• Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Sweet Mothers Kitchen

  • Home
  • About SMK
    • About Me
  • Recipes Index
  • SMKs Favorite Resources
  • Submit A Recipe
  • Contact Me
You are here: Home / Archives for soul food

soul food

Chitterlings Timesaver Tip

October 13, 2020 by Char

With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming fast, I wanted to share a time saver with you all that I think you’ll appreciate as much as I do! If you fix chitlins (chitterlings) for the holidays, I found a brand that will save you time and effort in a BIG way!

The Cleanest Chitlins Ever!

The brand name is “Aunt Bessie’s” and they say hand cleaned on the package. They are sold raw and cooked and you want the raw ones. They are sold in 5 pound bags, frozen.

These chitlins are a lot more expensive than the red bucket/other bags but so worth it! I cleaned a 5# bag of them today and I really just had to take the membrane off and wash them good! Aunt Bessie’s really does a very nice job cleaning them!

Work Smarter & Save Time!

Instead of taking 1 1/2 to 2 hours on a bucket (or longer), it took me about 35 – 40 minutes to clean 5#. That includes stopping a couple of times and 5-6 wash & rinses. I’m very happy with them! I had read very good reviews about these chitlins online and I’m glad I gave them a try! Of course, the bag says just rinse, cook, and eat but these are chitlins we’re talking about here!

You have to cut each one open and I tried it both ways, removing the membrane before I cut them and after I cut them, and I think it’s easier to take the membrane off before cutting them open. But either way, the whole process is easy, peasy and I couldn’t be happier!

Good Things Can Be Hard To Find!

Again, they’re hard to find! I had to drive 45 minutes away from where I live to get mine, and I paid $12.36 per bag. I know it’s pricey but they’re worth it! Not only because they’re so much easier to clean but also because you throw so much less away! From the first bag I threw away membrane only, they were that clean! I bought 6 bags so I’ll update you as I clean the rest but I wanted to share this asap! Aunt Bessie’s got it going on!

Update:

I finished cleaning the last of the 6 bags that I bought today and it was smooth sailing all the way! I did the last bag today in about 45 minutes! Some of you may think that’s a long time for a 5# bag of chitlins but it really isn’t at all! All I really threw away was the membrane and a little connective tissue, no other waste! Cleanest chitlins EVER!!! If you get a change to give these chitlins a try, PLEASE send me a message and tell me what you think!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: chitlins, chitterlings, holiday dinner timesavers, soul food, soul food for Christmas, soul food for thanksgiving

Pigs Feet, Lasagna and Neck Bones – Oh My!

March 2, 2018 by Char

I was watching the February 22, 2018 episode of Top Chef, where the four remaining competitors get a surprise visitor from home! For a couple of the chef contestants it’s their moms, for one it’s his grandmother and for the fourth it’s his dad. 

The best part is that the visiting family member had each cooked a “dish from home” and everyone gets to sit down and break bread together. Little do the contestants know that their next cooking challenge is to recreate an elevated version of their family dish! One mom cooked gumbo, the grandmother made rigatoni with meat balls, another mom made beef stroganoff. My favorite dish hands down was cooked by the only dad that came. He cooked pigs feet, neck bones in gravy (red sauce) with lasagna! Oh, by the way, forgot to tell you, the dad and son are Italian! Talk about soul food recipes from around the world!

The son, Joe,  said lasagna and pigs feet gravy will always remind him of his mom! For holidays and special occasions, it was always on the table. Joe said it would be hard (emotionally) to recreate the dish because his mom had passed away, seven years earlier from cancer. He hesitated to cook the dish because he didn’t want to fail and dishonor the memory of his mother. It was a very emotional show! 

The more I expose myself to other cultures and what they eat, the more I understand that every culture has their own version of soul food! It may be called a different name – peasant food, country food, stick-to-your-ribs comfort food. No matter what it’s called, it’s still the food that cultures were and still are built upon!  The food  our childhood food memories are made of! It’s food that when you eat it, you can taste the love and care that went into it’s preparation! 

As many times as I’ve eaten pigs feet and neck bones, I have never had them cooked in red gravy and served with a side of lasagna! I guess like they say, we are more alike than we are different! We all have food that we love to cook and share with family, friends and loved ones, making memories that we cherish and pass on! 

