In African American families like Abbey Lincoln's, the meal is not divided into starter/main/dessert but laid out all at once on the table, to share: a long-simmered green with its pot likker, fried or braised meat, cornbread for sopping, a cold sweet drink, and a pie to finish. The family eats together, often late — after church on Sundays, or after the set for jazz musicians. This is a cuisine of patience, resourcefulness, and love, inherited from the South and carried North during the Great Migration.

The soul of this cuisine lies in a piece of smoked pork (ham hock, hog jowl, pork shoulder) that slowly flavors the greens, and in the pot likker — the rich, green broth that results, too precious to throw away, drunk or sopped up with cornbread.