Is BBQ related to Soul Food?

With sincerity please tell me your opinion and share recipes!

There are food historians who can do a better job of explaining an answer to this question. As I understand it, BBQ is just one small segment of foods classified as Soul Food. Using Wikipedia, the following came up under soul food meats. Most are fried or boiled:

Meats

Country-fried steak, with baked beans and mashed potatoes with white gravyChicken gizzards, batter-fried
Chicken livers, batter-fried
Chitterlings ("chitlins") (the cleaned and prepared intestines of hogs, slow cooked and often eaten with vinegar and hot sauce; sometimes parboiled, then battered and fried)
Country fried steak, also known as "chicken fried steak" (beef deep-fried with a crisp flour or batter coating, usually served with white gravy)
Cracklins (commonly known as pork rinds and sometimes added to cornbread batter)
Fatback (fatty, cured, salted pork; used to season meats and vegetables)
Fried chicken (fried in grease with seasoned flour)
Fried fish (any of several varieties of fish—especially catfish, but also whiting, porgies, bluegills—dredged in seasoned cornmeal and deep fried
Ham hocks (smoked, used to flavor vegetables and legumes)
Hoghead cheese (made primarily from pig snouts, lips, and ears, and frequently referred to as "souse meat" or simply "souse")
Hog maws (hog jowls, sliced and usually cooked with chitterlings)
Meatloaf (typically with tomato sauce)
Neckbones (beef neck bones seasoned and slow cooked)
Oxtail soup (a soup or stew made from beef tails)
Pigs feet (slow cooked like chitterlings, sometimes pickled and, like chitterlings, often eaten with vinegar and hot sauce)
Ribs (usually pork, but can also be beef ribs"

Google "Origins of Soul Food" and you'll get all kinds of stuff

an old old thread:
http://www.roadfood.com/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=165
As far as the question, I'd say not necessarily, but can be.

Is soul food Southern Country Cooking pretty much?

Southern cuisine is remarkably diverse,according to region and social status...But,as an 11th generation southerner,I say that the two are not the same.Southern country cooking is very much influenced by english and german cuisine,as well as black culture...Soul food,in my opinion,descends from slave culture...They are both cuisines that I was brought up on and dearly,dearly love !

I have to take issue with at least one thing on that list of so-called soul foods: chicken fried steak. Chicken fried steak has its origins among the Germans who settled in Texas in the mid 1800s. As I understand it, the settlers used tougher cuts of beef, as there was no veal available, to make something similar to weiner schnitzel.

I agree Michael...The southern country cooking of southeast Alabama has many german influences...My father's family is of german-cherokee descent...That combination of heritage is a common one in this area as is english and scotch-irish...

I guess the definition of soul food can be diverse. My grandparents grew up on a huge farm in upper Tennessee. They made their own way. They milked their cows, created their cream, killed their hogs, killed their beef, canned their products and what they had was soul food although they did not know it. What they had was Tennessee cuisine.

They cooked their prok and beef over a fire and I guess that was BBQ. They cooked okra, beans, pork chops, corn bread and other wonderfuol things over the fire.

Is that soul food???? I do not know but they did very well. My grandfather lived to age of 97 eating this wonderful food.

I spent many wonderful summers with him and his wife helping them work the fields and enjoy a huge breakfast every morning which always included country ham that they had cured, bacon which they had cured or pork chops which they had canned.

Lunch was the same and dinner was the same.

Soul Food?

I guess so???


Paul E. Smith
Knoxville, TN

Paul, that was so nice.
I guess I don't really know the definition either, because I grew up eating many of the same things you just described

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hoffman

I have to take issue with at least one thing on that list of so-called soul foods: chicken fried steak. Chicken fried steak has its origins among the Germans who settled in Texas in the mid 1800s. As I understand it, the settlers used tougher cuts of beef, as there was no veal available, to make something similar to weiner schnitzel.

