Soul Food

On sensible feasting during the holidays.

By Chuck Nice

In honor of Thanksgiving and the holidays I decided to watch and blog about the movie Soul Food. This is one of my mother's favorite movies and I understand why; I'm sure it takes her back to our family's Sunday dinners. As I was growing up my parents were very adamant about the family sitting down to dinner as a family every night; but Sunday dinner was special. Often my grandparents, my great grandmother and possibly some family friends would be found around the table laughing, telling stories, poking fun or just gobbling up my mother's scrumptious bounty of food for the soul. Soul Food the movie revolves around a family and their tradition of Sunday dinners. The food served in the movie is very similar to the food I had on Sundays as child. There was fried chicken - yes it's true Black people love fried chicken, hell most everybody loves fried chicken!
There were Collard Greens and Black Eyed peas, green beans cooked in ham, sweet potatoes, warm biscuits or rolls, rice and gravy, and for dessert my mother's famous sweet potato pie. I would watch as my family members would pile their plates high with tiny foot hills of deliciousness and I was often criticized for not doing the same. "Chuck! What's wrong you with you boy? You better get some more of this good food. Boy you don't know what you're missing." Believe me I knew what I was missing... a heart attack and a life long struggle with obesity, which by the way is the problem that most family now wrestles.

In the movie Big Momma (the family matriarch) says that "soul food cookin' comes from the heart." What she fails to mention is that it will also explode that heart. Black people suffer a myriad of health problems due to our diet. The food that once sustained us as slaves is the same food that's killing us now. Don't get me wrong, the food is beyond delicious and prepared correctly can even be considered a delicacy; but you don't eat delicacies every day unless you want a serious case of gout. In the movie Big Momma develops diabetes, an extremely common occurrence among Blacks, but she continues to prepare her meals in the exact same manner. Finally she is forced to enter the hospital to have a leg amputated, slips into a comma and dies. How does the family mourn her death and honor her memory? They get together and have huge meals consisting of the very dishes that killed their mother. If I sound as if I'm being harsh it's only because I have engaged in a life long argument with most of my family about the importance of good nutrition; and they brush aside my comments like Dandruff from the shoulder of a black turtle neck. "Shut up Chuck, not everybody wants to suffer and eat Gerbil food like you", that's normally the response that follows my condemnation. But little do they know how much it pains me to see them eat their way to poor health.

This Thanksgiving my entire family came to my home for dinner and we had all of those sinfully good dishes that were so much apart of my childhood; and I loved it. Tonight, nearly a week later, I sat down to dinner with my nuclear family and we enjoyed the same fellowship and bond as I did around the table as a child. The difference is we ate a healthy meal: Baked Cod, steamed veggies and whole grain rice. It's not as sexy or decadent but I can hear my arteries saying thank you.