Is Soul Food Disappearing?

Now this is what I'm talkin' about. Two days ago the New York Times posted an article about how soul food is dying out in...HARLEM! The list of

"vanished Harlem soul food restaurants...would be longer than the menu at most of the places...Among those now out of business are: 22 West, where Malcolm X used the pay phone in back to do radio broadcasts; Adel’s, popular for its fried chicken; Pan Pan, which burned down in 2004; Wilson’s, known for its breakfasts; Wimps, revered for its smothered chicken and red velvet cake; Singleton’s, which was among the last restaurants to regularly serve pig tail stew, hog maws, and pig ears; and Wells Supper Club, best known as the restaurant credited with putting chicken and waffles on the same plate."

My god. Soul food restaurants are yet another casualty of diets and dieticians, that scare us away from foods we evolved to crave. Why are they bad for us? Mostly because we're sedentary as I mentioned in a previous post.

They suspect the reasons for the decline are:

1. Changing tastes
2. health consciousness
3. the fast-food culture
4. an influx of wealthier young adults — including African-Americans, long a customer base for soul food restaurants — who are more comfortable eating Indian or Thai dishes.

Okay, how do they know? Personally I think it has to do more with number 2, "health consciousness." Number 1, "changing tastes" is a result of number 2. Number 3 doesn't play much because if the choice is between unhealthy fast-food and unhealthy soul food it's a no brainer. And number 4 has to do more with 1 and 2.

As "Interested Reader" commented recently on this blog, perhaps giant corporate conglomerates have a large hand in it. Either they're shoving us over to McDonald's or scaring us into eating tasteless, fuckin' rice cakes.

Honestly I think the constant over-emphasis on eating healthy foods is stripping us not only of a whole lot of enjoyment in life, but actually killing important elements of our cultural heritage.

Don't all of us from the south know of relatives or friends who lived to be 90 and ONLY ate stuff that would make a dietician cry? I'm talkin' real soul food. Could it be that physical activity, a great attitude, and good DNA have a whole hell of a lot more to do with our health than what we eat? I eat a lot of fried food for example, and every year get a bill of good health from my doc. No cholesterol problems here.

So guess what? I'll exercise to keep up good energy and avoid getting fat. I'll keep going to the doc each year just to be sure all is well. But that's only while I continue to eat the hell out of fried pork chops, greens with smoked pork all up in it, cheesecake, awesome grilled ribeyes with all the crispy fat up in it, ham-fuckin-burgers, and all the other stuff I enjoy! And I'll carefully avoid fuckin' tasteless rice cakes!

-Forsyth