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This is a list of soul foods and dishes. Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African Americans that originated in the Southern United States. [1] It uses a variety of ingredients and cooking styles, some of which came from Africa, that were brought over by Enslaved Africans while some others originated in Europe. Some are indigenous to the Americas as well, borrowed from Native American cuisine. [1] [2]
Some meat soul foods and dishes include:
| Name | Image | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Buffalo ribs |  | A dish consisting of the breaded and deep fried ribs of the buffalo fish. Pictured is a live buffalo fish. |
| Fatback |  | Fatty, cured, salted pork, especially the first layers of the back of the pig primarily used in slow-cooking as a seasoning. Pictured is breaded and fried fatback. |
| Fried chicken |  | A dish consisting of chicken pieces usually from broiler chickens that have been floured or battered and then pan-fried, deep fried, or pressure fried. The seasoned breading adds a crisp coating or crust to the exterior. Chicken and waffles, in particular, is a soul food dish associated with special occasions. [3] |
| Fried fish [1] |  | Any of several varieties of fish, including catfish, whiting, [4] porgies, bluegill, sometimes battered in seasoned cornmeal. Adapted from method of frying chicken. |
| Ham hocks [5] [6] |  | Typically smoked or boiled, ham hocks generally consist of much skin, tendons and ligaments, and require long cooking through stewing, smoking or braising to be made palatable. The cut of meat can be cooked with greens and other vegetables or in flavorful sauces. |
| Hog jowl |  | Cured and smoked cheeks of pork. It is not actually a form of bacon, but is associated with the cut due to the streaky nature of the meat and the similar flavor. Hog jowl is a staple of soul food, [7] but is also used outside the United States, for example in the Italian dish guanciale. [8] [9] |
| Hog maw |  | The stomach lining of a pig; it is very muscular and contains no fat. As a soul food dish, hog maw has often been coupled with chitterlings, which are pig intestines. In the book Plantation Row Slave Cabin Cooking: The Roots of Soul Food hog maw is used in the Hog Maw Salad recipe. [10] |
| Chitlins |  | Cleaned and prepared intestines of pigs, slow cooked and also often eaten with a vinegar-based sauce or sometimes parboiled, then battered and fried. It is adapted from early European cuisine, or hog maws [1] (the muscular lining of the pig's stomach, sliced and often cooked with chitterlings). [1] |
| Oxtail [1] |  | The tail of cattle, oxtail is a bony, gelatin-rich meat, which is usually slow-cooked as a stew [11] or braised. |
| Pickled pigs' feet [5] |  | Slow cooked, sometimes pickled or often eaten with a vinegar based sauce. |
| Pigs' feet |  | The feet of pigs: the cuts are used in various dishes around the world, and their usage has increased in popularity since the late-2000s financial crisis. [12] |
| Pork |  | As a meat dish, such as ham and bacon, and for the flavoring of vegetables and legumes, gravies and sauces. |
| Pork ribs |  | The ribcage of a domestic pig, meat and bones together, is cut into usable pieces, prepared by smoking, grilling, or baking – usually with a sauce, often barbecue – and then served. The method of barbecuing is of Native American influence. |
| Poultry |  | Giblets, such as chicken liver and gizzards. [5] [6] Pictured is a chicken gizzard dish. |
| Shit on a Shingle |  | Chipped beef with a bechamel sauce, served on toast. Additional toppings, gravy, or beef stock may also be added. |
| Turkey |  | Neck bones |
Beans, greens and other vegetables are often cooked with ham or pork parts to add flavor.
