Book excerpt: The smells in the kitchen, the unforgettable flavors—these powerful memories of food, family, and tradition are intertwined and have traveled down from generations past to help make us the people we are today. Soul food is just as wide-ranging and satisfying as soul music. Tavis Smiley’s America I AM four-year traveling museum exhibit and New York Times bestseller Chef Jeff Henderson have joined forces to create the America I AM Pass It Down Cookbook to honor and preserve African Americans collective family food histories and legacies. Over 100, soul-filled and soul-inspired family recipes collected from contributors’ across the country, are featured. Each contribution demonstrates how powerful recollections of food, family and tradition have traveled down to us from generations past to help make us the people we are today. Indeed, history lives at the kitchen table. "What better way to showcase America’s diverse and delicious traditions than through the unifying power of food," says Smiley. Each cookbook contributor submitted a favorite family recipe and a brief accompanying family food imprint story reflecting on the significance of the dish. What makes this cookbook special is that everyone has a favorite family food memory to share—whether it was grandma’s peach cobbler, Aunt Sarah’s collard green soufflé or Cousin Dan’s barbecued beef ribs. Recipes range from traditional southern cooking to the new soulful recipes of twenty-first century cooks. Under the editorial direction of Chef Jeff Henderson, the America I AM Pass It Down Cookbook becomes a prized possession for fans of soulful cooking from the heart.