High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Soul food is an American cuisine, a selection of foods, and is the traditional cuisine of African Americans in the United States. It is closely related to Southern cuisine of the United States. The descriptive terminology may have originated in the mid-1960s, when soul was a common definer used to describe black culture (for example, soul music). The term soul food became popular in the 1960s, when the word soul became used in connection with African American culture. The origins of soul food, however, are much older and can be traced back to Africa. Foods such as rice, sorghum (known by Europeans as "guinea corn"), and okra all common elements in West African cuisine were introduced to the Americas as a result of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and became dietary staples among enslaved Africans.