| Name | Image | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Black-eyed peas [5] |  | Often mixed into Hoppin' John or as a side dish. [1] Pictured are black-eyed peas with smoked hocks and corn bread. |
| Collard greens |  | A staple vegetable of Southern U.S. cuisine, they are often prepared with other similar green leaf vegetables, such as kale, turnip greens, spinach, and mustard greens in "mixed greens". [13] They are generally eaten year-round in the South, often with a pickled pepper vinegar sauce. Typical seasonings when cooking collards can consist of smoked and salted meats (ham hocks, smoked turkey drumsticks, pork neckbones, fatback or other fatty meat), diced onions and seasonings. |
| Hoppin' John [14] |  | A dish traditional to the Low country region of South Carolina consisting of black-eyed peas (or field peas) and rice, with chopped onion and sliced bacon, seasoned with a bit of salt. [15] Some people substitute ham hock, fatback, or country sausage for the conventional bacon; a few use green peppers or vinegar and spices. This dish originated in the South Carolina Low Country but is now popular in many areas of the south. |
| Mustard greens |  | A species of mustard plant. Subvarieties include southern giant curled mustard, which resembles a headless cabbage such as kale, but with a distinct horseradish-mustard flavor. It is also known as green mustard cabbage. |
| Okra [16] |  | A vegetable that is native to West Africa, and is eaten fried or stewed and is a traditional ingredient of gumbo. It is sometimes cooked with tomatoes, corn, onions and hot peppers |
| Fried okra |  | Okra pods that have been sliced and dredged in cornmeal before frying. |
| Sweet potatoes |  | Often parboiled, sliced, then adorned with butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla or other spices, and baked; commonly called "candied sweets" or "candied yams" [5] |
| Turnip greens |  | Turnip leaves are sometimes eaten as "turnip greens", and they resemble mustard greens in flavor. Turnip greens are a common side dish in southeastern US cooking, primarily during late fall and winter. Smaller leaves are preferred; however, any bitter taste of larger leaves can be reduced by pouring off the water from initial boiling and replacing it with fresh water. Varieties specifically grown for the leaves resemble mustard greens more than those grown for the roots, with small or no storage roots. |
| Name | Image | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Cornbread [17] |  | A quickbread often baked or made in a skillet, commonly made with buttermilk and seasoned with bacon fat; inspired by the great availability of corn in America. Cornbread is of Native American origin. Traditional southern cornbread is baked in European cake and bread baking style. Pictured is skillet cornbread. |
| Grits [18] |  | A cooked coarsely ground cornmeal of Native American origin. |
| Hoecake [1] |  | Also known as Johnnycake, a type of cornbread that is thin in texture, and fried in cooking oil in a skillet, whose name is derived from field hands' often cooking it on a shovel or hoe held to an open flame. |
| Hushpuppies [1] |  | Balls of deep-fried cornmeal, usually with salt and diced onions. Typical hushpuppy ingredients include cornmeal, wheat flour, eggs, salt, baking soda, milk or buttermilk, and water, and may include onion, spring onion (scallion), garlic, whole kernel corn, and peppers. |
| Name | Image | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet potato pie [1] [4] |  | Parboiled sweet potatoes, then pureed, spiced, and baked in a pie crust, similar in texture to pumpkin pie |
| Banana pudding [19] |  | Pudding made with vanilla custard, vanilla wafers, bananas, whipped cream and vanilla extract |
| Red velvet cake [20] |  | Red colored cake made with cocoa powder |
| Pecan pie [21] |  | Pie made with pecans |
These are more specific regional Soul food dishes.This includes dishes like Jambalaya, Gumbo, red rice and beans and other foods of the creole subgroup of the Black American ethnic group. It also includes the dishes of the Gullah Geeche sub group of the Black American peoples. See: Louisiana Creole cuisine and Gullah Geeche Cuisine
Cajun cuisine is a style of cooking developed by the Cajun–Acadians who were deported from Acadia to Louisiana during the 18th century and who incorporated West African, French and Spanish cooking techniques into their original cuisine.
Spanish cuisine consists of the traditions and practices of Spanish cooking. It features considerable regional diversity, with important differences between the traditions of each of Spain's regional cuisines.
Soul food is the ethnic cuisine of African-Americans. It originated in the American South from the cuisines of enslaved Africans trafficked to the North American colonies through the Atlantic slave trade during the Antebellum period and is closely associated with the cuisine of the American South. The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s, when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. Soul food uses cooking techniques and ingredients from West African, Central African, Western European, and Indigenous cuisine of the Americas. Soul food came from the blending of what African Americans ate in their native countries in Africa and what was available to them as slaves. The cuisine had its share of negativity initially. Soul food was initially seen as low class food, and Northern African Americans looked down on their Black Southern counterparts who preferred soul food. The term evolved from being the diet of a slave in the South to being a primary pride in the African American community in the North such as New York City.
The cuisine of the Southern United States encompasses diverse food traditions of several subregions, including Tidewater, Appalachian, Ozarks, Lowcountry, Cajun, Creole, African American Cuisine and Floribbean cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have spread to other parts of the United States, influencing other types of American cuisine.
Louisiana Creole cuisine is a style of cooking originating in Louisiana, United States, which blends West African, French, Spanish, and Native American influences, as well as influences from the general cuisine of the Southern United States.
