Editing Soul food (section)

===Barbecue traditions===
[[File:Barbecueing meat at a Masonic picnic- Kissimmee, Florida (4876969466).jpg|thumb|People gather to barbecue meat at a Masonic picnic in Kissimmee, Florida in 1886]]

Enslaved Africans in the American south contributed their own influence to the [[Barbecue in the United States|American barbecue]] tradition.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Kein |first1=Sybil |title=Creole: The History and Legacy of Louisiana's Free People of Color |date=2000 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |isbn=9780807126011 |page=246 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HSKsSihlN7IC&pg=PA246}}</ref> The first people to barbecue food in North America were [[Native Americans in the United States|Indigenous people/Native Americans]]. West and Central Africans had their own method of barbecuing food that they brought to the Americas and the West Indies. The [[Hausa people]] in West Africa had a term for barbecue, ''babbake''. This term is used "...to describe a complex of words referring to grilling, toasting, building a large fire, singeing hair or feathers and cooking food over a long period of time over an extravagant fire".<ref name="Twitty2015"/> The blending of Native American and African styles of barbecuing meat contributed to the creation of the current barbecuing culture in the US.<ref name="Rao2021">{{cite news |last1=Rao |first1=Vidya |title=Barbecue: The Black and Indigenous roots of an American tradition |url=https://www.today.com/food/barbecue-black-indigenous-roots-american-tradition-t222467 |access-date=30 June 2024 |agency=USA Today |date=2021}}</ref> During slavery times, white plantation owners left the labor-intensive work of preparing and barbecuing food to their slaves.<ref name="Regelski2016">{{cite web |last1=Regelski |first1=Christina |title=The Soul of Food Slavery's Influence on Southern Cuisine |url=https://ushistoryscene.com/article/slavery-southern-cuisine/ |website=U.S. History Scene |date=3 November 2016 |access-date=30 June 2024}}</ref> Food historian [[Adrian Miller]] said the history of Black people and barbecue during slavery: "Blackness and barbecue were wedded in the public imagination because old-school barbecue was so labour intensive. Someone had to clear the area where the barbecue was held, chop and burn the wood for cooking, dig the pit, butcher, process, cook and season the animals, serve the food, entertain the guests and clean up afterward. Given the racial dynamics of the antebellum South, enslaved African Americans were forced to do that work. The media, in turn, took note that a barbecue, as a social event, was a black experience from beginning to end."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Miller |first1=Adrian |title=How the long history of black barbecue was erased |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/media-barbecue-black-america-history-b1903832.html#comments-area |access-date=30 June 2024 |agency=Independent |date=2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Adrian |title=Black Smoke African Americans and the United States of Barbecue |date=2021 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=9781469662817 |pages=22–25, 39–49, 50–57 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Lc_9DwAAQBAJ&q=Black+Smoke:+African+Americans+and+the+United+States+of+Barbecue}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Béchard |first1=Deni |title=The Bard of Barbecue |url=https://stanfordmag.org/contents/the-bard-of-barbecue |website=Stanford Magazine |date=22 February 2021 |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=30 June 2024}}</ref> On [[Independence Day (United States)|Fourth of July]] celebrations, the enslaved prepared barbecued food for white politicians and their enslavers.<ref name="Twitty2015"/>

[[File:Turning the Meat in a barbecue smoker chicago.jpg|thumb|Turning the meat in a barbecue smoker in [[Chicago]], Illinois]]

Enslaved people brought their own influences on the creation of [[barbecue sauce]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Dehart |first1=Rob |title=Tasting the History of Barbecue |url=https://tnmuseum.org/Stories/posts/tasting-the-history-of-barbecue |website=Tennessee State Museum |access-date=30 June 2024}}</ref> Hot and sweet sauces are used in West and Central African cuisine to add flavor, heat, and moisture to food.<ref name="Regelski2016"/> In 1748, Peter Kalm, a Swedish-Finnish botanist, noted enslaved Africans in Philadelphia cultivated [[guinea pepper]]s and the pods were pounded and "mixed with salt preserved in a bottle" to make sauces poured over fish and meats.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Houck |first1=Brenna |title=Regional Barbecue Sauce Styles, Explained |url=https://www.eater.com/2016/6/18/11966056/barbecue-sauce-styles |website=Eater |date=18 June 2016 |access-date=30 June 2024}}</ref> Frederick Douglass Opie, writing in his book ''Hog and Hominy'', describes the origins of soul food in Africa: "African women cooked most meats over an open pit and ate them with a sauce similar to what we now call a barbecue sauce, made from lime or lemon juice and hot peppers."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Vaughn |first1=Daniel |title=How Southern Barbecue Got to Texas |url=https://www.texasmonthly.com/bbq/how-southern-barbecue-got-to-texas/ |access-date=30 June 2024 |agency=Texas Monthly |date=2015}}</ref> "Slaves made up a large percentage of the Texas population by 1860. During this time they brought with them the idea of cooking over an open fire and dousing meats with a sauce, that sounds an awful lot like the barbecue sauce we know today."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Donahue |first1=Emily |title=The Historic Connection Between Slave Recipes and Today's Barbecue |url=https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/how-old-slave-recipes-became-todays-texas-bbq/#:~:text=Slaves%20made%20up%20a%20large,barbecue%20sauce%20we%20have%20today. |access-date=30 June 2024 |agency=Texas Standard |date=2015}}</ref> After the American Civil War, a Black pitmaster named Arthur Watts, brought his family's barbecue sauce recipe and barbecuing methods to [[Kewanee, Illinois]] and became a well-known pitmaster.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Alexander |first1=Steve |title=A family legacy of barbecue sauce emerges from the darkness of slavery |url=https://wgnradio.com/the-business-of-food-with-steve-alexander/a-family-legacy-of-barbecue-sauce-emerges-from-the-darkness-of-slavery/ |access-date=30 June 2024 |agency=WGN Radio 720 |date=2022}}</ref> In [[African-American neighborhood|African-American communities]], barbecuing food became a preferred method of cooking during [[Emancipation Day]] celebrations.<ref name="Twitty2015"/>