Soul food is more than just a meal in black community

Photo provided by Aria Brent

Aria Brent
Variety Editor

As the holiday season approaches, many people are taking the time out to try new recipes and cook up some old family ones. It’s no secret that food— good, comforting, food brings people together and is sometimes even a pillar in upholding and creating culture. It’s certainly true for the black community and their beloved soul food.

Soul food is deeply rooted in black culture. Dating back to slavery when many recipes were created from the mere scraps and leftovers slaves were given. These recipes have been passed down through generations to create modern day American comfort food 

Amaree Mayfield, a journalism and media studies major from North Chicago, Ill., has been running a small cooking business since March of 2020. She specializes in making the comfort food she grew up on. 

She explained that she has been cooking since high school but never took her friends’ raving reviews about her food seriously until recently. Mayfield looks at the food that she sells as so much more than a meal. 

“It’s important because when you think soul food, you think comfort, you think a full belly, you think good food. It’s something to look forward to,” said Mayfield.

She went on to express that eating soul food is an event and not just a meal in her family.

“It’s gonna be a good gathering of catching up and eating,” she stated. 

Many agree with Mayfield in finding soul food to be comforting due to its unctuous taste and the feeling of ease you feel after eating it.

Cedaysha Triplett, a social work major from Moss Point, Miss., explained that cooking soul food has been a comforting thing for her in more ways than one. 

“Soul food and being in the kitchen was like therapy for me,” Triplett said. 

Triplett struggles with anxiety and depression but has found that cooking and selling her soul food plates has helped with her mental health. She explained that receiving positive feedback about her food and making other people smile through food is what inspires her to continue cooking. 

Although satisfying customers and making others happy is what inspires Triplett to carry on with her cooking, she got her start at a very young age from watching her grandmother cook in the restaurant she owns. 

Undoubtedly, the cooking and consumption of soul food is a family affair in the black community.

This is definitely the case for Donovan Barner, who is a native of Jackson, Miss., and the front of the house manager at Sugars Place in downtown Jackson. He’s been working there since his father first opened the restaurant in 2007 in commemoration of Barner’s great-grandmother, Sugar Barner. 

Honoring his ancestry, all the while sharing her delicious recipes, Barner shared his take on why soul food is so relevant to the black community.

“Literacy isn’t typical in the lineage of black culture but things get passed down through things like food,” Barner stated.

Mayfield has also had the experience of honoring and upkeeping a family recipe. She explained that she found the perfect recipe for macaroni and cheese once she found her grandmother’s “golden macaroni” recipe. It’s one of her favorite things to make in addition to fried chicken, corn and mashed potatoes.

Triplett had a similar list of favorite foods to cook that also included fried cabbage, red beans and rice and fried pork chops. 

Foods such as the ones Mayfield and Triplett listed are soul food staples and can be found all around Jackson. Mayfield noted that the “City With Soul” being full of these kinds of foods is something that ties into the culture in Jackson. Explaining that anybody can cook but the atmosphere is what truly makes the city so soulful.

“I feel like it’s a combination of the city, the people and the food,” Mayfield exclaimed.

Soul food can be found in the music, art, conversations and surely the homes of black people. It’s so much more than a meal.