I feel that this Top Chef episode resonates with the real idea behind my recipe blog, Sweet Mother’s Kitchen. I have always intended it to be a place to share our heritage, culture, stories, photos and recipes! My blog’s tagline is… Cook. Share. Remember. , which now should be self explanatory. What may not be quite as obvious is my Logo, but it is also a part of the same idea. My logo is a Sankofa, a mythical bird from West African folklore. The origin of the lore hails from the Akan tribe of Ghana, West Africa. 

The meaning of the word Sankofa is 

  • SAN (return) 

  • KO (go)

  • FA (look, seek and take)

and the literal translation of the word and symbol is, “it is not wrong to return and go get the good thing in danger of being left behind”*.

The Sankofa is depicted as a large bird with it’s body facing and/or flying forward, with it’s head turned backward. It holds an egg in it’s mouth that it is lovingly placing on it’s back in preparation of the trip into the future! The egg represents the good thing it went back and got that it’s taking with it – heritage, values and memories!

I used the Sankofa bird meaning for my logo for my soul food recipe web site. My Sankofa is flying forward into the future and taking all of it’s culture, recipes and memories in the form of a heart with it. Oh, and my Sankofa has a chef’s hat on! 🙂

We must never forget where we’ve come from and we should in fact celebrate it. Food that caused our forefathers to thrive and survive shouldn’t embarrass us or cause us to feel ashamed! You should be proud that not only did that food feed generations of people, nourishing and keeping them alive, it also gave them comfort when they needed it the most! 

Like the Sankofa we must learn from our past but we must also not be afraid to take the good part of it with us into our future! Like the adage says, you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re coming from! It seems that the same people who encourage you to shun your past and your heritage are the same ones you’ll find serving it back up to you like they invented it! (Things that make you go, hummm???)

To be memorable, food must be more than fuel. To be memorable, food must connect you to something – a person, a place, a thought, an event! Soul food, southern food, country food, comfort food, Italian food, Polish food, Jamaican food, African food, Cuban food, Irish food, German food, French food – whatever the culinary heritage, it has to have soul!  

The old school recipes that Grandma used to make. The special dish that only your family knows how to make that is proudly served at every special event! Granddad’s special soup, Aunt Bea’s homemade rolls, food that’s as much a part of who you are as where you were born and raised! Don’t lose your food culture, go back and get it, treasure it and keep it with you!  Remember it, recreate it and share it with people you love! It’s what makes you who you are! 

 

* https://berea.edu/cgwc/the-power-of-sankofa/

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: african food, comfort food, country food, italian food, jamaican food, pheasant food, polish food, soul food, southern food

Thanksgiving Recipe: Collard Greens with Chorizo and Onions

October 29, 2017 by Char

A sweet-spicy twist on classic southern-style collard greens, this dish is a delicious accompaniment to your Thanksgiving turkey and cornbread stuffing or

Sourced through Scoop.it from: ww2.kqed.org

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: chorizo, collard greens, greens, mexican food, soul food, southern food, thanksgiving, thanksgiving sides

5 Things You Need To Know About Soul Food

June 6, 2015 by Char

What 5 things do you need to know about soul food?5 Things About Soul Food This short list addresses some of my most asked questions when it comes to soul food. Why do you need to know them? Well, you might not need to know them right now, but you may want to check them out and stash them away for future reference! You never know when you may have a soul food trivia question on Jeopardy! 🙂

1. What is soul food?

When people say “soul food” exactly what are they talking about? Does soul food only belong to one culture or is it cross-cultural and world wide? Well the term “soul food” was born in the soulful 60s – when everything in the black community had soul! It didn’t matter if it was the music, the people or the food – it all had soul! Today, soul music is now “old school” and the soul brothers and soul sisters are now Grand and Great-Grand parents. The one soulful term that still endures today is soul food!

The term refers to food that can find it’s origins in the cotton fields and plantations of the South. It was simple food, prepared with care. It was prepared by slaves and eaten by southern plantation owners, their families and friends. Leftovers were thrown away, given to the animals or scavenged by the slaves. From theses humble beginning a cuisine that some say is the only truly American cuisine that exists in this country was born. Slaves saved the tops of vegetables like turnips and hunted for small game like rabbit, groundhog and turtle.  Fishing also provided much needed protein which could also be smoke dried or salted and preserved.

