I had an interesting conversation with my co-workers recently. It was my birthday so they treated me to lunch from a nearby soul food spot which allegedly serves the best in town. They got me a Polish Boy Special. That's a Polish Boy sandwich with cole slaw, fries and honey mustard right on the sandwich plus more fries on the side. It was tres tasty but hardly African-American in nature. And I said so. Most everybody agreed with me except for one co-worker who said, "but it is soul food. It came from Lulu's Soul Fixin's". I said, "that doesn't means a thing".
I proceeded to give this co-worker a brief history of soul food. The level of irony here is beyond the outer edges of the universe. But no matter. (For you newer readers: I'm the lily white, Jewish, part-time manager of a busy, somewhat high-end, African-American beauty salon.) Soul food has it's origins in a couple of distinctly separate roots.
1) Much of it started out as food which the slaves ate. The slaves, of course, ate what the masters gave them; primarily, the throwaway bits and pieces of meat which were considered unsavory for the white plantation owners. Jowls, feet, intestines and so forth. Also, weeds like dandelions would've been considered "good enough" and, substantially cheaper than, say, asparagus or broccoli; food, again, grown for the white family. So, over time, the slaves figured out how to make their allotted food taste really good. As decades turned into centuries, black cooks learned more and more by experimentation and trial and error how to deal with what they had and how to make it not only palatable but in fact really delicious. (Eastern European Jews did the exact same thing during the middle ages as a result of their own persecution. Kishka and chitterlings are very similar concepts. Kishka is stuffing-filled cow intestines and chitterlings are pig intestines with spices added. Different animal - same food.)
2) The trans-Atlantic cargo ships brought not only Africans but also African food to the states. Sweet potatoes, watermelon, peanuts and certain beans are not indigenous to the Americas. They were introduced simultaneous to the slave trade. Those were some of the foods that the Africans were used to eating back home while living free and they continued that tradition after arriving here. That tradition still continues today.
So, I'm giving this soul food history lesson in the middle of a busy black beauty salon with all the old ladies and younger highly educated professionals agreeing with what I'm saying. "Amen Brother!" And this young thing is just looking at me like I have potatoes growing out of my nose because I'm saying that a polish boy and fries doesn't count in spite of the fact that it was purchased at Lulu's. It was very yum-yum, don't get me wrong, but I was expecting my birthday meal to be a bit more authentic. Oh well. Maybe next year.
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