List of soul foods and dishes facts for kids
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. 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.
Meat dishes
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. |
|
Fried fish | Any of several varieties of fish, including catfish, whiting, porgies, bluegill, sometimes battered in seasoned cornmeal. Adapted from method of frying chicken. | |
Ham hocks | 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, but is also used outside the United States, for example in the Italian dish guanciale. | |
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. | |
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 (the muscular lining of the pig's stomach, sliced and often cooked with chitterlings). | |
Oxtail | The tail of cattle, oxtail is a bony, gelatin-rich meat, which is usually slow-cooked as a stew or braised. | |
Pickled pigs' feet | 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. | |
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. Pictured is a chicken gizzard dish. | |
Sh** 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 |
Vegetables and legumes
Beans, greens and other vegetables are often cooked with ham or pork parts to add flavor.
Name | Image | Description |
---|---|---|
Black-eyed peas | Often mixed into Hoppin' John or as a side dish. 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". 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 | 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. 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 | 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" | |
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. |
Breads and grains
Name | Image | Description |
---|---|---|
Cornbread | 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 | A cooked coarsely ground cornmeal of Native American origin. | |
Hoecake | 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 | 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. |
Desserts
Name | Image | Description |
---|---|---|
Sweet potato pie | Parboiled sweet potatoes, then pureed, spiced, and baked in a pie crust, similar in texture to pumpkin pie | |
Banana pudding | Pudding made with vanilla custard, vanilla wafers, bananas, whipped cream and vanilla extract | |
Red velvet cake | Red colored cake made with cocoa powder | |
Pecan pie | Pie made with pecans |
Regional Soul Food
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