If you’re like me, you’re a sucker for soul food. Just hearing “fried chicken, collard greens and cornbread” is enough to make your mouth water. But most of us spend more time craving soul food than thinking about where it comes from, and that story runs deep.
Soul food’s roots stretch back to West Africa, where ingredients like okra, black eyed peas and leafy greens were staples long before they reached the American South. Enslaved Africans carried their food traditions with them, adapting what they knew to the ingredients they were forced to work with. Over time, these traditions blended into what we now recognize as soul food.
Soul food has always been more than a style of cooking. It is a way of bringing people together, celebrating resilience and turning simple ingredients into comfort on a plate. That same spirit is exactly what Marie’s Soul Food Restaurant continues to bring into the Madison community. People don’t just go there to eat. They go to be seen, to be welcomed and to feel at home in a way only soul food can create…