On how I had the wrong idea about Southern food

“Often, the truest form of inspiration is right where you are standing.” — Sean Brock

I grew up in the heart of Alabama thinking that our family didn’t eat a lot of Southern food. Mom raised us on vegetables from her garden, never cooked anything in bacon grease, and always opted for low-fat substitutions in her recipes. (Mom, I’ll never forgive you for raising me on skim milk, and that’s just a fact.) She even went so far as to steam okra. Steam! Can you even? In my head, if it wasn’t available on the KFC menu or couldn’t be found at a family reunion or a restaurant with a larger-than-life-size replica of a dancing pig out front, it weren’t Southern. Our family rarely ate out, so what we ate was just… y’know, people food.

Ever since getting out of the South, a lot of people have asked me about Southern cooking; most of the time they ask what our staple dish is. I’ve seen a couple “soul food” spots dotted around SF, with fried mac ’n’ cheese, okra, grits and hushpuppies on the menu, but that doesn’t really line up with what tastes like home to me. Hell, even when we do eat stuff like that back home we’d call it a “Southern meal” like it’s a novelty. So what in tarnation are we eating down there the rest of the time?! Does Southern = Soul? No seriously, the world wants to know.

Whenever possible, I like to make a conversation piece out of how much I enjoy America’s Test Kitchen, so I’m going to do that right now. In a recent episode, author Caroline Randall Williams came on to talk about Black culture in the Deep South, tracing back four generations of her family’s history. Her definition of Soul Food makes no mention of submersion in grease; instead, it’s unexpectedly healthy — just “food prepared with love to sustain the body and the soul.” To her, it’s hot peppers, long-stewing greens and sweet potatoes, clean foods with African roots. Meals of fried chicken and candied yams were saved for special occasions because #aintnobodygottimeORMONEYforthat. In fact, this whole decadent and deep-fried definition of Soul Food seems to have come about fairly recently as a by-product of commercialization. Just like if I saw someone eating chocolate cake on their birthday and assumed they ate it every day of their lives, someone took our “special occasion” food and turned it into what defines us. No WONDER people from other parts of the country think we wax our cars with butter. I don’t know if they actually think that. Wait, do they even think we have money to afford cars? Hmm.

Another big influencer on my thoughts about Southern food has been Sean Brock. For Christmas, my cousin gifted me a copy of his book Heritage, in which he explores the many sub-cultures that have worked themselves into his cooking, from his upbringing in rural North Carolina, to his travels to New Orleans and overseas. This book, which I can’t recommend enough, is just as much about living well as it is about cooking. Here’s a couple snippets from his manifesto that have stuck with me:

• “Do as little as possible to an ingredient when it’s perfect and at its peak.”
• “Cook in the moment. Cook the way you are feeling, cook to suit the weather, cook with your mood, or to change your mood.”

So if the food that defines us is that which is around us, then all this time I’ve been growing up on Southern food after all. It’s the squash from Momma Sara’s garden. It’s a handful of blackberries on a hike. It’s a sour cherry tomato that I was too impatient to let ripen. It’s everything I’ve been craving and missing. Here’s Southern food to me:

• Sweet potatoes, simply baked. A little butter if you’re feeling frisky.
• A salted tomato.
• Venison stew.
• Cornbread. No sugar. So help me, if you put sugar in my cornbread…
• Fig preserves on a piece of toast.
• Grilled corn on the cob.

Anyway, reading and listening to these two authors, I’m learning the value of being present — here in this new place, and feeling present to the heritage of my home that I carry with me. Though I’ve never been further from home, I’ve never felt closer to it. I’m finding joy in knowing that no matter where I am, I’m going to walk away with a little of the dust of that place in my shoes.