Before the days of refrigeration, rural folks slaughtered hog's in large numbers and created recipes from the animal
All in Southern Food
Before the days of refrigeration, rural folks slaughtered hog's in large numbers and created recipes from the animal
WPA America Eats Project description of Southern Christmas traditions in North Carolina.
In New Orleans home cooks mastered the art of creating economical dishes for weekday meals. Among them red beans and rice which is to New Orleans what baked beans are to Boston and cowpeas to Charleston.
Getting a recipe and the method used to make a dish from an African American cook in Savannah “is rather like trying to write down the music to the spirituals which they sing—for all good old-timers (and new-timers, too, for that matter) cook “by ear,” and it is hard to bring them down to earth when they begin to improvise.”
Maya Angelou describes her grandmother as great cook and entrepreneur.
Soul food is sacred food for those who remember growing up eating it with family and friends.
I learned from oral histories and sources, like this 1940 Caswell County North Carolina image from the library of Congress, that long ago, rural folks would purchase a block of ice and chip off what they needed with an ice pick to make homemade ice cream.
