Editing Soul food (section)

===Transatlantic slave trade===
[[File:Sea Island red peas.jpg|thumb|[[Sea Island red pea]]s, a variety of ''[[cowpea]]'' in West Africa, were brought to the sea islands of South Carolina by way of the transatlantic slave trade.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Townsend |first1=Bob |title=Recipes that celebrate the culinary history of the African diaspora |url=https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/food--cooking/recipes-that-celebrate-the-culinary-history-the-african-diaspora/OrJAhRq7JQgpWiL9F2w4kJ/ |access-date=16 June 2024 |agency=The Atlanta Journal-Constitution |date=2019}}</ref>]]

During the period of the [[Atlantic slave trade|transatlantic slave trade]], enslaved people ate African foods aboard [[slave ship]]s. These included [[Oryza glaberrima|rice]], [[millet]], okra, black-eyed peas, yams, and [[legume]]s such as [[kidney bean]]s and [[lima bean]]s. These crops were brought to North America and became a staple in [[Cuisine of the Southern United States|Southern cuisine]].<ref name="African Crops and Slave Cuisine">{{cite web |last1=Holloway |first1=Joseph |title=African Crops and Slave Cuisine |url=http://slaverebellion.info/index.php?page=crops-slave-cuisines |website=Slave Rebellion Info |publisher=Slave Rebellion Website |access-date=31 May 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Diet and Nutrition |url=https://dh.scu.edu/exhibits/exhibits/show/health---medicine-aboard-trans/diet---nutrition |website=Santa Clara University Digital Exhibits |publisher=Santa Clara University |access-date=21 June 2024}}</ref> One enslaved African aboard a slave ship recalled later that all they ate were yams on the voyage from Africa to [[Gadsden's Wharf|Charleston, South Carolina]].<ref name="Davis2006">{{cite book |last1=Davis |first1=Donald |title=Southern United States: An Environmental History |year=2006 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=9781851097852 |page=130 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oajOEAAAQBAJ&dq=guinea+fowl+american+south&pg=PA130}}</ref> Slave ships were provisioned with African vegetables, fruits, and animals to feed the enslaved people bound in chains below the ships' decks. These items were later planted and used in the New World for food and as [[cash crop]]s. The introduction of African plants to the Americas that shaped American cuisine was part of what is called the [[Columbian exchange]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Horgan |first1=John |title=Columbian Exchange |url=https://www.worldhistory.org/Columbian_Exchange/ |website=www.worldhistory.org |publisher=World History Encyclopedia |access-date=6 June 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=J. Wallach |first1=Jennifer |title=Getting What We Need Ourselves:How Food Has Shaped African American Life |date=2019 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |isbn=9781538125250 |pages=13–15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_WmRDwAAQBAJ}}</ref> Researchers from Mercer University Libraries said: "The foods selected to bring to America were brought over for specific reasons. 'They all remain palatable long after harvesting and were thus ideal for use on the slow voyage from Africa. Secondly, they are all the edible parts of plants that thrive in the American South, and therefore they flourished once they had been planted hopefully by the slave in the garden space allotted to him on his owner's plantation'".<ref>{{cite report |first1=Sydney |last1=Addison |first2=Kailey |last2=Bryan |first3=Taylor |last3=Carter |first4=J.T. |last4=Del Tufo |first5=Aissatou |last5=Diallo |first6=Alyson |last6=Kinzey |title=African Americans and Southern Food |url=https://ursa.mercer.edu/bitstream/handle/10898/1521/Race%20Project.pdf;sequence=5 |website=Mercer University |access-date=6 June 2024 |hdl=10898/1521}}</ref> Another way rice, okra, and millet came to North America was by enslaved African women on slave ships hiding the seeds of rice, okra, and millet in their braided hair as a precaution against an unknown future in the new land where they would be forced to work.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Poche |first1=Dixie |title=Cajun Mardi Gras A History of Chasing Chickens and Making Gumbo |date=2023 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing Incorporated |isbn=9781439676790 |pages=85–86 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j7ypEAAAQBAJ&dq=okra+seeds+in+black+women%27s+hair&pg=PA86}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Penniman |first1=Leah |title=Farming While Black Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land |date=2018 |publisher=Chelsea Green Publishing |isbn=9781603587617 |page=149 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PQ1xDwAAQBAJ&dq=okra+seeds+in+black+women%27s+hair&pg=PA149}}</ref>

The [[guineafowl]] is a bird indigenous to Africa imported to the Americas by way of the slave trade; the bird was brought by the Spanish to the Caribbean, and introduced to the South of what is now the United States in the early 16th century. Guinea fowl became a source of meat for enslaved Black Americans and eventually part of the subsistence culture of the whole region.<ref name="Davis2006"/> On American plantations, enslaved people consumed the eggs of the guinea fowl, as well as cooking the meat with rice like their West-Central African forebears. Enslaved Africans in the South continued to prepare their traditional dishes of guinea fowl and plant foods native to West and Central Africa. They adapted European and Native American foods and cooking methods to create new recipes that were passed down orally in Black families and later published in African-American cookbooks by the end of the [[American Civil War]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Carney |first1=Judith |title=Seeds of Memory: Botanical Legacies of the African Diaspora |journal=African Ethnobotany in the Americas |date=2013 |pages=15, 20 |url=https://www.geog.psu.edu/sites/www.geog.psu.edu/files/event/miller-lecture-coffee-hour-out-africa-food-legacies-atlantic-slavery-americas/carneychapter2africanethnobotanyintheamericas.pdf |access-date=6 June 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Twitty |first1=Michael |title=Foodways of the Transatlantic Slave Trade |url=https://www.masterclass.com/classes/michael-twitty-teaches-tracing-your-roots-through-food/chapters/foodways-of-the-transatlantic-slave-trade |website=www.masterclass.com |publisher=Master Class |access-date=6 June 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Twitty |first1=Michael |title=How rice shaped the American South |url=https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210307-how-rice-shaped-the-american-south |website=www.bbc.com |date=8 March 2021 |publisher=BBC |access-date=6 June 2024}}</ref>