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 during the era of slavery. It uses a variety of ingredients and cooking styles, some of which came from West African and Central African cuisine brought over by enslaved Africans while others originated in Europe. Some are indigenous to the Americas as well, borrowed from Native American cuisine. The foods from West-Central Africa brought to North America during the slave trade were guinea pepper, gherkin, sesame seeds, kola nuts, eggplant, watermelon, rice, cantaloupe, millet, okra, black-eyed peas, yams, and legumes such as kidney beans. These crops became a staple in Southern cuisine in the United States. Soul food dishes were created by enslaved Black Americans using minimal ingredients because slaveholders fed their slaves. Historian John Blassingame's book published in 1972, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, was researched from a collection of slave narratives. According to Blassingame's research, some enslaved people received the bare minimum in food and had to supplement their diets by hunting, fishing, and foraging for food. From their limited food sources enslaved African Americans created their meals and new dishes called soul food.
Many of the meals prepared by enslaved people were later published in African-American cookbooks after the American Civil war. The dishes the enslaved and their descendants created influenced American southern cuisine. They created gumbo, an adaptation of a traditional west African stew; stewed tomatoes and okra; corn cakes, shrimp and grits; hoppinâ John, jambalaya, red rice and other rice-based dishes; collards and other greens; chow-chow and other pickled vegetables; boiled peanuts and peanut soup; and chitlins and cracklings, among other foods."
During slavery, pork was a main source of meat for enslaved Black Americans. Slaveholders only provided their slaves the parts of the pig they did not eat such as innards (chitlins), pigs' feet, pigs' ears, and pigs' tail. To supplement their diets, enslaved people hunted and fished for food. Some meat soul foods and dishes include:
Beans, greens and other vegetables are often cooked with ham or pork parts to add flavor. To supplement their diets, enslaved African Americans grew vegetables and fruits in their gardens to make one-pot stews and "gumbos." Since the late 20th-century and into the 21st-century, some African Americans create vegan soul food meals. Several Black chefs have opened vegan soul food restaurants to cook healthier foods rooted in African American culture. Researchers at the University of Guelph noted the importance of leafy greens in African-American cuisine: "Leafy greens, both indigenous to Africa and those used in African-American cuisine, are highly nutritious, rich in calcium, copper, magnesium, manganese, potassium, zinc, iron, folic acid and vitamins A, C, B1, B2, B5, B6, and E, and are useful in promoting brain function, immune system health, and hormone production."
Rice was a cash crop in the South Carolina Lowcountry, and during the slave trade, Europeans selected coastal inhabitants of West Africa who had knowledge of rice cultivation. Other grains such as millet and sorghum were cultivated in Africa and were used in West-Central African cooking to make stews.
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.
Chicken and waffles became a common soul food item in Black communities in Maryland and in Harlem, New York. During the blues and jazz era, musicians and singers ate at soul food restaurants located inside black-owned night clubs and cooks prepared chicken and waffles for their customers.