2. What are the top 5 soul food dishes?

The top five soul food dishes in no particular order and in my personal opinion are, macaroni & cheese, collard greens, candied sweet potatoes, corn bread and fried chicken! As I said, this is my personal opinion and not the result of a poll or survey of the top 5 soul food dishes in America! Please notice that there is only one (1) meat dish listed in the top 5. Don’t believe the hype about soul food being bad for you because of all the meat people eat. Black people never did eat hugh amounts of meat! We couldn’t afford it! It was always scarce which is why soul food has always been “sides” focused!

The real secret to making soul food like mom & grandma used to cook, is knowing how to clean, season and cook it! Believe me when I say that everybody doesn’t know how to clean chitlins and everybody doesn’t know how to cook chitlins!  As one of the original members of “soul food”, chitlins are now often considered a delicacy because most people don’t have the time or the know how to prepare them! If prepared properly, chitlins are one of the most delicious soul food dishes you will ever eat!

3. Are sweet potatoes and yams the same thing?

No – yams are yams and sweet potatoes are tubers or potatoes.  I found a great article that offers an explanation of the difference between sweet potatoes and yams on a website called “Everyday Mysteries” which belongs to the Library of Congress:

Question: What is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams? Answer: Even though yams and sweet potatoes are both flowering plants, they are not botanically related. Yams have one embryonic seed leaf and sweet potatoes have two. Sweet potatoes are also from the morning glory family but are often called yams while yams are more closely related to lilies and grasses. Yams are also native to Africa and Asia and can grow quite large (record is 130 pounds). There are hundreds of varieties of yams and over 90% of them are grown in Africa. Yams are also starchier than sweet potatoes.

In the United States soft and firm are the two varieties of sweet  potatoes. Skin color and flesh colors are varied and can range from white to purple. Firm sweet potatoes stay firm when cooked and soft cook up soft and moist. African slaves called the soft sweet potatoes yams because they closely resembled African yams. The soft varieties of sweet potatoes are still referred to as yams. Today, the USDA requires labels with the term ‘yam’ to be accompanied by the term ‘sweet potato’. Basically – unless you specifically look for yams, which are usually found in farmers and international markets, you are probably eating sweet potatoes!(1)

4. Is soul food a cuisine that refers only to the food that originated in the American South created specifically by African slaves?

When “soul food” is referred to in America, it is a term coined or created in the 60’s that referred specifically to the food that had it’s roots in slavery. Today soul food has been elevated to it’s own special status thanks to the Sunday dinners, chicken shacks, rib joints, church dinners, family reunions, juke joints, fish frys and pig pickins that contributed along the way! Soul food may have originated from slavery food, but there are a great many differences between what soul food is today and what the slaves ate to survive.  You can believe that during slavery, our ancestors weren’t sitting around the plantation “throwin down” on Barbeque, fried chicken wings, macaroni and cheese, candied sweet potatoes and pound cake! I’m not saying that the food didn’t exist or that it wasn’t being created, prepared, served and eaten. I’m saying it wasn’t being eaten by us – until it was thrown away, if then!

What we call soul food today is the result of the way our ancestors were treated and what they were forced to eat but on a highly evolved level with a lot of additions and a lot more meat! They were given the worst of it and they made the best of it! Soul food reaches far beyond the cuisine of the deep south that was created and perfected by slaves. Every culture has soul food! Some call it peasant food, comfort food, country food or just plain old food! Every culture has it and every culture embraces it! For Polish people, it may be Haluski, for Moroccans it may be Harira and for Jamaicans it may be ackee and salt fish.  The real point is, we all have food that takes us back to our roots! Food that holds real, comforting and intimate memories of from whence we came!

5. Is soul food in America a dying cuisine?

Within the last 20 years, cooking, something that in America in general and the South specifically, was the work of slaves and then later domestic workers, has become very mainstream. Due to the popularity of television food shows, the internet focus on food and recipe sites and our love affair with food in general, there is money being made hand over fist in the food industry! But who’s in the kitchen? The same people who have always been there since the beginning? Absolutely not! You will be hard pressed to find a black chef on TV let alone with their own show! In fact even today  I can count the shows featuring black chefs on one hand!

