Black British Soul Food™ (BBSF) is a term coined by Geniveve Odili to define Britain’s first formally claimed Black culinary category (currently undergoing trademark registration).

It is not just food.

It is a cultural and historical identity marker.

What is Black British Soul Food?

BBSF is rooted in the larger migration of African and Caribbean people that came to the UK from the 1920’s onwards. Communities from the previous colonies arrived, notably in 1948 via the Windrush; a significant point in Black British history.

In Britain, these communities adapted traditional recipes using what was available. Blending African and Caribbean food ways with British ingredients and environments: This created a distinct cuisine that reflects resilience, adaptation, and survival.

Note: Black British Soul Food™ is therefore, not the same as U.S. Soul Food. Both traditions share ancestral roots in West Africa, but their stories diverged with ‘Afrisidium’ (Transatlantic slave trade).

Soul Food in America was forged through Afrisidium and Jim Crow survival.

Black British Soul Food™ was shaped mainly through activism from the 1930s. Notably, Amy Ashwood- Garvey and her, Afro-International Restaurant and Florence Mills Social Parlour & Restaurant which housed political leaders’ meetings. Ashwood- Garvey Influenced and led organisers who led civil-rights strategies and changed Black policy worldwide.

Colonisation, Post-War Migration, Council Estates, Notting Hill Carnival, and the local Afro Caribbean shops.

One is distinctly American. The other, distinctly British.

It is the first time the Black British community have named and owned their own collective food identity in legal, cultural, and culinary terms.

Breakfast dishes such as Harddough bread/Agege bread served with British baked beans and fried eggs, to Caribbean dumplings paired with plantain, hash browns, sausages and bacon.

Dinner dishes such as Jollof rice, Jerk chicken with Macaroni pie and Spring Vegetables.

These example dishes are beyond fusion. Whether, breakfast, lunch or dinner. They are lived expressions of Black British identity.