At the start of Black History Month, chef and writer Magdalena O'Neal digs beneath the surface of Black American food to examine how the complex, delicious genre proliferates across the creative arts.
The flavors of my youth are steeped in soul, from a dark roux to the sweet, unexpected piece of ham at the bottom of the greens pot—the heart of the dish that everyone forgets about. My family's Bay Area roots are by way of Arkansas, a product of the Great Migration, in which over 6 million Black Americans left the rural South to start anew and escape racial segregation and economic hardships. Their stories, preserved in the dishes they brought with them.
These ancestral ties have deeply shaped my being, and they manifest within my culture: in the sounds, feelings, and flavors of my community across generations.
When I think of soul, I think of the dishes that have shaped my community. My love for feeding others began in elementary school and manifested in weekends recreating recipes from Sunset and Martha Stewart Living and early mornings watching the Food Network. Holidays were filled with fried chicken, greens, mac and cheese, dressing, and gumbo, all made with my grandmother's Californian interpretations. When cousins went vegan or vegetarian, new variations of our familial recipes would emerge—like vegan-friendly dressing, dairy-free yams, and turkey alternatives—a testament to how we’d adapt, honor traditions, and make sure everybody had a seat at the table, with a very full plate.
Everything changed when I was 13, I decided to make homemade salted caramels, individually wrapped in parchments, to bring to a Sunday dinner I attended with my mom, who was the curator at Creative Growth, a nonprofit gallery for artists with disabilities. The dinner was one of many where Bay Area chefs opened their homes to each other, along with friends and family, to share a meal. On their days off, when restaurants were closed on Sundays or Mondays, they would transform the leftover ingredients from the previous week into a family-style meal.
That night, Alice Waters was one of the many local guests. The potluck-style meal was filled with hearty salads and hand-foraged mushrooms, each dish made by chefs throughout the Bay Area, including Waters who helms the farm-to-table restaurant, Chez Panisse.
The iconic chef bit into one of my candies and shared her praises with me at the sweet treat's balance of salty and sweet. This moment inspired me to enroll in workshops with her Edible Schoolyard program. The following summer, I secured an internship at Waters’ Berkeley institution. I worked alongside Chez Panisse’s pastry team, tasting seasonal fruits and observing as the chefs crafted menus that captured the essence of summer’s bounty.
After my time at Chez Panisse, my inspiration once again took a new form, this time fueled by my desire to bring my own perspective to familiar ingredients. I began working on a project to uncover the history of Black veganism in the United States and beyond. This led me to delve into my own roots, with recipes that merged my ancestors’ Southern comfort dishes with my Bay Area inclination to use fresh, local ingredients. I made gumbo with locally sourced ingredients for my pop-up in Mexico City and a fully plant-based menu when I took over at Ola’s, a Black-owned cafe in Paris’ 18th arrondissement. With every dish I presented Black American food not only as the very foundation of this country’s cuisine but also as something that is inherently global and dynamic. In doing so I sought to move away from the reductive and racist stereotypes that have historically trapped it.
As my own culinary journey continued to evolve, I discovered another community of like-minded people who encouraged me, like Jon Gray. I connected with the co-founder of Ghetto Gastro at a Black art fundraiser in 2022, where our conversation swiftly turned to discuss Black representation in the culinary world. Since then, he’s always made time to advise me and bring me into collaborations with his team. “If you don’t see something in the world that represents what you are, want to be, or where you want to go, you have to create it,” Gray tells me as we discuss the passing of the cultural baton from one generation to the next.
“The radical thing is being able to show up as our authentic selves and still demand the respect we deserve,” he emphasizes. The sentiment is echoed in the pages of Black Power Kitchen, 2022, authored by Lester Walker, Pierre Serrao, Osayi Endolyn, and Gray. Dr. Jessica B. Harris, who wrote the cookbook’s forward, calls it a modern manifesto for understanding Black culinary culture.
This ethos came a decade after Dr. Harris highlighted a critical gap in the recognition of the Black community’s contributions to American cuisine in her own book High on the Hog, 2011. I first discovered her writing while searching for a deeper understanding of how African culinary influences shaped the United States, and how Black servitude is woven into the very fabric of American culture. Her words are where I found my answer.
Leaders like Dr. Harris opened the door, and now it's the responsibility of the next generation of Black culinary activists to step through it. “The reward for good work is more work, and it doesn’t get easier as you go along,” says Gray. “It’s about using our gifts to amplify the stories that haven’t been told in a way that resonates with the culture.”
Over the years, I’ve learned that pursuing what brings you joy and nurturing yourself while nurturing others is a balancing act. “Soul searching means asking yourself, ‘What do I really love to do? How can I make that my work instead of things that don’t bring me joy?’” shares Gray. “Your passion becomes your job when it was once your reprieve.”
As I’ve traveled and cooked—soul food pop-ups in Berlin with candied yams and blackened fish, Jamaican patties in Paris, and fried chicken in Copenhagen—I’ve come to understand soul food in a global context. It carries across language barriers, becomes the centerpiece of new relationships, and fosters a deeper understanding between people from different walks of life. Through this sensory expression, we create spaces for gratitude and teach lessons that bring us closer to our culture. And that, I’m sure, is how this generation of game changers will fill the void leftover from a colonial past.