Tribal People Try Soul Food

Soul food is the cooking of Black communities in the American South: fried chicken, collard greens, mac and cheese, cornbread, candied yams, black-eyed peas. It is slow, generous, seasoned food built to feed a table.

This is the American cuisine that lands best in the village, because it is built the same way — long cooking, pork-free versions are easy, greens stewed with something smoky, beans and rice. Sweet dishes like candied yams are the exception.

Collard greens cooked down with onion is saag by another name, and black-eyed peas are lobia. The tribe recognises the logic even when the seasoning is new.