Once Upon A....Soul Food

April 09, 2020

Once Upon A ... Soul Food

Once Upon A Time...When We Were Colored, and Soul Food are both films that use food to represent ethnicity and culture within African Americans families. The films celebrate the power of these two Black families as they navigate through the ups and downs of their lives, using food to help them through their different emotional experiences.

Soul food is cooked and eaten in both films on different occasions. In Once Upon A Time, we see this when Punk cooks for her son Melvin when he visits home. In Soul Food, we see this all throughout the film for each of the Sunday dinners. Soul food represents African American cuisine and holds historical significance when it comes to the African American experience. It consists of dishes and foods that survived slavery and became compatible with poor Blacks. As Ahmad said in Soul Food, during slavery Black people did not have a lot to celebrate. Cooking became the way that they celebrated and expressed their love for one another. The term was then coined in the 1960s, during the times of the civil rights and Black power movements. Soul food is more than just comfort food, it is food that truly transmits African American history, culture and tradition.

There is a strong amount of creativity within this tradition of cooking. Black cooks did not rely on written recipes. They learned to cook these meals through the use of spices, imagination, and then experience. We see this in Soul Food with Big Mama, as she tells Bird that she was putting too much of something into a dish. She told her that she only needed about four pinches. Big Mama did not need any recipes or measuring cups. This was because “soul food cooking is cooking from the heart.” There is a such a strong sense of love of family and food behind the cooking of soul food. As I previously said, this idea of love and cooking has been around since the time of slavery. This love is almost in a sense motivating. It is motivating to the ones preparing the food, who spend hours in the kitchen, and to the ones eating the food, who can enjoy a good time with their families over a delicious meal.

"What Soul Food is All About"

This food is known to unite African American families, bringing a level of comfort to them. With the Joseph family, we see how soul food serves as the glue that helps to bring them together. It is something that the Joseph girls have grown up with, a tradition of Sunday dinners, where they not only ate but "shared their joys and sorrows".

MOVIE SCOOP: 'Soul Food' Sequel 'More Soul Food' Is On The Way

Soul Food - Sunday Dinner

Once Upon A Time...When We Were Colored and Soul Food do a great job of representing ethnicity and culture within African American families. They show us these perspectives through different time periods that are relevant to what the characters are experiencing in their individual films. Food is just a small part of African American ethnicity, culture, and history, but it definitely is a significant part that helps to strengthen Black families and communities.