SOUL: A Chef's Culinary Evolution in 150 Recipes (2024)

Soul is Todd Richards's self-proclaimed "sermon about my Soul food" as he describes food as a religion of its own.
Each chapter is organized by ingredient. The recipes at the beginning of chapters are traditional and evolve into unique flavor combinations with the progression of his culinary skills. I especially enjoyed the featured menus and the playlist of songs included with each.
My favorite chapters (because bless my heart, I'm a GRITS - Girl Raised in the South) are collards and tomatoes. Any cookbook that has entire chapters dedicated to these ingredients has a permanent home in my kitchen!
Standout recipes for me are: ginger and collard green fried rice, hot and spicy zucchini slaw, and fried green tomatillos.
The vibrant photographs of ingredients and overhead dining table displays (with recipe page numbers for convenience) throughout are a lovely feature that blend food and art. This is a "sermon" I can read again and again!
Thanks to Time Inc, and NetGalley for providing an ARC for review.

Todd Richards describes this book as a chef's culinary evolution in 150 recipes. The introduction paints a picture of a cultured childhood. Richards visited his father's family in Hot Springs, AR, and basked in the southern style of food. He talks about racial divides, as well as differences in customs regarding Catholicism and the Baptist faith. I live an hour and a half from Hot Springs, and I know exactly what Todd experienced when he was a young boy in this region. Everything we do in the Bible Belt is tied to or, more likely, revolves around food. He goes on to say that food has become a religion of it's own, and that different regions have produced great preachers of cuisine. Todd's stories in the book and descriptions of each dish showcase his passion for food and his desire to preserve the customs and traditions of his heritage.

The recipe are organized by ingredient rather than type of food. This is an interesting concept for a cookbook, and it works quite well. The ingredients are as follows:
1. Collards
2. Onions
3. Berries
4. Lamb
5. Seafood
6. Corn
7. Tomatoes
8. Melons
9. Stone Fruit
10. Eggs & Poultry
11. Pork & Beef
12. Beans & Rice
13. Roots
14. Essentials

Each chapter begins with a traditional dish, then progresses into different flavor combinations and techniques. The brilliant full color photos of dishes and ingredients will make your mouth water. Richards also provides drink pairings and notes for other serving suggestions to round out your meal, plus sample menus sprinkled throughout the book for parties and special occasions. The end of the book provides an index that is categorized by both ingredients and dishes.

I highly recommend this book to anyone that has a passion for unique food, and anyone that is interested in learning more about soul food. I received this as a free ARC from Time Inc. Books, Oxmoor House on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Richards’ foundation is an African american culinary tradition upon which he builds a cuisine that explores how this tradition can work with other cuisines, but it also seems like what he is doing is putting forward food that historically has not been valued like French or Italian to suggest that good food is found everywhere. What I take from this book, which may not have been Richards’ intention, is that good food, important food does not mean sophisticated or complex; it can, but simple, everyman’s fare-done well-offers just as much to the diner.
The cookbook is organized around ingredient and includes full page pictures of beautiful food in simple form, a few stems of Collard, but also as a full meal like the picnic lunch displayed over two pages. The pictures are mouth watering and made me want to make foods I don’t even like because they appear so appetizing on the page!
Recipes are clearly written with defined steps and include drink and pairing suggestions. Many recipes are presented as a meal like leg of lamb steak with pepper and olive relish and cheese rice. Recipes are unique though generally not complex. This is not standard southern or African american fare.
Richards’ also suggests where to get some unusual ingredients, like duck eggs (though not where to find duck fat), which is helpful for city folk but may not be particularly useful for those without access to Whole Foods or an Asian market. Menus with music suggestions are also included.
Recipes are standard southern like collard greens and ham hock but also recipes that push the boundaries of any neat cultural definition like oysters poached in collard green pesto on cheese crisps with caviar. And he brings different techniques to revitalize a dish like brined trout, country fried lamb steak hot chicken style, and collard waffles.
The book epitomizes and encourages innovation. I can’t help but ask when I finished the collar green chapter, just where else could I put collards? In my buffalo Mac and cheese? Could they be braised for enchiladas? The cookbook is inspiring.

