Soul Food

I have already broken the cardinal rule for soul food by writing down the recipe. I was instructed not to do so because you are supposed to cook soul food from your SOUL, not with a recipe!

So my soul food mission was born from a really enjoyable soul food lunch that I had at work last summer. One of my work-friends put on a lunch for her birthday and everyone brought something. I brought the paper plates and cups. And Coke. Everyone seemed mildly amused at my soul food ignorance, and it was definitely an enjoyable learning experience. Fried chicken, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, chocolate cake, and of course my first (and last) CHITLIN' experience. It was an event to say the least.

My work friend's birthday is right around the corner again, and in an effort to contribute more this time around than paper plates, I emailed her to ask if she could send me the recipe for collard greens (hers were spicy and supremely delicious). You would have thought I spit on her grandmother's grave. She came marching down the hall to inform me that there is NO RECIPE for soul food. She then sat down for 20 minutes and dictated the procedure while I took detailed notes. It's quite the process and involved two ingredients I have only recently heard of, and have never actually tried: neck bones and fat back.

Fat back, as it turns out, must be ordered in the grocery store via the top secret red phone in the back and then they deliver it to you in person. I am not sure if this is the general way one goes about acquiring fat back or if they just didn't have it in stock out front. I couldn't find it anywhere and texted my work friend to be sure tat I just wasn't missing it. I also asked if I could use thick cut bacon instead, since you are just using the fat back to render grease to add to the green. The stern answer was NO. No bacon, you must find fat back. Which I finally did, after using a phone to call men in the back. I got a lot of strange looks when trying to track it down, let me tell you.

The neck bones are currently simmering on the stove and I have washed the collard greens twice, as instructed. Shortly I will be mixing up a homemade batch of "healthy" mac and cheese (I also got a lecture on massacring mac n cheese by attempting to make it healthy. Soul food is not meant to be healthy.)

My two friends Danny and Ben are coming over as my guinea pigs. I don't have a fall back in case this blows up my kitchen but I guess there's always Jumbo Slice.

I will update later on how it turns out and pass on the procedures!