"Neo Soul" news and stories

Who says that down-home soul food has to be unhealthy by definition? Soul food is about satisfying food that tastes great because it is made with flavorful ingredients and love. Both are things that can carry over to slightly lighter versions of favorite dishes without loosing anything but the fat.

Neo Soul is soul food with a healthy twist, but it is still only a twist because although this is a lower-fat cookbook, the author chooses to include some fat when flavor might suffer - a nice touch that some healthy cookbook authors forget about. Author Lindsay Williams grew up on soul food (he's the grandson of the founder of Sylvia Woods, founder of Silvia's restaurants and known as "the queen of soul food) and turned into a food addict. By tweaking his favorite dishes, he managed to put out some delicious food and loose about 200 pounds at the same time. If you need a little bit of convincing that healthy soul food is still soul food, try his recipe for Oven Fried Chicken before you buy the book.

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Newsweek recently featured an article about African-American chefs, restaurateurs and nutritionists that are trying to reinvent classic soul food dishes while keeping health in mind. Some shifts are simple: baked chicken instead of fried chicken; collard greens flavored with smoked turkey instead of ham hocks. Others, like the dishes of featured caterer Lindsey Williams (grandson of Sylvia Woods of Sylvia's in Harlem), deviate a little more. Williams' new cookbook Neo Soul was released this month by Penguin. Newsweek focues on dishes like veggie croquettes with tofu sour cream and Thai sesame dressing, but some of Williams' recipes listed by Penguin--trout stuffed with collard greens, okra gumbo, and "neo" sweet potato pie--sound a little more grounded. Another interesting item mentioned in the article was the Soul Food Pyramid, created by Hebni Nutrition Consultants in Orlando, Florida. Unfortunately, the Hebni site doesn't really let on too much about what's contained in the pyramid.