“Rather than portray the complexity of this cuisine and its changes throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries, many writers played up its more exotic aspects (i.e., animal entrails) and simply famed the cuisine as a remnant of poverty-driven antebellum survival food.”
In Bryant Terry’s article “Reclaiming True Grits,” he claims that, in the past several decades, soul food has become synonymous with comfort food—fried chicken glistening with grease; starchy, creamy macaroni and cheese; and, of course, grits, typically instant—and many in the African American community are suffering for it. However, this soul food, the sort romanticized by food writers, is not the soul food of tradition, but what Terry calls “instant soul food” and “a dishonest representation of African American cuisine.” It’s the food you find on a Cracker Barrel plate, not a traditional Southern meal. Continue reading