Not True my dear Michael. Slaves on the Southern plantations were eating Chicken Fried Steak long before the Civil War and long before the Germans Migrated to Texas. Maybe they picked up the idea when they passed through the South on their way to Texas. No doubt they were looking for something to replace their Schnitzel, but they didn't create the first Chicken Fried Steak. Like everything else in Texas, if you make the lie big enough, maybe someone will believe it!

Now,now,now ....I must say that my family on both sides have been frying steak ( with milk gravy )for over 150 years...And,I'm sorry to say,they owned slaves...So,the influence definitly existed...But,I believe introduction of fried steak was as much a german influence as it was one of the slave culture...

I'll give you the point that the Texans popularized the Chicken Fried Steak, but they didn't invent it or introduce it to what has become Americana Cuisine.
Now, let's get back on topic, what ever that was!

Kids the topic was ..."Is BBQ related to Soul Food "...

to the original question, I'll say yes. The settlers of the country were poor, and
used everything they could to stay alive. That means finding good ways of
eating chicken livers, harsh greens, etc. Some wealth was built up prior to
the Civil War, but after that, nearly everyone in the south, including free
blacks were developing ways to eat cheap. That is where soul food, southern
cooking, and barbecue came from, imho.

Soul Food also has a strong African influence that was brought with the slaves in their captivity...

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hoffman

I have to take issue with at least one thing on that list of so-called soul foods: chicken fried steak. Chicken fried steak has its origins among the Germans who settled in Texas in the mid 1800s. As I understand it, the settlers used tougher cuts of beef, as there was no veal available, to make something similar to weiner schnitzel.

With the German influences, what other dishes or sides went with the fried steak?

quote:

Originally posted by Roadfoodfan

quote:

Originally posted by Michael Hoffman

I have to take issue with at least one thing on that list of so-called soul foods: chicken fried steak. Chicken fried steak has its origins among the Germans who settled in Texas in the mid 1800s. As I understand it, the settlers used tougher cuts of beef, as there was no veal available, to make something similar to weiner schnitzel.

With the German influences, what other dishes or sides went with the fried steak?

World Domination?

From above - "Some wealth was built up prior to the Civil War, but after that, nearly everyone in the south, including free blacks were developing ways to eat cheap." And thusley, a new fast food chain was born----"McSoulfoods"!!

I can't imagine a Soul Food place without ribs.

quote:

Originally posted by matilda

I can't imagine a Soul Food place without ribs.

That's what I'm talkin about---McRibs!

Ribs aren't usually cheap. But mmmmm good.

In central North Carolina, chicken-fried steak is not a native dish for blacks or whites. We make white gravy (we call it milk gravy) with sausage and eat it over grits or biscuits.

We flour and brown round steak, remove it from the skillet, fry a lot of onions in the grease, add more flour and brown it, then return the steak with some water to the pan and simmer everything together covered until fork tender. This is country-style steak. I've also had it made with hamburgers. The key to good country-sytle steak is to simmer it long enough to break down the connective tissue in the steak. CSS made in a hurry tastes good, but will always be tough. It can be simmered in a crock-pot

Back to the original question, "Is Barbecue related to Soul Food?"

I'm gonna say no. Fact is, virtually every culture in the world has brought some version of Barbecue to the U.S. Barbecue is defined as meat cooked over low heat and smoke for a long period of time. The German smokehouses, Italian brick ovens, The Greek method of cooking lamb and other meats on a rotating spit over a fire all qualify as 'Que. Almost all the Asian cuisines, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean in particular all have some form of Barbecue cooking method. The current popularity of Brazilian steakhouses reflects a South American version of Barbecue.

If we are to believe the origin stories, Barbecue was "invented" by the Arawak Indians in the Caribbean and adopted by Spanish sailors visiting the area. The Arawak would create a lattice work of green wood and tie the meat to it before suspending the whole thing over a fire pit.

Certainly African Americans who developed what we think of as Soul Food would have used a Barbecue method in some of their cooking, but they don't have exclusive rights to its origins.

