THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 20, 1994 TAG: 9411190039
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: A.M. JAMISON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
TURKEY. DRESSING. Candied yams. Greens seasoned with hog jowls or salt pork. Chitlins. Macaroni and cheese. Sweet potato pie.
A Thanksgiving Day menu it is. But is it soul food or Southern?
Same difference, some say.
Big difference, experts say.
Soul food is ``highly seasoned dishes that have become a part of our (black) culture,'' says Hubert Alexander Sr., head of the Hotel Management Program at Norfolk State University.
``Particular parts of the food, such as pig's feet, that normally might not look good but are good for the soul,'' adds Timothy Wayne Patridge, the program manager of catering for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games.
Southern cuisine, on the other hand, is a mixture of African, English, American Indian and German influences, Patridge says.
Southern also refers to foods that were indigenous to the area, such as pork, seafood and catfish, Alexander says, and have more to do with the way they are prepared: highly seasoned, fried and barbecued.
Soul food can be traced to the early days of our country and beyond. When slaves were captured from West Africa, they brought the cooking methods from their homelands and adapted them to the plantations of America.
``Boiling and frying remained the most popular ways to prepare not only meats, but also vegetables and legumes,'' according to ``Food and Culture in America'' (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989).
``Corn replaced the West African regional staple starches and was prepared in many forms. . . . Pork fat replaced palm oil in cooking and was used to fry or flavor everything from breads to greens. Hot-pepper sauces replaced fresh peppers for seasonings.''
Slaves supplemented their diet with small animals, such as opossums, rabbits and squirrels, and vegetables from garden plots.
The leftovers from the masters' tables - chitlins, pig's ears, pig's tails - were made into ``something you could actually chew on,'' Patridge says.
``Maximum flavor for maximum output.''
In her cookbook, ``The African-American Kitchen: Cooking From Our Heritage,'' historian Angela Shelf Medearis pays tribute to the ingenuity of the slaves.
``These African and African-American cooks concocted dishes that became mainstays in the South and spread across America. They devised ingenious substitutions for ingredients from their homelands that could not be found in America. The real genius of the slave cooks, however, lay in their ability to transform the poor-quality meats and other ingredients they were given into delicious meals.
``A slave's daily diet was made up mostly of vegetables, such as wild greens and onions, and cornmeal. `Side' meats, such as salt pork and animal fats, were used to enhance the flavor of vegetables rather than as main ingredients.''
When slavery ended, the food traditions of blacks did not change significantly, and they differed little from those of white farmers of similar socioeconomic status.
One exception was that pork variety cuts and salt pork remained the primary meats for blacks, while many whites switched to beef.
Decades passed and some families migrated North; the soul-food cuisine remained part of the African-American culture. However, it wasn't until the 1960s that it received the ``soul food'' label.
It became a symbol of ethnic solidarity that cut across region or class, Kittler and Sucher wrote in ``Food and Culture in America.'' DOWN-HOME MEALS
To the average Virginian, soul food and Southern cuisine are one and the same.
Virginia Gray, a North Carolina native, serves the fare at her Portsmouth eatery, West Ray's Diner.
``It's just down-home meals,'' she says, noting that ``Southern'' refers to how the food is prepared or seasoned.
The North Carolina native will serve traditional Southern fare on Thanksgiving Day at the diner: baked turkey, homemade dressing, baked sweet potatoes, baked ham, vegetables, cheesecake, apple pie, homemade bread/rice pudding with raisin/cranberry sauce.
But more important than the labels are the emotions the food evokes.
When Jorine Mills of Virginia Beach remembers Thanksgiving meals, she recalls the spices her Mexican and Creole grandparents used to season foods. ``Not so much salt, but cumin, red pepper, vinegar,'' she says.
The food fed more than the stomach.
``It was nurturing, fulfilling, pleasurable,'' says the mother of three.
The food helps foster good will as well.
Sara Burgess of Chesapeake says that when she was growing up her family gathered round the Thanksgiving table to say a special prayer of thanks before sitting to eat. She does the same with her own family.
``It was rewarding to sit back and think over the last 12 months and be thankful,'' says the mother of five. ``It was very inspirational.''
Florence James, a cook at the United House of Prayer Dining Room in Norfolk, simply calls it ``Family Day . . . where you can enjoy one another.''
Here are some recipes to get you started. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK/Staff
Collard greens, ham hocks, candied yams and corn muffins are some of
the foods that make Thanksgiving ``soulful.''
by CNB