Soul food — the term coined in the 1960s to reclaim the African American cooking tradition — is the culinary tradition that developed from the specific conditions of American slavery and its aftermath. Enslaved people received the least desirable cuts of meat (the parts their enslavers didn't want — pig intestines, feet, ears, snout, tails; cow tripe; chicken necks and backs) and had to create nourishing food from these discards. The techniques developed to make these ingredients not merely edible but delicious are among the most creative in culinary history — and they produced some of the world's most celebrated flavours.
The specific techniques of soul food — how necessity became artistry.
WEST AFRICAN CULINARY TRADITION — DEEP EXTRACTION