Aaliyah at the table

In African American families like Aaliyah's, between Brooklyn and Detroit, the big meal happens on Sunday after church. No starter-main-dessert: you build a single plate where a slow-cooked meat sits surrounded by several sides (long-cooked greens, mac and cheese, cornbread). It's all washed down with sweet iced tea and finished with a fruit dessert. This is soul food, born from the ingenuity of Southern cooks who moved to the industrial cities of the North.

The soul of this cuisine lies in smoke: a piece of smoked turkey or pork gives, after simmering for hours, an umami depth to the greens. It's the legacy of Southern kitchens, passed down from generation to generation.