Soul Food versus Southern Cuisine
Debate still lingers over what may be considered “soul food” versus what is a vast array of styles of food that make up “southern cuisine” (Witt). While both influenced each other, a great difference lies in what the African-Americans created by infusing new and traditional foods and techniques. This is as opposed to an umbrella of cooking that draws from different backgrounds and traditions, such as Creole cuisine. It is still difficult to determine where to draw the line of influence. Amiri Baraka, in his 1962 essay entitled “Soul Food,” believed that soul food included chitterlings (chitlins), pork chops, fried porgies, potlikker, turnips, watermelon, black-eyed peas, grits, Hoppin’ John, hushpuppies, okra, and pancakes. Other foods sometimes associated with soul food, such as fried chicken, barbecue, collard greens and sweet potato pie, were considered southern food (Witt). These dishes had still become a part of the African-American diet in the South, but they did not have direct routes going back to practices from slavery in America that reflected African techniques. On this point, it could be argued, as it is by Joseph E. Holloway, that fried chicken deserved African-American credit. Deep fat frying became common practice, originally, to help preserve meats, namely chicken or beef when reliable sources of keeping food cold did not exist (Holloway). The line could be drawn in two different places between southern cuisine and soul food: where techniques and ingredients clearly stem from African practices or where techniques and ingredients stem from practices during slavery. The second definition would broaden the term "soul food" to include English-inspired, other European-inspired, and Native American-inspired infusions of techniques and ingredients; as a result, the first definition will be focused on. Putting arguments of dishes aside, an array of produce existed that undoubtedly came through slave trades and made their way into Southern cooking.