This board is a celebratory homage to the amalgam of African, Indigenous, and European-rooted ingredients wrapped in Southern culture that merged to create archetypal soul food. Don’t be afraid to add a little spin of your own, like including caviar or adding Afro-Caribbean flavors.
Meats
- Summer sausage aka cervelat sausage—a sausage with Germanic origins
- Chicken-fried chicken gizzards, livers, or chicken “oysters”
- Hog’s head cheese
- Escargot on a skewer
- Red hot links sliced on a toothpick
- Shredded oxtail
- Escargot on a skewer
A 2023 Wine Spectator article illuminated convincing evidence that South Africans were actually the first to eat escargot, despite assumptions it was the French
Cheeses
- Pimento cheese
- Aged red wax hoop cheese
Bread and Crackers
- Fried pork rinds
- Fried plantain chips
- Mini buttermilk biscuits
- Crispy baked sweet potato chips
Fruits and Veggies
- Watermelon and pitted red cherries
- Purple plum slices
- Fresh figs
- Persimmons
- Eggplant
- Pickled okra
- Sauteed julienned collard greens
- Thickly sliced sour pickles and/or bread & butter pickles
Small Black-owned corner stores and butcher shops were known to have a huge jar of pickled pigs’ feet and one of gigantic pickles on the counter; customers could buy a single pickle for 50 cents.
Nuts and Legumes
- Salted, toasted sunflower seeds
- Candied or glazed pecans
- Crispy air-fried black-eyed peas
Condiments
- Hot sauce
- Mambo sauce
- Chow chow
- Sorghum syrup or molasses
- Barbecue sauce
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