Book Description

A mother-daughter duo reclaims and redefines soul food by mining the traditions of four generations of black women and creating 80 healthy recipes to help everyone live longer and stronger. NAACP IMAGE AWARD WINNER • “Soul Food Love has preserved our traditions but reinvented how they’re prepared. Its focus on health is a godsend.”—Viola Davis “This beautifully written compendium is literary history, cookbook, family album, motherwit, daughter-grace, and the gospel truth. I’ll be cooking from this book for years to come.”—Elizabeth Alexander, poet and professor After bestselling author Alice Randall penned an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Black Women and Fat,” chronicling her quest to be “the last fat black woman” in her family, she turned to her daughter, Caroline Randall Williams, for help. Together they overhauled the way they cook and eat, translating recipes and traditions handed down by generations of black women into easy, affordable, and healthful—yet still indulgent—dishes, such as Peanut Chicken Stew, Red Bean and Brown Rice Creole Salad, Fiery Green Beans, and Sinless Sweet Potato Pie. Soul Food Love relates the authors’ fascinating family history, which mirrors that of much of black America in the twentieth century, explores the often-fraught relationship African American women have had with food, and forges a powerful new way forward that honors their cultural and culinary heritage.