How soul food made it’s way to Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS — They say food is good for the soul, so where does that leave soul food?

“I think it’s all about comfort,” said co-owner of Soul Bowl, Gerrad Klass.

Klass started Soul Bowl in 2017 as a catering business. Four months ago, he moved into his new restaurant space at the V3 building off Plymouth Avenue in Minneapolis.

“You can change somebody’s day with a great plate of food like that comfort that can become from that soul food feeling that I think we’re all trying to accomplish,” he said.

Klass grew up cooking.

“My parents cooked for church probably before I had the choice to help or not,” Klass said.

Food has always been a part of his life, a life he wants to share with others.

“We want to make sure that soul food lives on for future generations and for my kid’s generations, and that can evolve,” he said.

The soul food scene in Minneapolis has been growing over the past couple of years. Bringing new flavors to the Twin Cities.

“Soul food is rooted in the south. It actually migrated here with people that migrated and often people from the south,” said Healthy Roots Institute owner Lachelle Cunningham.

Cunningham said American soul food was born out of slavery.

“In those enslaved conditions, those slaves were in a lot of cases the cooks… for their enslavers and then within that trying to figure out how they were going to be nourished themselves,” Cunningham said. “A lot of times in most cases they weren’t eating what they were cooking for their enslavers they were rationed certain items like throw part of the pigs.”

Klass said women carried seeds from Africa to America.

“The women would braid seeds and things into their hair to bring across on slave ships to plant here, and then I think when you get to America, it hybrids with produce and vegetation,” Klass said.

When slavery ended, soul food made its way North.

“Specifically here in Minneapolis, a lot of it came when folks were moving up to north to Chicago, so there was pretty much the trains and these porters that worked on the trains that were African-American, and they were the ones when people were moving after slavery, or moving up north seeking better opportunities, they would kind of guide people,” Klass said.

Over the past couple of years, more soul food restaurants have started to pop up in the metro area. Klass said while soul food is not new to Minnesota, they’re starting to show up in spaces they haven’t been in the past, like the Minnesota State Fair and sporting events.

Klass and Cunningham both said over time soul food has evolved.

“I think right now, what I’ve seen probably in the last two to three years is that there’s been a big plant-based movement in the soul food world where you’ve seen a lot of different restaurants be able to execute those same flavors,” Klass said.

Klass grew up vegetarian and loves seeing how soul food has evolved over the years. He said his goal is to get rid of the stigma that soul food can’t be healthy.

Cunningham said soul food can be innovative while keeping its foundation.

“You can see this like fusing of the of people’s food ways coming together and that’s really what soul food is,” Cunningham said. “Soul food preserves those stories through the people that persevere those stories. Soul food preserves those stories if they’re kept alive because if they’re not then it doesn’t then it turns into something else.”

She said it’s important to continue to tell their story, food is just one way avenue.