Bless my Heart this is a truly different take on southern food. Being form southern Californian and raised Italian and married into a Mexican family. I have found myself enjoying many different types of food. But I do not care how you make it and in this book spicy I just can’t eat collards. Other than that this is a fabulous book. The pictures are good and there are stories that go along with the chapters. The spicy slaw recipe is one that I will be trying as well as the grits, I do like grits. I do like the way the author gave many different ways to cook many different items including ramen. This I found to be very helpful since my daughter has been getting into wanting to make this at home. Each chapter is well thought out and the directions for each recipe is easy to follow. A very good book. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 4 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com

Oh, this is a gorgeous and inspiring cookbook!

Todd Richards takes soul food - with all its comfort and heartiness and adds refined and international touches that make it even more wonderful. Yet, each dish still retains everything that makes it comforting and homey.

The book is separated by star ingredients - whether it's onions or collard greens or tomatoes, etc. And these recipes make these ingredients sing!

My favorite recipe so far is the one for stuffed onions - something I would have sworn to you I wouldn't eat. But just reading the recipe made me hungry - and the end result was divine (especially served with the cornbread)!

There's hardly a recipe I didn't want to try in this book - and each recipe is easy to follow and read and comes with glorious pictures.

I love to cook and I really love to eat and so I am always on the lookout for new and exciting food ideas. This book was filled with so many beautiful pictures that my mouth was watering. The recipes are a combination of a "traditional" take on southern soul food and then Chef Richards spins your head with all the new ways to make them. I never, ever, ever would have considered using collard greens in ramen or on a sandwich. This is just one small example of how amazing this book was. I also loved that the recipes were not over complicated and rarely required ingredients I couldn't find locally. This is a solid 4 stars for me ( because I wish there had been even more lol).

Thank you NetGalley and Time Inc Books for the chance to review this.

From Netgalley for review:

This book is a beautiful celebration of Soul food, taking the familiar ingredients and tastes and giving them a new and exciting look! There are a lot of books out there on food from the south, being southern I have read a bunch of them, but few of them feel like a celebration of the culture and history that created this style of food, and I really appreciated that. Reading this book I felt as though I was transported back in time and a thousand miles to Atlanta where I grew up! It is beautiful and the recipes are clear and concise, I definitely recommend for anyone who has an interest in soul food.

I saw this book and wanted it soooo badly but stopped myself from buying it. The next day, I went back to the store and just HAD to have it. First of all, the photography is INCREDIBLE. It made me want to plate and style all of my favorite home-cooked classics, to elevate them like this book did.

The recipes are stunning. I’ve never been so inspired to try so many new things, namely meat cuts and animal parts I never think of buying. I was also so impressed with how many ways the chef uses “scraps” (the stuff is normally toss to my pet rabbit) like collard green stems and watermelon rinds. The creativity is incredible.

I made the collard green pesto for New Years Eve, served on tiny toast crackers with caviar for good luck. It was a gorgeous shade of green and had a wonderful nutty, garlic flavor.

Gorgeous cookbook with easy to understand recipe instruction, gorgeous photos, and the best stories about the recipes. I pulled a few of the recipes to try on family - I also learned some important recipe techniques I didn’t know. I totally enjoyed.

One of the best cookbooks I've read in years. Very sophisticated, but with elevated humble southern ingredients. Loved the wine pairings with every dish, the suggested sides with every dish, and the thoughtful and fun playlists for parties. This one stays on my shelf.

This cookbook is fabulous. I love the turnip with candied bacon hash, and his beans from scratch are delicious, I will never go bacon to another way of making dried beans. Thank you for bringing an excitement back to cooking again I love this.

Oh my!

i thought this was great and i've cooked a number of the recipes especially collard greens and they're yum!

The organization threw me a lot. Great photos and progression of recipes. Enjoyed the authors voice through his writing.

Over 150 recipes of 100% pure American deliciousness! Every single one of these recipes produces food that is far fancier than anything I could ever think of, yet it is also familiar, delicious-sounding Americana. Basically, not so fancy that a hillbilly like me would be frightened away by it. Mmmm fried catfish. (Catfish is amazing, by the way, if you've never had it before, definitely try it). Also: corn everything. Mmmm.

It comes with a bonus soundtrack, too!

