Black History Month is celebrated the entire month of February, so it’s only right to help honor and celebrate the month with these 33 amazing soul food recipes that pay homage to the culture. Each year is another opportunity to shine a national spotlight on the food of the black diaspora. Even though most of these recipes have already become staples in many households around the world, Black History Month is an opportunity to highlight them.
A lot of the black cuisine originated from the Spanish and French decedents, which later intertwined with the South. This cuisine then took on the term “soul food.” Just like it sounds, soul food is a cuisine that is cooked with an abundance of love and passion, coming from the soul. Many traditional soul food recipes are created straight out of the garden. With well known dishes such as Southern Collard Greens, Black-Eyed Peas, and Okra.
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Each Southern region in the United States has their own particular take on soul food. For instance, Louisiana is known for their Creole and Cajun style cooking. This combines the likes of French, Spanish and Haitian cuisines. Louisiana is known for their “holy trinity,” which is a staple cooking base made up of onion, celery and bell pepper. Holy trinity is found in virtually all Creole recipes.
Then we move over to the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina, where you will find find Lowcountry cuisine. You can find dishes in this region such as “Hoppin’ Johns,” which are black-eyed peas, seafood such as crab, oysters and shrimp and much more.
Throughout the years, many cultures have meshed with one another, and beautiful culinary creations were born. With all of the different cuisines throughout the south one thing remains true—soul food is one of the most popular. Even more, with soul food, seasoning is not amiss, butter is plentiful and flavor is key!
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Jocelyn Delk Adams is the founder, author, national television personality and brand ambassador behind the award-winning cookbook Grandbaby Cakes and the food website Grandbaby-Cakes.com, which gives her family’s, particularly her grandmother’s, cherished generational recipes her modern spin while preserving the most important ingredient- tradition. Jocelyn is a TODAY Show Tastemaker, a Food Network judge and was a cast member of one of the Cooking Channel’s longest running most popular shows, “Unique Sweets.” Jocelyn hopes Grandbaby Cakes inspires a new generation of dessert enthusiasts to learn to bake and not feel guilty about enjoying dessert.
