“Louise’s is among a handful of culinary survivors of an older Harlem, when inexpensive, family-run restaurants operated by black Southern transplants dominated the streetscape. “People are used to eating soul food the way we make it,” Julia Wilson, 63, Louise’s owner and the daughter of the restaurant’s founder, said on a recent afternoon. “A lot of people like it how I keep it, old-fashioned.”
TheStateOf . . . Soul Food. I (J) love soul food. Ike’s Mama knows that if she asked what I want for a special meal, it’s fried chicken, mac ‘n cheese and candied yams. But I know that I can’t eat soul food often or I’ll look like Professor Klump. Have you shied away from soul food for health reasons? Can’t these restaurants make it a little healthier? Personally, I think soul food restaurants should be as common-place as Chinese food spots. That they aren’t is a major short-coming of black business.
I enjoy a good ’soul’ mean now and again… few and far. These days, my mind just won’t let me eat much of certain foods. Dang that reading and education…
Attend a few funerals of family members and loved ones who died early or be at the ‘meet-ups’ in ur local hospital and see the pill taking and blood drawing… Or… for the money sighted, see the medical bills. It aint hereditary. Health pays.
Still I do think they could be common place also. But cousin Jerome aint working 12 hour a day and Mei Ling will. I’ve seen it be more mentality than attributed to Black Business itself.
healthy adaptations can be made. I think it has remained so unhealthy all of these years because all of the unhealthy ingredients temporarily play to our comfort receptors, altering the way we think and feel and drawing us back to our childhoods. But of course we have only to look at life in real time, present day to see that those feel-good effects don’t last long and the long term effects don’t feel good. I am sure some of us have come up with some healthier versions of old school favorites.
I have a black eye pea soup recipe that kills. And I make the most beautiful (and Tasty) homemade cranberry sauce.
One thing we should be thinking about with this part of our culture is if we will let it die. How many of us know how to make mom’s biscuits from scratch? Or your dearly departed Aunt’s famous Yellow Cake?
If we don’t start learning to make these favored dishes, ya’ll, we are going to lose them to memory. On the real.
Some things just taste better with fat, grease, salt, etc. Substitutions and reductions just kill it. Soul food is one of them. Like some songs or movies should never be remade, soul food should be left in its original form.
Having said that, it’s not to be eaten every day. Everything in moderation. Like your favorite bakery.
I ain’t eating no fcuking chitlins or any of that other bullshyt.
At this point, I can’t stand greens or string beans with ham in them. That shyt is just greasy and grosses me out.
It’s the meat and too much salt killing you more than anything else. Soul food itself is not inherently dangerous.
I’ll never forget my buddy telling me 20 years ago that he loved chitlins but could not eat them because they gave him a headache. Lesson: stay the fcuk away from chitlins.
BTW: Great post!