Buddy

quote:

Originally posted by matilda

Ribs aren't usually cheap. But mmmmm good.

When I was a much, much younger, ribs were a very cheap cut. The popularity of ribs because of folks eating BBQ and "BBQ" ribs in Italian restaurants caused, at least in my mind, the price to skyrocket. It's a supply and demand kind of thing.

Gee Folks,
Look at the list, “Soul Food” was the junk cuts of meat (scraps, bony or heavy in fat) that the white plantation owners would not use, (eat) and were given to the slaves to use as they saw fit.

Iqdiva, was right on target “Southern cuisine is remarkably diverse, according to region and social status...But, as an 11th generation southerner, I say that the two are not the same. Southern country cooking is very much influenced by English and German cuisine...Soul food, in my opinion, descends from slave culture...They are both cuisines that I was brought up on and dearly, dearly love”!

Soul Food was different from “Southern cuisine” or Country Cooking” until recently, (the last 100 years) the two began to be blended because white folks found out how good those scrap cuts of meat (bony cuts), Fat Pork Butts, Chicken Gizzards, Chicken livers, Chitterlings Chicken Fried Steak, Cracklings, Fatback, (Fried Chicken (I would question FC), Fried fish (any of several varieties of fish—especially catfish, carp crappie, blue gill, Ham hocks, Hoghead cheese, Hog Jowls, Neckbones, Oxtail Soup, Pigs Feet, and finally Ribs.

All of these cuts are tuff as hell if not cooked properly and were at one time considered junk or scrap cuts, and so they were given to the slaves because the plantation owners were above eating them. It’s kind of like bacon, is the sows belly so if your eating meat off of the upper portions of the hog your eating “High on the Hog”.

But I have to say I’m never going to be PC so Iqdiva, you were not responsible so why would you say “ And, I'm sorry to say, they owned slaves”. That’s crazy don’t let anyone ever make you feel bad for something you didn’t do. Bottom line is no one is living today that was involved in slave trading or slave ownership. End of story.
Jack

Thank you Dr.of BBQ...I wish that I could give you a dish of old-timey Southern biscuit puddin'...I made some this afternoon and it's still warm...

quote:

Originally posted by iqdiva

Thank you Dr.of BBQ...I wish that I could give you a dish of old-timey Southern biscuit puddin'...I made some this afternoon and it's still warm...

How 'bout sharin rthe Southern Biscuit Puddin' Recipe with us!

Here you are Foodbme...I hope you like this puddin'...It's one of m family's all-time favorite comfort foods :

" MISS SUSAN'S BISCUIT PUDDIN' "

My family's recipe originally called for whole sweet milk , which to Southerners means just regular whole milk.But,I use evaporated milk because it gives a richer taste...If you can't have sugar , you can substitute Splenda...

6 cold biscuits , I use good old fashioned homemade Southern biscuits leftover from breakfast
1 cup evaporated milk
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup butter , melted
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup raisins
2 eggs lightly beaten
1/2 cup evaporated milk

Soak crumbled biscuits in hot water for a few minutes; add sugar, butter, nutmeg, raisins, beaten eggs, and milk, mixing after each addition. Pour into 1-quart greased baking dish; bake in preheated 350° oven for about 30 to 40 minutes, or until browned.

I'm sorry ... I shouldn't read " hot water "...It should read " hot milk "... I had one of those recurring " senior moments "...I'm sorry...

I personally think soul food has origins of "farm food". My Mother grew up in Michigan, where her grandfather started a lumber yard with $10.00 from a sponsor. He died forty years later, and people came from hundreds of miles to pay honor to him.They made cornmeal stuffing, bbq ribs, fried chicken, gizzards,chicken, and such. She had her first "Manhatten Cocktail" there too.

Do you know what " Soul Food " really means ? I believe that it can refer to any food that is made with " Soul " ( aka: tender loving care & heart ) !