"soul food" news and stories

This week, the knives came out -- or at least a heavily edited sense of cutthroat competitiveness. Anyone who knows and loves Top Chef Masters will admit it's relatively low on intra-chef tension, what with all the humility and sharing and mentorly learning going on.

But in this, the second pass at weeding out 22 accomplished chefs for the title of Ultra Pro Haute Cuisine Jedi Master (we're paraphrasing here), there was a whole lot of drama. Blood! Sweat! Tears! Insincere hugs! This is why we pay for basic cable, folks. Certainly it's not for the incessant Stoli vodka and Lexus product placements.

Funny that in the most inane of situations -- in this case, a soul-food birthday party for former ER stalwart Mekhi Phifer -- the most traumatizing things can happen. Maybe it was the alchemy of the personalities. Maybe it was a clash of culinary cultures. In any event, we ended the episode with as many Stoli martinis as they did, both shaken and stirred.

• Buffalo goes beyond just chicken wings, of course. Grilled shrimp, anyone?
• Local restaurant Bobby McGee's is all about the music -- but you can eat well, too, if you choose judiciously.
• Nothing's more American or tastier than soul food, as Buffalo's Urban League president explains.
• ...And these two Buffalo restaurateurs are serving up soul food on a regular basis.
• Meanwhile, the mad scientists among us are cooking up candy concoctions.

'Long Nights and Log Fires: Warming Comfort Food for Family and Friends'
Commissioning Editor Julia Charles
Photography by Ryland Peters & Small
Ryland Peters & Small -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

"When the cold wind blows and the snow piles up outside, where better to be than at the heart of a warm kitchen, enjoying the aromas of good home cooking wafting from the oven?" ponders the intro to the supremely satisfying "Long Nights and Log Fires" cookbook.

Crafting a comprehensive repertoire to all things comfort food, the gratifying collection dishes up everything from "soups and snacks," "sides and salads" to "one-pot wonders," "bakes and desserts" and even heart-warming drinks, including Mocha Maple Coffee and Mexican Chocolate with Vanilla Cream. Using a bevy of autumnal ingredients -- relying on fresh produce, flavorful herbs and spices and a comforting dairy element -- this cookbook features everything sweet, spicy and savory to satisfy palates on cold nights.

See what we tested and find out whether the book's worth buying after the jump.

Writing in The Root, Slate's online magazine covering African-American topics, Bryant Terry makes the argument that soul food has gotten a bad rap. Soul food is portrayed in popular culture as salty, fatty, sugar-laden comfort dishes like mac n' cheese, greens with ham hocks, fried chicken and lard biscuits. But half a century ago soul food meant the simple dishes Southern African-Americans ate for dinner, with plenty of fresh local ingredients - sauteed okra, stone ground grit cakes, homemade peach chutney. Sure there was fried chicken and cobbler, but that was hardly the whole picture, Terry says.

Terry, a Bay Area cookbook author originally from Memphis, hopes that bringing back locally focused, veggie-heavy soul food can help lower rates of obesity and diabetes in African-American communities. The article includes recipes for grit cakes and citrus collards with raisins. Yum.

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When I saw a post on ZenKimchi Korean Food Journal about chitlins my first instinct was to exclaim, "Korean soul food? Say what!" Then I thought about it a little more, and I realized that with its hearty casseroles and stews, Korean cuisine has a lot in common with American soul food. It's just that the above dish of gobchang gui is, how to put this, a bit more soulful than other Korean fare I've encountered.

Technically, they're not chitlins, since they're beef, not pork, intestines. Either way, the dish sounds delicious. Some of you out there might be grossed out by the concept of eating a cow's small intestines. Not me, especially when I read that they taste like bacon and are stuffed with Korean pâté. Drool. To complete the organ meat orgy there was Makchang (sliced large intestine), beef heart and tripe smothered in pâté.

ZKFJ's author is lucky to be based in Korea. I've enjoyed Korean blood sausage in my native Queens, but have yet to encounter what amount to pâté-filled sausages. I gots to get me some gobchang y'all.

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