The Food and The People Have Been Around For How Long?

Popular narratives widely claim that "Soul Food" is a traditional "African American" cuisine that emerged from enslaved Africans making do with scraps given by white enslavers. While this story is often repeated in textbooks, documentaries, and food media, it oversimplifies—and in many ways distorts—the deeper culinary history of the Southeastern United States. In reality, many of the staples now considered Soul Food have roots not in West Africa or European leftovers, but in the sophisticated and enduring foodways of the Southeastern Original People—those miscategorized today as “Black” or “African American.”

As anthropologist Charles Hudson observed, “To a far greater degree than anyone realizes, several of the most important food dishes of the Southeastern Indians live on today in the ‘soul food’ eaten by both black and white Southerners.” (Hudson, The Southeastern Indians). Here, “Soul Food” should be understood not simply as the legacy of survival under slavery, but as the continuation of an Indigenous culinary tradition shaped long before European contact.

Marion Gridley further supports this continuity by documenting traditional Southeastern coastal diets that included clams, oysters, and other shellfish—foods still central to seafood boils today. These regional dishes, alongside wild greens, sweet potatoes, cornbread, grits, and rabbit, form the basis of what Americans now associate with holiday tables and Southern comfort food. A meal of turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry, and wild greens—typical of modern Thanksgiving dinners—draws directly from this Indigenous food legacy.

Contrary to the dominant narrative, European settlers did not introduce this cuisine—they learned from it. While they brought their own foods (wheat, beef, sugar, alcohol), early colonists were heavily dependent on the knowledge of the Indigenous populations they encountered. Southeastern tribes already practiced advanced horticulture, developed food preservation methods, and prepared richly flavored meals from an array of regional ingredients long before colonial contact.

Over generations, dishes such as shrimp and grits, possum and sweet potatoes, chicken and waffles, seafood boils, and hushpuppies became embedded in the cultural fabric of the Southeast—not as remnants of slavery, but as enduring markers of Indigenous heritage. The continued presence of these dishes in communities labeled “Black” or “African American” reveals the true lineage of their origin: the Southeastern tribes and clans who were systematically removed from their land, relabeled, and rewritten out of history.

Final Thought

Ask yourself: When you hear “soul food,” crab boils, fish fries, or Thanksgiving dinner, which racial group comes to mind? If the answer is “Black” or “African American,” then one must also consider the deeper implication: that the ancestors of those people are not primarily from West Africa but are instead the Southeastern Original People of North America—reclassified, renamed, and culturally dismembered by design.

Timeline of Food Evolution: Southeastern Original People to Modern 'Soul Food'

Pre-Contact Era (Before 1500s)

• Southeastern Indigenous Peoples cultivate corn, beans, squash (Three Sisters), sunflowers, and various tubers (e.g., sunchokes, wild yam).

• Protein sources include rabbit, deer, turkey, possum, bear, alligator, fish, clams, oysters, and other shellfish.

• Common dishes include hominy, succotash, roasted meats, pawpaw and persimmon desserts, and cornbread made from stone-ground maize.

Early Contact Period (1500s–1600s)

• European colonists rely heavily on Indigenous foodways for survival.

• Introduction of European foods (wheat, pork, sugar, alcohol), but Native cooking methods dominate.

• Foods such as fried cornmeal (early hushpuppies), smoked game, and seafood stews spread.

Colonial to Early American Period (1600s–1800)

• Enslaved Africans join Native and European populations; culinary exchange increases.

• Indigenous and African cooking methods overlap, especially with stews, legumes, wild greens, and preserved meats.

• Recipes rooted in Southeastern Native traditions are passed down within enslaved and free Indigenous-descended households.

Antebellum Period (1800–1865)

• Indigenous Southeastern tribes are displaced (Indian Removal Act), but continue to preserve culinary traditions in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and Southern Black communities.

• Dishes like sweet potato pie, fried fish, wild greens with pork, and smoked meats become staples.

Post-Emancipation to Reconstruction (1865–1890s)

• Original Peoples labeled "Negro" or "Black" continue culinary traditions under new identities.

• Foodways evolve due to economic hardship but retain deep Indigenous roots.

• Soul food begins to formalize with specific dishes: fried chicken, black-eyed peas, chitlins, cornbread.

Early 20th Century (1900s–1960s)

• Southern food migrates with Original People during the Great Migration.

• Soul Food restaurants open in cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Harlem, serving recipes rooted in Indigenous Southeast.

• Mainstream media begins attributing these foods exclusively to "African American" slave traditions.

Modern Era (1970s–Today)

• Soul food becomes both a cultural identifier and a commercial brand.

• Popular dishes include: seafood boils, mac and cheese, sweet potato pie, greens with ham hocks, and cornbread.

• Mislabeling continues, obscuring the true origin of these dishes in Southeastern Indigenous traditions.

LINKED REFERENCES:

GRIN-U Education

National Agricultural Library

Antiquities of The Southern Indians

All About Southern Cooking

Indian Tribes of America

Citation References

1. Hudson, Charles. The Southeastern Indians. University of Tennessee Press, 1976. (Quote on Soul Food origins in Indigenous cuisine)

2. Gridley, Marion E. Indians of Today. University of Michigan Press, 1936. (Shellfish diets of Southeastern coastal tribes)

3. Carney, Judith A. Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Harvard University Press, 2001. (On culinary exchange)

4. Wallach, Jennifer Jensen. How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture. Rowman & Littlefield, 2013. (History of Soul Food)

5. Opie, Frederick Douglass. Hog and Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America. Columbia University Press, 2008. (African and Indigenous influence)

6. Twitty, Michael W. The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South. HarperCollins, 2017. (Mixed heritage culinary practices)

7. Miller, Adrian. Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time. University of North Carolina Press, 2013. (History and myths about the origins of Soul Food)

8. Katz, Solomon H., and William Woys Weaver. Encyclopedia of Food and Culture. Scribner, 2003. (Entries on Indigenous North American foods)

9. Perdue, Theda. Native Carolinians: The Indians of North Carolina. North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1985. (Southeastern Native food culture)

10. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian. "Native American Cuisine: Recipes and Food Traditions." (Exhibits and materials on food sovereignty and traditions)