Reforming the Table: Soul Food's Next Chapter

Reform means reclaiming, not erasing

Let's be clear about what reform is not. It's not throwing away tradition or telling anybody their grandmother cooked wrong. Reform is reclaiming. Chef and food-justice leader Bryant Terry — author of Vegan Soul Kitchen — makes a powerful point: the heavily processed “instant” soul food that spread in the late 1960s was actually a departure from the fresh, local, plant-rich food many Black Southerners ate just a generation or two earlier. The garden-grown greens, the beans, the whole grains, the vegetables picked that morning — that's soul food too. Arguably, that's the original.

So reforming the table isn't inventing something new. It's going back to get something we left behind.

The genius was always in the vegetables

Look closely at the soul-food canon and you'll find it was always anchored by plants: collards, mustard and turnip greens, black-eyed peas, okra, sweet potatoes, lima beans, cabbage. The challenge isn't the vegetables — it's what we started cooking them in and alongside as convenience and processed food took over. Swap the smoked ham hock for smoked paprika or a little liquid smoke. Bake instead of deep-fry. Lean on the spice and the soul, lighten the fat and the sugar. The flavor stays. The story stays. The health changes completely.

Why it matters so much for us

This isn't a foodie hobby — it's a matter of life and length of life. Black adults carry the country's highest rate of high blood pressure at 58%, and are 24% more likely than the overall population to have diabetes. Diet is one of the biggest levers we have over those numbers. Reforming the way we cook the food we love is one of the most direct acts of self-determination available to us. It's resistance you can taste.

How we do it at Ruby Jean's

This is exactly the work Ruby Jean's was built for. Our Soul Food Bowl and our menu prove you don't have to choose between heritage and health — every item can be made vegan, and the flavor never apologizes. We cold-press the vegetables your great-grandmother grew. We keep the soul and rewrite the ingredients. That's the next chapter, and we're writing it one plate at a time.

Honoring our elders doesn't mean cooking exactly as they did. It means loving our people enough to keep them at the table longer. That's the reform. That's the freedom. And it has never tasted better.

Call to action: Try the reimagined Soul Food Bowl at 3000 Troost — heritage, made for a longer life.

Sources

1. Bryant Terry on the Delicious, Satisfying (and Yes, Vegan) Food of the African Diaspora (The Kitchn)

2. Age-Adjusted Percentage of Adults with Hypertension (CDC MMWR QuickStats)

3. Diabetes and Black/African Americans (HHS Office of Minority Health)