Looks like once again we’ve fallen from grace to grass. Once again, as soon as the worth of something is discovered, we are “quietly” removed and not spoken of, like we were never here, there or anywhere!  As if we never created and originated this truly American cuisine! Simply put – we’ve been replaced! This is very obvious with soul food! First of all, it’s not referred to as soul food – ever, even on food shows! The menu can consist of fried chicken, chitlins, ribs, macaroni & cheese, collard greens and corn bread, the words “soul food” NEVER escapes the lips of the shows chef/host! It’s Southern Food or Comfort Food or maybe even Country Food, but never ever Soul Food!

What also happens is that credit is never given to those who originated the cuisine! The host gives credit alright, but it goes to their Grandma Moses or Uncle Bud or Mama May I, but never any mention of the people who actually taught their relatives how to fix those dishes! Once again, history is abused and trampled under foot! I know, I know, since the slaves were not permitted to learn to read and write, they could not write down recipes! But recipes were written, they just were not written by the slaves! They were written by the mistresses of the house who then proceeded to take credit for those recipes! But if you think about it, the person who owned the recipe, owned the person who created it so to them it was their recipe. They didn’t consider it wrong to take credit for what belonged to them through ownership. But now we know that it was wrong so how can we ensure that the right people get the credit?

As people continue to take credit for every grit and green recipe they can find, southern food pioneers like Chef Edna Lewis and our other ancestors  who literally slaved over this food, are ignored or simply never mentioned! Now all of a sudden, every Chef on TV cooks grits, beans and greens, and let’s not forget corn bread! They’re fixing gumbo, frying hush puppies and cooking tripe. It’s up to each of us to research, remember and honor our own culinary heritage. If we don’t, just like we can’t trace our ancestral roots back to the land of our ancestors, we will not be able to trace our culinary roots back to those who really created the dishes and recipes.

African American chef and historian Edna Lewis documented the fact that unless something is done, the history of southern food and how it was grown, cooked and served will be forgotten forever. She co-founded, The Society for the Preservation and Revitalization of Southern Food, to try to ensure that those ways be preserved for future generations to know, learn and understand. And even that institution has been replaced and given a new name. It’s now called Southern Foodways, even though it has merged with the organization Ms. Lewis helped to co-found. Ms. Lewis is no longer with us so again, we must be careful to protect and preserve what she started because we want to make sure that those who should get the credit!

In closing I will say that yes, Soul Food is alive and well in America, it’s just quietly being slowly losing it’s roots and it’s culture, dish by dish! The next time your turn on your favorite cooking show and you see the Chef/Host making his or her Aunt Carly’s sweet potato pie recipe, just remember, you’ve been warned!

.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(1) http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/sweetpotato.html. Everyday Mysteries Fun Science Facts From The Library of Congress. What is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams? November 23, 2012. April 11, 2015.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: chef edna lewis, edna lewis, soul food

Online Recipes – The Good, The Bad, The Ugly!

October 4, 2014 by Char

Buttermilk Fried Chicken

Photo credit: Jody Horton, courtesy Chronicle Books

From Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: Brown Sugar Kitchen

Ok – it’s time, I have to say it!  I am sick and tired of everybody and their brother thinking they have to critique every recipe someone puts online! Cooking and trying new exciting recipes is a wonderful thing, but to be a true foodie, you need an open mind as well as an open mouth! For example, a few minutes ago, I saw a yummy looking photo with a caption on yahoo.com of “Killer Buttermilk Fried Chicken”. When I clicked the link it took me to a page featuring a new cookbook by a chef out of West Oakland, CA Tanya Holland. Her cookbook is called “Brown Sugar Kitchen” and it’s full of great recipes!

All that is great,  except immediately after the feature is the comments section! People who simply have to have something to say are putting in their “2 cents” about how all the ingredients she uses are not necessary and how the cooking process is not the one they use and how and why you should follow their advice and do this and that instead of simply trying the recipe as it was given. One of my pet peeves is the comments sections after a recipe where people actually are proud to tell you how they didn’t follow the recipe – instead they added this or omitted that.

