Cooking Mama’s Fried Chicken And Skillet Cornbread

What are candied yams and skillet cornbread in soul food cooking?

Candied yams are sweet potatoes baked with butter, brown sugar, and sometimes marshmallows on top. They’re one of the iconic dishes of soul food, the Black American cuisine that grew out of the rural South: the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi. Like much of soul food, candied yams trace back to enslaved cooks who turned limited ingredients into rich celebration food.

Today they show up at Sunday dinners, family reunions, Thanksgiving, and Christmas in Black American households across the country. This clip is a casual home-cooking scene where the cook says “canny yams,” a typical AAVE pronunciation of the dish. Knowing the food vocabulary unlocks Black American food YouTube and family content.