✊🏾 Black History Month Recipes Series: Soul Food That Tells Our Story

About the lengths we’ll go for soul food…

Feb 16, 2026

Let me tell you something... Black folks will travel for real soul food!

When I was in my early twenties, I worked at a hair salon in Hampton Roads, Virginia. I did nails. My two girlfriends did hair. We were inseparable. The kind of friendship where if you saw one of us, you saw all three.

Before hashtags. Before Instagram.
Before “When you see her, you see me” was a trending sound. That was us.

We celebrated everything with big energy. Especially birthdays. So when one of my girls had a birthday coming up, we decided we weren’t just going to dinner. We were going to have an experience!

Now remember... This was the late 90s.
No Yelp. No Google. No “best upscale soul food near me.”

We flipped through the Yellow Pages like detectives hunting treasure. Pages whispering under our fingertips. Ink-smudged corners. Hope rising with every listing.

We wanted upscale soul food. Elevated. Elegant. Grown-woman energy. (Bougie wasn’t a word yet. But trust me, we meant bougie!)

Hampton Roads had a handful of beloved soul food establishments. But none of them felt like red-lipstick, birthday-toast, candlelit-table kind of magic.

Then we found it.

The Savoy. An upscale soul food restaurant. But in Washington, DC, three hours away. And without hesitation, we looked at each other and said, “Let’s go!”

Vintage 1990s collage of Shaunda Necole in a red cocktail dress with her close girlfriends from their Hampton Roads hair salon days, representing a six-hour birthday road trip to Washington, DC to experience upscale Black-owned soul food culture — a defining Soul Food Story in The Soul Food Pot® Black History Month Recipes Series. — **The Red Dress Era:** Somewhere in the late 90s, before hashtags and hot takes, we got dressed to the nines and drove three hours for an 8 pm reservation at a Black-owned soul food restaurant in DC. Red ruffles, clear heels, candlelight, and laughter. It was a meal of culture, pride, and Black excellence shared by me and my friends: three young Black women choosing celebration on purpose!

🤎 The night we drove six hours for soul food

We worked all day. The hum of blow dryers still ringing in our ears. The scent of acrylic powder and hair spray lingering in the air. Clocked out around 4 PM. Went home. Showered. Curled our hair. Painted our lips. Stepped into our best dresses.

I still remember mine: A red ruffled cocktail dress that moved when I walked. Red pumps with clear heels that clicked against the pavement like punctuation marks.

Click. Confidence. Click. Celebration!

We drove north as the sky shifted from peach to indigo. Windows cracked just enough for the cool evening air to carry laughter between us. Virginia Beach to Chocolate City, DC.

Six hours round-trip for soul food.

We made our 8 PM reservation like royalty!
The ambiance? Black excellence.
The energy? Ours.

The Savoy glowed when we walked in. Low lighting, polished wood, velvet curtains unveiling the murmur of conversation wrapped in jazz notes drifting from somewhere unseen.

And the food. Bay-bee. The food? Everything!

Buttery cornbread that steamed when you split it open. Greens rich with smoky depth. Fried chicken crisp enough to sing when you cut into it. Plates plated with intention. Excellence you could taste.

It wasn’t just dinner. It was culture, representation, affirmation. Three young Black women supporting a Black-owned business because we craved that feeling. That rooted, unmistakable soul food experience elevated without apology.

“And I remember looking around and thinking: These are my people.”

That night wasn’t just about a birthday. It was about seeing ourselves reflected in elegance and flavor and ownership. It was about culture served beautifully. It was about the lengths we will go to experience authenticity.

And that’s exactly why preserving Black Southern food matters. Because when you lose the culture, you lose the experience. And we’ve always known that our food is more than food. It’s memory. It’s migration. It’s resilience. It’s American history written in cast iron.

Collage of classic Black Southern soul food recipes including Southern fried chicken, baked macaroni and cheese, peach cobbler, and seasoned collard greens prepared by Shaunda Necole of The Soul Food Pot®, highlighting the legacy pillars of African American cooking celebrated in the Black History Month “Soul Food That Tells Our Story” series.

🖤 Soul food stories

Throughout Black History Month, I’ll be sharing personal stories that remind us why soul food is more than a recipe. These “Soul Food Stories” are moments from my own life and from our shared culture that reveal the emotional weight behind the food we cook. Because before there was a recipe card, there was a story.

Look for this section in upcoming posts as we continue honoring the history, heart, and heritage of Black Southern cuisine.

📚 The legacy pillars: Black Southern food that tells our story

For Black History Month, I’m gathering all of my legacy pillar posts in one place. The recipes and guides that explain not just how to cook soul food, but why it matters.

These aren’t just collections. They’re preservation projects.

❤️ Introducing: “Why Black folks cook it this way”

You’ll now start seeing a new callout box across TheSoulFoodPot.com, illustrated with “Shaunda” (yes, me!) guiding you deeper.

This is about context and history woven into the recipe. Because technique without context loses meaning.
And we are not losing meaning.

Inside “Why Black folks cook it this way,” I break down:

The historical reason behind certain ingredients
Why we season the way we do
Why certain dishes appear at specific holidays
The cultural logic behind techniques passed down through generations

⭐️ Inspired by this story? Here’s what I’ve learned:

💬 Shaunda says:

“I didn’t just study soul food. I chased it!” —Shaunda Necole

1️⃣ My journey through soul food has carried me across cities. Across generations. Across stories. And even across the country, from Virginia Beach to my home in Las Vegas today! That pursuit, much like the way soul food traveled through the Black diaspora, is exactly why I protect it now.

2️⃣ Soul food is never “just food.”

It’s belonging. It’s memory. It’s culture plated with intention.

3️⃣ Preservation requires participation.

Cooking these recipes. Sharing them. Teaching them. Supporting Black-owned food spaces. That’s how we keep the legacy alive.

💃🏾 A red dress, a reservation, and a cookbook

Sometimes I think about that red ruffled dress. The way it moved when I walked into The Savoy like I belonged there. The way those clear heels clicked against the floor like confidence. And I realize something.

That young woman in the red dress?
She had no idea she would one day write a legacy cookbook.

But she already knew the mission.

She already understood that soul food deserved elegance. That Black cuisine deserved spotlight. That our traditions deserved preservation. And that’s exactly what my upcoming cookbook is about. Not just recipes. Legacy.

The same spirit that drove three young women six hours for soul food in 1990’s DC is the same spirit fueling this book for 2027.