Create Your Unique Style in Soul Food Cooking

Soul food cooking dates back to the era of African American slavery. During that time, the slaves prepared meals for their families from leftovers their master didn’t want. They made good use of what they had by adding a little of this and a dash of that to their cooking pots and without knowing it, they developed their own unique style of soul-food cooking. This type of cooking was not done intentionally, but has created a whole new revolution in soul food cuisine.

Creating your own soul food cooking style is a unique process and a style that only you can create. It’s the way you prepare a certain dish. It really don’t matter what dish, however, vegetable dishes have proved to be the easiest to start with. Everyone that prepares soul food has a unique style, the key is recognizing it and learning how to master it.

For example, have you even tasted soul food that someone else made and you knew right away who made it? Or have you even seen a peach cobbler and could tell just by looking at it, who baked it? This is called a “unique soul food style” or defining your soul food cooking style. It’s what I call a special gift or an area of expertise that only you have when preparing a particular dish. It makes what you prepare stand out from the rest.

Often times when I make collard greens, and if a friend or family member taste them, they know that I cooked them. How? Because they always taste the same. I defined my cooking style several years ago, and that’s “my unique style” or “my special touch in soul food cooking“.

During Slavery, black cooks verbally exchanged recipes as they remembered them. They had no written recipes, or formal training. They had no one to learn from but each other. Instead they made the best of what they had.

They developed their own soul food cooking style and depended upon their instinct to define what they liked and didn’t like when it came to seasoning their food. That is also the attitude of many cooks today --many still prepare food without a recipe, just by simply remembering main ingredients and adding seasonings to their taste. This way of cooking has produced many great cooks.

Creating your unique style is not difficult, but it does take time to really get it right. However, If you love soul food and have a passion for it as I know you have, you will eventually get it right. But it don’t happen overnight. To become good at anything, you much keep at it. One very important thing to remember is-- what style you create today - will last a lifetime.

The real key to mastering your unique soul food cooking style is the use of spices and seasonings to add flavor to your food.

How do you create your unique style? A style that only you have in preparing a special dish? AND a style that many will envy---I have included a few steps to help you get started.

1. First, conduct a test.
Take your favorite soul food vegetable recipe and add extra ingredients to it. It may be just an extra spice or hot pepper. It can be a pinch of this or a dash of something else. Just remember, flavorable food is what soul food cooking is all about. Add a spice or two that the recipe does not call for. Just be sure to check The Spice Chart for appropriate spices for certain foods. The purpose of this test is to determine what works best for you.

2. Make the recipe several times, testing different variations of spices each time.
Make sure you record each way you prepare the dish in case you want to come back to a certain method. Start by adding small amounts of spices and make sure that the spices does not overpower the taste or diminish its natural flavors. As I mentioned earlier, it can be a small amount of seasoning to start the process going. Keep recording each method.

3. After preparing the dish several times and when you get the recipe like you want it to taste, always prepare the dish the same way.
Let me repeat this. When you get the dish like you want it to taste, always prepare the dish the same way. This is especially important if others will be eating your food or if you cook for a living. By now you should have four or more different methods in preparing the dish. Record each one and determine the one that will best define your unique style of preparing the dish. Always, always rely on your instinct.

4. Don’t become discouraged if you can’t get it right after a few tries. As you prepare the dish you will become better at it. It takes more than a few tries. Just keep at it and you will be successful. Remember, your goal is to create your style in soul food cooking and if you quit now, you’ll never accomplish that goal.

Before I go any further, I’m going to let you in on a little secret--

Great cooks are not born overnight. They didn’t wake up one morning and suddenly they’re experts in making soul food. No one does. But what distinguishes them from the rest is they did not give up, they kept trying until they got it right, and so can you.

And because of that many great cooks have produce wonderful soul food cuisine and their dishes are often named after them, for example, Kaye’s Collard Greens and Corn Bread, or Cassandra‘s Old-fashioned Peach Cobbler. That’s really something to be proud of. Can you imagine having your name behind a great soul food dish? It happens more often than you may think.

Getting back to creating your soul food cooking style. Once you decide on “your cooking style” continue making the dish often to keep the recipe fresh on your mind. After preparing the dish several times, you will soon develop your own unique style. A style that everyone will be able to identify you with and a style that you’ve created that’s your very own.

In Recipe 911, there is a collard green and smoked turkey wing recipe that has been broken down so that it is easy to understand how to prepare the dish. This is a good recipe to start with to help you create your unique cooking style. Good Luck!

Related Resources: Soul Food Vegetables

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