zzxm | Soul food (1)

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In this column: soul food, downhome southern food, catfish, turnips, tutagabas, cornbread, ham hocks, red beans, cobbler, neck bones, chitlins, Sunnyland Slim, Otis Span and Fleetwood Mac, Papa Charlie Jackson, Kenny Burrell, Chili Blues

SOUL FOOD

Soul food (aka downhome southern food) is often mentioned in blues lyrics. The menu includes dishes with: oxtails, neck bones, pigs' feet, ham hocks, chitterlings, ribs (pork and beef), fried chicken, catfish, several kinds of green, turnips, rutabagas, fried corn, fried green tomatoes, field peas, cobbler and cornbread.

The expression "soul food" originated in the mid-1960s, when "soul" was a common word used to describe African-American culture. At its core, soul food is down-home cooking that's been passed down through many generations, with its roots in the rural South.

Turnips, rutabagas and cornbread
Rutabagas, to the right turnips

CATFISH

The most commonly eaten species in the United States are the channel catfish and the blue catfish, both of which are common in the wild and increasingly widely farmed. In the United States it is eaten crumbed with cornmeal and fried.

Fried catfish

Sunnyland Slim at Delta Fish Market

HAM HOCKS

A ham hock (or hough) or pork knuckle is the joint between the tibia/fibula and the metatarsals of the foot of a pig, where the foot was attached to the hog's leg. It is the portion of the leg that is neither part of the ham proper nor the ankle or foot (trotter), but rather the extreme shank end of the leg bone.

Ham hocks and red beans

Hungry Country Girl - Otis Spann and Fleetwood Mac

COBBLER

A cobbler with peaches

NECK BONES

Neck bones are inexpensive and easy to cook. But don't be mistaken, this meat is packed with flavor and taste great. This slow-cooking meat and rice meal is a favorite of many families, both worked well on a tight budget.

Neck bones

CHITLINS (CHITTERLINGS)

Chitterlings (chitlins) are a culinary dish usually made from the large intestines of a hog.

The history of chitterlings in Southern culinary traditions began when, at hog butchering time, slaves were given the leftovers by their slavers, and had to make do with neck bones, snouts, feet and other less desirable parts. The slaves used the intestines to make a dish that became a staple in soul food cooking.

Chitterlings (chitlins)

Papa Charlie Jackson - Mama, don't you think I know

Got a knock-kneed mama, down in Tennessee
She's short and squatty, she's all right with me
Don't you think I know, mama, don't you think I know

Now knock-kneed mama, what you going to cook tonight
What ever you cook, just cook it right
...

You got a face like a washboard and a mouth like a tub
Teach me mama, that washboard rub
...

Now some people say, chitlins are good to eat
I'll never eat chitlins, long as hog got feet
...

Takes a long-tailed monkey, a short-tailed dog
To do that dance, they call the falling off the log
...

Now the monkey told the elephant, if he's not drunk
I know you're sober, you got the tail in front
...

Now the monkey told the elephant, you may be drinking wine
You can't switch your tail, like I switch mine
...

Knock-kneed woman = When a girls knees knock together when she walks she is said to give head (perform oral sex) alot (meaning in slang).

Falling off the log = There are several other expressions that mean the same thing. And their meaning is as easy to understand as “falling off a log.” One is, “easy as pie”. Nothing is easier than eating a piece of sweet, juicy pie. Unless it is a “piece of cake."

Papa Charlie Jackson, 1925

Chitlins Con Carne - Kenny Burtell

Sourcesfederalcigarjugband.com, pancocojams.blogspot.nl, americanbluesscene.com, YouTube, Wikipedia, Hudson Motors Compagny, Archive Minneapolis, The Cruel Plains, M.H.Price a.o., truewestmagazine.com, The Austin Chronicle, Cambridge Free English Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, TheSaurus.com, dragonjazz.com/grablue/blues_travel, Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture, Blues by Paul Breman, Blues by David Harrison, Quora.com, urbandictionary.com, Blogs.loc.gov, The Ballad Hunter by Alan Lomax, Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920th by Daphne Duval Harrison, jopiepopie.blogspot.nl, redhotjazz.com, The Blues Lyrics Formula by Michael Taft, American Ballads and Folk Songs by Alan Lomax and John Avery Lomax, The Past Is Not Dead: Essays from the  Southern Quarterly by Douglas B. Chambers, EarlyBlues.com, railroad-line.com,  Jason Lee Davis' RailFan Pages , centertruthjustice.org