My point is, if you didn’t follow the recipe and you changed over 25% of it, then maybe you should just feature yours instead of commenting on someone else’s.  These are the same people who would tell Colonel Sanders that 11 herbs and spices were FAR TOO MANY and unnecessary to make Kentucky Fried Chicken and all he really needs is salt and pepper!  Come on, can’t we open our mind as well as our mouths and at least try something BEFORE we criticize it? You might even learn something!

I went to culinary school when I was in my 50s and I learned LOTS of stuff that I didn’t know even though I’d been cooking for years. Tanya Holland says that she grew up eating her Mom’s fried chicken but years later learned a new preparation method for chicken that “rocked her world”.  I guess my point is, “can’t we all just get along”? The point of online recipes, food blogs, cookbooks and the like is to share what we know with each other. Yes, you can make changes to what you learn, you can turn it upside down and make it your own – no problem. Just don’t do it at the expense of other people’s feelings and hard work.

Who are we to tell someone that “all those ingredients are not necessary”! Unless you try it, how do you know? Maybe what you think you know, based on what you’ve been doing is being improved immensely but you’ll never know it because you won’t even try any other way. OK – everybody, take deep cleansing breaths and repeat after me, “I’ll try not to criticize things that I haven’t tried”!  That’s all I ask!  Comment away, but please don’t be so one minded about things that you won’t even consider another way! Like my mom used to tell me and my sisters, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”!  I inserted the article below for your viewing pleasure. I left the comments out – for the same reason :)!   Congratulations Chef Holland and blessings to you and yours!

 

Our Cookbook of the Week: Brown Sugar Kitchen

Julia Bainbridge

Food Editor‎ Oct‎ ‎2‎, ‎2014

Julia Bainbridge

Our Cookbook of the Week: Brown Sugar Kitchen

Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: Brown Sugar Kitchen: New-Style, Down-Home Recipes from Sweet West Oakland (Chronicle Books)

The Team: Brown Sugar Kitchen and B-Side BBQ executive chef and owner Tanya Holland, food writer Jan Newberry, and photographer Jody Horton.

The Restaurant: Brown Sugar Kitchen, which opened in 2008 in gritty West Oakland, California. (Diners will wait in line for nearly two hours if at the end of it they find this pot of gold: buttermilk fried chicken and cornmeal waffles.)

The Cuisine: Soul food, baby. Though she grew up in New York, Holland’s roots are in the American South; her mother is from Louisiana and her father, Virginia. Beyond the renowned chicken and waffles, you’ll find shrimp and grits, gumbo, and pulled pork on the menu—and in the book.

Who Should Buy It: Lovers of salt, sweets, the South, and soul.

Who Shouldn’t: Anyone on a juice cleanse.

Must-Make Recipes: Cornmeal Waffles with Apple Cider Syrup, Buttermilk Fried Chicken, Creole Gazpacho, Dirty Rice, Sweet Potato Scones with Brown Sugar Icing, Westside Julep.

Noteworthy: Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon, who lives in Berkeley, wrote the book’s foreword. “I believe that I could be hauled back from the gates of the Underworld by the prospect of a bowl of Tanya’s shrimp and grits,” he writes.

image
Original article on Yahoo Food location: https://www.yahoo.com/food/buttermilk-fried-chicken-98838171056.html

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: brown sugar kitchen, chef tanya holland, soul food

Primary Sidebar

About Me

My mom used to tell me that I loved to cook because I loved to eat! I think she might have been on to something! Join me and let's cook and eat together! You can bet your last money, it's all gonna be a stone gas honey! As always in parting, I wish you love, peace and soul food!!! Read More…

How to Clean a Cast Iron Skillet

How to Restore Rusty Cast Iron Cookware

Recent Comments

  • Char on Recipes Index
  • Diane White on Recipes Index
  • Char on Neck bones and Potatoes
  • Veronica on Neck bones and Potatoes
  • Char on Pinto Beans (with Smoked Turkey)

Copyright © 2023 Sweet Mothers Kitchen on the Foodie Pro Theme