American Southern cooking — the tradition that produced fried chicken, gumbo, cornbread, black-eyed peas, collard greens, sweet potato pie, and the entire foundation of what the world recognises as "American food" — is fundamentally African American cooking. This is not a qualification or a political statement: it is the documented historical reality. The techniques, the flavour philosophy, the specific ingredient combinations, and the cooking methods of American Southern food originate in West African cooking traditions and were developed and maintained by enslaved Africans and their descendants. Jessica B. Harris, Michael Twitty, and Adrian Miller (Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine) have documented this extensively. The culinary history of the American South is inseparable from the history of slavery.
The African foundations of American Southern cooking — specific techniques and their origins.
WEST AFRICAN CULINARY TRADITION — DEEP EXTRACTION