed an article about soul food being deadly. Ok boo.
When you Negroes saying Amen gonna stop going to the Olive Garden, Applebees, Friday's, Pizza Hut..I don't seem to remember Big Mama owning not nary of them...
When you Negroes saying Amen gonna stop going to the Olive Garden, Applebees, Friday's, Pizza Hut..I don't seem to remember Big Mama owning not nary of them...
See my grandmother never served me a canned or frozen anything, my mother either. I am a big man...I own that. But I also own that my health is my personal responsibility not my cultural baggage.
We ALL grew up with corner store temptations and parents or family that loved us with treats..bc we didn't have very much. These were easy rewards and bribes in a very harsh world.
THEIR FOOD IS PACKED WITH SODIUM.
YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE SALT IN THEIR PROCESSED PRE PACKAGED MEALS.
YOU CAN CONTROL HOW YOU COOK YOUR OWN FOOD.
YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE SALT IN THEIR PROCESSED PRE PACKAGED MEALS.
YOU CAN CONTROL HOW YOU COOK YOUR OWN FOOD.
It is a DISTRACTION to tell us our speech sucks, our music is low art, our literature is sub par our religion is primitive or our dances are vulgar and now the cuisine which is dynamic and elastic is KILLER. Nope.
Soul cooking isn't all I eat and it's not all we need, but it's funny how the Abuser is always trying to get the Abused to feel shame or regret over how they survived the Abuse.
The "Southern" diet is a dogwhistle. Cut that out. It's meant to trigger shame over our history.
WE CALL OUR FOOD SOUL FOOD. WE ARE THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO EVER WERE ENSLAVED AND TRANSFORMED THE CULTURE OF THE ONES THAT ENSLAVED US INSIDE OUT AND THEN NAMED OUR CUISINE AFTER SOMETHING TRANSCENDENTAL. THE SOUL COULD NOT BE TOUCHED.
Soul Food and it's first cousin, Afri-Creole food from the Gulf coast and Lower Mississippi Valley...were not made from scraps they were made from elements of four global foodways with the heart being in West/Central and SE Africa.
How do people look past the fact that they could have just give up or die off but African Diasporans figured out recipe by recipe how to survive Jamaica, Haiti, Brazil or the U.S.? It wasn't passive. It was love.
Innovation and imagination were there at the start. We can choose how much salt or sugars or how much fat and what kind we want to use. Soul Food is not static...it is purposely dynamic not dogmatic. It is an elastic cuisine, from its inception.
But again....if you want to critique food what choices are you making? Everyday I have to make choices and it's harder work than those that choose to press a button on Twitter to indict the assumed cuisine of their heritage. We are bombarded with a Western diet. How do we change?
McDonald's isn't soul food. Nor Wendy's nor Burger King or Taco Bell. How many of those have you been to lately? No Big Mama/Nana/Grandma/Grammy/Madear there....but wait a minute.
Popeyes, KFC, Bojangles, Churches, etc.are no more Soul Food no more than the Olive Garden is "authentic Italian" or Panda Express is real "Chinese." Fun fact: thanks to segregation most of our food from 1619-2019 has been homemade.
So...if you are worried about soul food that's fine if paranoia and self hatred and cultural masochism are your thing...Amnesia is comfortable. Start asking yourself how you can be worried about the Standard American Diet. After all we got Soul but the other food is just SAD.
Oh right. Please buy my book😇 Padma loved it. 
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