Beginning with the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Black people in America have used food as a means of resistance, rebellion, and revolution as well as maintaining a closeness with one another through the meals they ate.
Jonathan Kauffman's new book, Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat, follows the people and places throughout the country that brought organic vegetables and whole wheat bread into the counterculture, and then, eventually, mainstream supermarkets.
The flourishing of soul food’s sub-genres has been fun to watch (and eat), but it has also meant that fewer African-American chefs are embracing traditional soul food. Some side-step the cuisine in order to avoid being pigeon-holed as a “soul-food cooks,” while others follow their passions for other flavors.
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