By Laurie Casey
Award-winning filmmaker Byron Hurt created a documentary film journey to learn more about the African American cuisine known as soul food. Here’s a sample menu: fried chicken, black-eyed peas, candied yams, and banana pudding for dessert. What’s not to love? The flavors are an enticing blend of West African and Deep American Southern cuisines.
Hurt’s resulting work, “Soul Food Junkies,” is a rich exploration of history, humor, and stories about this cuisine’s soul-warming and cultural benefits as well as possible health consequences. When the film was released, among many other awards, it won “Best Documentary” at the 2012 American Black Film Festival and “Best Documentary Feature” at the 2012 Urbanworld Film Festival.
Warren Price Photography/Shutterstock
The film, which One Earth screened in 2013, addresses the crucial issue of low access to quality food in many Black communities. A lot has changed since 2013—including the presence of more urban farms in large cities such as Chicago and more attention to the nutritional value of locally farmed, whole foods. But a lot has stayed the same, including the difficulties of finding fresh food in communities throughout the West and South Sides of Chicago, for example.
This summer, Austin Eats, a collaborative that is working to rewrite the narrative around food in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side of Chicago, is screening “Soul Food Junkies.”
One Earth is proud to be a partner of Austin Eats for this screening on Saturday, June 26, at 3 p.m. CDT, followed by a brief, post-film, facilitated dialogue. By creating synergies between organizations already promoting healthier food choices through grocery access, culinary entrepreneurship, food education, community gardens, and urban farms, Austin Eats’ mission is to recreate Austin’s food access ecosystem.
A simultaneous in-person screening by invitation only will take place at Kehrein Center for the Arts in Chicago, in collaboration (or partnership) with the Austin Renaissance Council.