Stephanie L. Tyson - Soul Food Odyssey

Also by Stephanie L. Tyson Well, Shut My Mouth! The Sweet Potatoes Restaurant Cookbook JOHN F. BLAIR,
PUBLISHER 1406 Plaza Drive
Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27103
www.blairpub.com Copyright 2015 by Stephanie L. Tyson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. For information, address John F.

Blair, Publisher, Subsidiary Rights Department, 1406 Plaza Drive, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27103 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tyson, Stephanie L. Soul food odyssey / by Stephanie L. Tyson. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-0-89587-646-1 (alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-89587-647-8 (ebook) 1.

African American cooking. I. Title. TX715.2.A47T97 2015 641.59296073dc23 2015010308 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 COVER DESIGN Debra Long Hampton, Anna Sutton, and Sally Johnson COVER AND TEXT GRAPHICS Frames: prapass, Aleksandrs Bondars, akarapong / ShutterstockChalkboards: Seita / ShutterstockArtwork: T30 Gallery and Goldenarts / Shutterstock PRINTED IN CANADA This book is dedicated to my mom, Donzella Tyson, who continues to feed our souls.
SEPTEMBER 22, 1933MARCH 11, 2015 CONTENTS Vivin is my muse, and I thank her. She is also my taster, and I apologize for the extra pounds she gained from the desserts chapter. A lot has been said about soul food lately, much of it unflattering. A lot has been said about soul food lately, much of it unflattering.

At the very least, most of what is said is one-dimensional. For many years, my own views mirrored these suggestions that soul food is somehow inferior. When I was young, I was exposed to soul food but didnt think much about it. The Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where I grew up had a self-sustaining colored community. We had grocery stores, clothiers that came directly to your door, and funeral homes. We were the only city in the country that had a black-owned city bus companySafe Bus.

We had restaurants such as Ma Chris, the Lincoln Grill, the Alhambra Grill (where my parents met), and Buds Diner, which served pickled pigs feet, chitterlings, pinto beans, and, if you were lucky, crackling cornbread. At one point, there were at least forty-five black-owned cafs in town. My grandmother Ora Porter worked at Buds Diner. It was open late so customers could get good, sobering food when the drink establishments (liquor houses) turned in for the night. She made pinto beans with broth as thick as pudding and fried chicken so golden and light it put the sun to shame. My grandmother cooked soul food, but thats not what she called it.

She just called it sumpn-ta-eat. When my brothers and I got a little older, my mom told us she was not cooking on Saturdays. She cooked for us and worked all week, so on Saturdays, if we wanted anything other than peanut butter and jelly, we needed to go to my grandmothers house so my mom could prepare for church and Sunday dinner. My grandmother always had a big pot of something on the stove and fried chicken and fatback in the oven. She actually fried chicken every day, but I rarely saw her eat it. That was true food of the soul.

An old lady who lived up the street from us kept chickens. We saw these chickens in her yard every day when we came home from school. One day, she killed one and gave it to my mom. It freaked my brothers and me out. We refused to eat chicken for a year. We were city kids! We werent raised eating farm-to-table, but more like A&P-to-tablewith cute placemats.

To this day, I believe my brothers think that broccoli grows in a frozen box with cheese sauce. But I am evolving. Right after high school, I left home for college at East Carolina in Greenville, North Carolinafar away enough not to smell the collard greens and neck bones from my grandmothers kitchen but close enough for care packages and frequent visits home. At first, I ate a lot of food that was not so good. I knew how to make only Oodles of Noodles, but I soon discovered a place off campus I could afford that served all-you-can-eat fried chicken and a new taste for mesweet potato biscuits. With the aid of our backpacks, my clever and hungry classmates and I could pay one price and eat well for a week.

Once I left the South for New York, I left behind my connection to Southern food. I was an aspiring actor, and my goal was to lose that accent. In doing so, I believe I lost my Southern sense and graciousness. Instead, I took on a Northern attitude and edginess. The interesting thing about New York is that it is full of transplants from everywhere. Certain parts of the city reflect thatLittle Italy, Chinatown, the East Village with its Eastern European influence, and Harlem, which was the soul of the Northern South.

The food in Harlem came with the African-Americans during the Great Migration between 1915 and 1970, when millions of blacks left rural parts of the South looking for a better way of life in the big cities. I found in Harlem the food I had grown up with. Places such as Sylvias Restaurant were going strong, but I was not buying any of it. I had to lose that accent and become a starving actor. I had to fit in with the people whose accents were blank canvases; at least thats what the acting teachers said. I spent years disconnected from food, starving myself sometimes to keep thin and viable.

I was not only denying that I was Southern, I was also denying myself highly seasoned soul food. If food didnt come from a deli, diner, or stand, I didnt eat it. I dont think I so much as fried an egg the entire time I lived in New York. I never realized my connection to food and history was gone until I returned home deflated, defeated, and hungry. New York didnt exactly kick me out, but really, how many people do you need who sound alike and look alike, all vying for a scant number of jobs? I was a starving artist, literallystarving for a bowl of butter beans and a biscuit, some collard greens and fatback. There was nothing like it for sustaining the soul.

I finally recognized that I needed to reconnect. I wanted my drawl back. I realized that family is important. Remeeting and embracing people restored me. But what to do? I had different meaningless jobs and eventually found that I needed to leave again. I went to Washington, D.C., which was the perfect middle ground to start anew.

This time, I thought I should leave a biscuit trail so I would have an easier time finding my way back. I decided to spend a lot of money to learn how to cooksomething Im sure my grandmother would have taught me for free, but that would have been too easy. I went to culinary school and discovered I had a love of the preparation of food. I loved to cookwho knew? I also discovered I was a bit squeamish and not very adventurous about food. In culinary school, the chef/instructor prepared beef tartare for us to taste. Hmm, let me see, seasoned raw beef with a raw egg in it.