Event

Soul Food Junkies

In this documentary, award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt shares his journey to learn more about the African American cuisine known as soul food. Baffled by his dad's unwillingness to change his traditional soul food diet in the face of a health crisis, Hurt sets out to learn more about this rich culinary tradition and its relevance to black cultural identity. He discovers that the love affair that his dad and his community have with soul food is deep-rooted, complex, and in some tragic cases, deadly.
Through candid interviews with soul food cooks, historians,
and scholars, as well as doctors, family members, and everyday people, Soul Food Junkies blends history, humor, and heartwarming stories to place this culinary tradition under the microscope. Both the consequences and the benefits of soul food are carefully addressed. So too is the issue of low access to quality food in black communities, which makes it difficult for some black people to eat healthy. In the end, Hurt determines whether or not black people are addicted to this food tradition that has its origins in West Africa and the black south, it is loved all over the world. USA, 2012, 64 min., color, DVD | Director: Byron Hurt