And you thought kale was new

Author Adrian Miller, who wrote the authoritative book on soul food, “Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time,” made an intriguing comment several years ago.

Miller was describing a typical soul food meal, which includes smothered or fried chicken, some kind of pork and some type of fish, and side dishes that include greens like cabbage, collards, mustard, turnip, and kale.

Yep – kale.

“For all you people who’ve discovered kale in the last five to 10 years, welcome to the party,” Miller quipped in an interview with Epicurious Magazine. “We’ve been eating it for about 300.”

National Soul Food Month is celebrated in June, and if you’re eating kale, you’re partly there. Other traditional foods include candied yams, black-eyed peas, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, sweet potato pie, peach cobbler, and banana pudding.

This marks the 18th year of the celebration, which arose from the “Grits and Green Conference” put on by the Culinary Historians of Chicago in 2000 and 2001.

Soul food’s origins are attributed to African-American cuisine of the south, though there’s also debate in foodie circles about where to draw the line between the definition of soul food and southern cooking. And although vegan soul food is on the rise, Miller said that it’s not an oxymoron at all, pointing out that it began with the vegetables that slaves ate; a predominant ingredient when meat was unaffordable and out of reach.