Editing Soul food (section)

==Etymology==

[[File:Cooking at stove in old Trepagnier Plantation House, Norco, Louisiana, October 1938.jpg|thumb|right|Cooking at stove in old Trepagnier Plantation House, [[Norco, Louisiana]], October 1938]]

The earliest use of the word "soul food" to describe a type of cuisine is found in a 1909 published memoir of a former slave named Thomas L. Johnson. Johnson described a church service where the congregation was served food. He wrote: "There are some, when preaching, only preach three-quarters of the truth, or less, when serving up dishes of soul-food to suit the palates of those they must please."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Johnson |first1=Thomas |title=Twenty-Eight Years a Slave, or the Story of My Life in Three Continents |url=https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/johnson1/johnson.html |website=Documenting the American South |publisher=UNC Chapel Hill University |access-date=8 August 2024}}</ref> The term ''soul food'' became popular during the 1960s and 1970s in the midst of the [[Black Power movement]].<ref name="Witt1999">{{cite book |last1=Witt |first1=Doris |title=Black Hunger: Food and the Politics of U.S. Identity |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-535498-0 |pages=6–7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VSuArSmUcn8C&pg=PA6}}</ref> One of the earliest written uses of the term is found in ''[[The Autobiography of Malcolm X]]'', which was published in 1965.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|title=Engaged Surrender: African American Women and Islam|last=Rouse|first=Carolyn Moxley|publisher=University of California Press|year=2004|isbn=978-0-520-23794-0|location=Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, London, England|pages=106}}</ref> LeRoi Jones (later known as [[Amiri Baraka]]) published an article entitled "Soul Food" and was one of the key proponents for establishing the food as a part of the Black American identity.<ref name="Witt1999a">{{cite book |last1=Witt |first1=Doris |title=Black Hunger: Food and the Politics of U.S. Identity |year=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-535498-0 |pages=80–81 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VSuArSmUcn8C&pg=PA80}}</ref> Those who had participated in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] found within soul food a reminder of the home and family they had left behind after moving to unfamiliar northern cities. Soul food restaurants were Black-owned businesses that served as neighborhood meeting places where people socialized and ate together.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Poe|first1=Tracy N.|title=The Origins of Soul Food in Black Urban Identity: Chicago, 1915-1947|journal=American Studies International|date=1999|volume=XXXVII No. 1|issue=February|pages=4–17}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Muhammad |first1=Karyn |title=How soul food became a staple in the Black community |url=https://asuhornettribune.com/13614/hornet-living/how-soul-food-became-a-staple-in-the-black-community/ |access-date=26 May 2024 |agency=The Hornet Tribune Online |publisher=Alabama State University |date=2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Notable African American chefs |url=https://libguides.sunysccc.edu/c.php?g=67538&p=435912 |website=Begley Library |publisher=Schenectady County Community College |access-date=2 June 2024}}</ref> According to author Laretta Henderson, middle-class African Americans embrace their "blackness" by preparing and eating soul food. Henderson wrote:<ref name="Henderson2007">{{cite journal |last1=Henderson |first1=Laretta |title='Ebony Jr!' and 'Soul Food': The Construction of Middle-Class African American Identity through the Use of Traditional Southern Foodways |journal=MELUS |date=Winter 2007 |volume=32 |issue=4 |pages=81–82 |doi=10.1093/melus/32.4.81 |jstor=30029833 }}</ref><blockquote>In its culinary incarnation, "soul food" was associated with a shared history of oppression and inculcated, by some, with cultural pride. Soul food was eaten by the bondsmen. It was also the food former slaves incorporated into their diet after emancipation. Therefore, during the 1960s, middle-class blacks used their reported consumption of soul food to distance themselves from the values of the white middle class, to define themselves ethnically, and to align themselves with lower-class blacks. Irrespective of political affiliation or social class, the definition of "blackness", or "soul", became part of everyday discourse in the black community.</blockquote> This style of cooking is celebrated in the month of June, called National Soul Food month.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kelly |first1=Leslie |title=Celebrating National Soul Food Month With Celebrity Chef Carla |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/lesliekelly/2023/06/04/celebrating-national-soul-food-month-with-celebrity-chef-carla-hall/ |website=www.forbes.com |publisher=Forbes Newsletters |access-date=14 June 2024}}</ref>