I really enjoyed "SOUL". It was obvious -- even from the photos (beautiful!) -- that this is a deeply loved subject for the author. Historical descriptions of food (I didn't know collards were originally grown in the Americas), food facts, inclusion of songs playing on the radio of the time, (recipes + music!!! right up my alley), recipes I'd never heard of (sausage-stuffed onions), I could go on, and on! This is a great resource book to have on your shelf or give as a present.

Soul is such a beautiful cookbook! The gorgeous pictures make me think of meals on my Nana’s farm. I really enjoyed the author’s approach in this book; it’s sectioned off by ingredients. There are definitely whole meal suggestions complete with drink pairing for every recipe, but you can see his evolution of thought with the chapters broken down this way. He starts each section with a more traditional soul food recipe, but then he takes those flavors or techniques and mixes them up for fresh, innovative new recipes. I really appreciate the abundance of recipes for each ingredient without the food getting boring. I can’t wait to try some of these new ideas as each ingredient comes in season. Several recipes seem pretty time consuming, so if that’s not your thing then this might not be the book for you. Living in the South allows me access to most of the ingredients called for, but people from other regions may struggle to find some ingredients.
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3.5 ⭐️ for this beautifully curated book of Soul food.
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Thanks to the publishers through NetGalley for the eARC

I received a DIGITAL Advance Reader Copy of this book from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. An immersive feast for the eyes, ears, stomach, and SOUL. Food history, playlists, stunning photos, mouthwatering recipes--this book has it all.

This is a stunning book, with Restaurant Quality Recipes. Only challenge might be that many of the ingredients look hard to come by, but if you're looking to make "fancy food" or a meal for a special occasion, this might just be your book! Recipes are rich and flavorsome, so may not be a hit with kids.
Would be a great gift for a couple, or gourmand.

SOUL by Todd Richards is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in early June.

Beautiful, fresh, veritas photography and recipes based around 13 different core ingredients (roots, collards, and seafood, to name a few). Even more adaptability is suggested through thematic menus (with dishes pulled from different chapters) and even a mood-based musical playlist.Some of my favorite recipes include collard green ramen (as featured on the cover), collard waffles, strawberry-rum coolers, blueberry fried pies with Meyer lemon glaze, creamed farro, salmon croquettes with grits croutons and chive aioli, hoecakes, shrimp hot-chicken style, zucchini bread, silky soft eggs and sage sausage on a biscuit, fried chicken and sweet potato waffles, okra andouille and crab fritters, pickled beet chutney, and potato-crusted flounder.

I have been waiting for an ARC of this beautiful cookbook.

Soul is a glorious experience. I'm a Northerner born in Tennessee. One of the first things you learn is how to clean greens, shuck corn, and shell peas. While flipping through the pages of this book, I was seriously transported back to my childhood spending time at my Grandma's.

What I loved about the book? The composition of the chapters by specific foods - - collard greens, corn, etc. was refreshing. You can concentrate on a core food and plan around that. So great for those seasonal ingredients. Buy once and cook in several ways. Mr. Richards has menu planning pages with On The Radio song recommendations. If you love to cook with your friends and family, you know that music and cooking are a perfect pair. But, my favorite aspect of the book - - beautiful muted pictures throughout the book. You can almost feel the heat and humidity. Smell the fried fish cooking. And I'm going to try the genius idea of including popped corn in my hot water cornbread!!!

What I didn't love? Well, sorry Chef but no one needs Collard Waffles with Brined Trout and Maple Hot Sauce. Creative, absolutely! Appetizing, not for me!

So, what I love most is when the book didn't stray too far from recipes - - flavor combinations that I recall and love. And guess what, wonderful recipes with valuable history lessons thrown in.

I would highly recommend this book!

This book had me thinking of all the food parts I’ve wasted so many times because I thought they were not usable. A nice perusal through this book will get you to rethink the part you will have a tendency to waste and there will be no turning into compost either! Your creativity will definitely increase.

I voluntarily reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book however the thoughts expressed in this review are my own.

A delicious collection of a huge assortment of 150 mouthwatering southern soulful recipes that the author perfectly paired with playlists, wine, and even beer. The photos had me craving all sorts of foods that normally don't excite me, and I loved that about this book. I loved that it opened my eyes ( and stomach) to new food pairings. I can see this book being extremely popular in kitchens all over the world.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I truly appreciate it!