A mirepoix is a mixture of diced vegetables cooked with fat for a long time on low heat without coloring or browning. The ingredients are not sautéed or otherwise hard-cooked, because the intention is to sweeten rather than caramelize them. Mirepoix is a long-standing part of French cuisine and is the flavor base for a wide variety of dishes, including stocks, soups, stews, and sauces.
Puerto Rican cuisine consists of the cooking style and traditional dishes original to Puerto Rico. It has been primarily influenced by the ancestors of the Puerto Rican people: the indigenous Taínos, Spanish colonizers, and sub-Saharan African slaves. As a territory of the United States, the culinary scene of Puerto Rico has also been moderately influenced by American cuisine.
The black-eyed pea or black-eyed bean is a legume grown around the world for its medium-sized, edible bean. It is a subspecies of the cowpea, an Old World plant domesticated in Africa, and is sometimes simply called a cowpea.
A ham hock or pork knuckle is the joint between the tibia/fibula and the metatarsals of the foot of a pig, where the foot was attached to the hog's leg. It is the portion of the leg that is neither part of the ham proper nor the ankle or foot (trotter), but rather the extreme shank end of the leg bone.
Red beans and rice is an emblematic dish of Louisiana Creole cuisine traditionally made on Mondays with Kidney beans, vegetables, spices and pork bones as left over from Sunday dinner, cooked together slowly in a pot and served over rice. Meats such as ham, sausage, and tasso ham are also frequently used in the dish. The dish is customary – ham was traditionally a Sunday meal and Monday was washday. A pot of beans could sit on the stove and simmer while the women were busy scrubbing clothes. The dish is now fairly common throughout the Southeast. Similar dishes are common in Latin American cuisine, including moros y cristianos, gallo pinto and feijoada.
Soup beans is a term common in the Southern United States, particularly the regions around the Appalachian Mountains. Soup beans are usually served with cornbread, greens, and potatoes and may be topped with raw chopped onions or ramps. Soup beans are considered a main course, but also serve as a side dish. In rural areas, where food was scarce during the winter, these dried beans were a staple food.
The cuisine of Kentucky mostly resembles and is a part of traditional Southern cuisine. Some common dinner dishes are fried catfish and hushpuppies, fried chicken and country fried steak. These are usually served with vegetables such as green beans, greens, pinto beans slow-cooked with pork as seasoning and served with cornbread. Other popular items include fried green tomatoes, cheese grits, corn pudding, fried okra, and chicken and dumplings, which can be found across the commonwealth.
Rice and beans, or beans and rice, is a category of dishes from many cultures around the world, whereby the staple foods of rice and beans are combined in some manner. The grain and legume combination provides several important nutrients and many calories, and both foods are widely available. The beans are usually seasoned, while the rice may be plain or seasoned. The two components may be mixed together, separated on the plate, or served separately.
Hoppin' John, also known as Carolina peas and rice, is a peas and rice dish served in the Southern United States. It is made with cowpeas, mainly, black-eyed peas and Sea Island red peas in the Sea Islands and iron and clay peas in the Southeast US, and rice, chopped onion, and sliced bacon, seasoned with salt. Some recipes use ham hock, fatback, country sausage, or smoked turkey parts instead of bacon. A few use green peppers or vinegar and spices. Smaller than black-eyed peas, field peas are used in the South Carolina Lowcountry and coastal Georgia. Black-eyed peas are the norm elsewhere.
Texan cuisine is the food associated with the Southern U.S. state of Texas, including its native Southwestern cuisine influenced Tex-Mex foods. Texas is a large state, and its cuisine has been influenced by a wide range of cultures, including Tejano/Mexican, Native American, Creole/Cajun, African-American, German, Czech, Southern and other European American groups.
The cuisine of New Orleans encompasses common dishes and foods in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is perhaps the most distinctively recognized regional cuisine in the United States. Some of the dishes originated in New Orleans, while others are common and popular in the city and surrounding areas, such as the Mississippi River Delta and southern Louisiana. The cuisine of New Orleans is heavily influenced by Creole cuisine, Cajun cuisine, and soul food. Later on, due to immigration, Italian cuisine and Sicilian cuisine also has some influence on the cuisine of New Orleans. Seafood also plays a prominent part in the cuisine. Dishes invented in New Orleans include po' boy and muffuletta sandwiches, oysters Rockefeller and oysters Bienville, pompano en papillote, and bananas Foster, among others.
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