Sylvia’s is a well-known restaurant up in Harlem on Lenox Avenue, started around 1962, lots of tourists drop in for the fried chicken and pork chops and greens and sweet potato pie. Bill Clinton’s probably a regular by now.
A few years back, Sylvia started packaging stuff for the retail market. My local supermarket carries her canned black-eyed peas and pinto beans, bottled sauces, jars of various seasonings, etc. (There’s a website at www.silviassoulfood.com.)
I’ve never bought them, because I’m a make-it-your-own-way type in the kitchen. I’d usually rather stew my own beans with a ham hock and some onions and red pepper, or make a barbecue sauce from scratch, than pay a premium price to get readymades.
I stopped short in the spice section the other day, though. I’m a sucker for premixed seasonings…I keep Tony Chachere’s Creole mix on the shelf, a good Greek Seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic, oregano, marjoram, dried lemon peel), things like that. And I will buy nearly ANYTHING that purports to be “Soul Seasoning.”
Well, Sylvia’s got one. I was on a budget that day, but I’m thinking about grabbing a jar next time I’m in there, for use in cornbread, fried chicken or chops or fish, Southern type cooking in general.
Has anyone tried this stuff? Is it yummy? Or should I save the three bucks and mix my own salt and red pepper and celery seed and paprika and garlic and onion and whatever and put it in an unmarked bottle and call it “Ukulele Ike’s Own Down Home Back Country Soulful Spice” ?