Washing down your tastings on tap at Soul Slice are brews from Oakland’s Federation Brewery and the Bay Area’s first Black-owned beer company, Hunter’s Point Brewing. “In our house it was made with mackerel,” said Louis “In Kentucky, it was never made with salmon.” The dish is plated with al dente garlic collard greens and roasted sweet potatoes. There’s also a play on salmon croquettes, only this time it’s a catfish croquette, a patty of fresh tender catfish and potato served with “soul sauce,” for a spike of heat. “There are so many ways to use black eyed peas and I think it’s one of the star ingredients of our menu,” Louis said of the dish, which he says is an underutilized day-to-day food beyond the Southern tradition of serving BEPs as a New Year’s day meal. The term “Hoppin’ John” refers to a story in one of the earliest American cookbooks, “ The Carolina Housewife, 1847” in which a man named John “came a-hoppin” when the dish was prepared. Consider the Hoppin’ John, a hearty and vegan dish of pressure-cooked black eyed peas, chives, garlic, onions and Carolina Gold’s rice. Credit: Brandy Collinsīut though Soul Slice’s focus is on “biscuit crust with soul food toppings,” as Lewis puts it, there are also selections on the menu that are presented on their own. Soul Slice’s catfish croquettes with collard greens and soul sauce. There’s even a pizza form of dessert at Soul Slice, a peach cobbler topped with a single large marshmallow, served on that biscuit crust with a dollop of non-dairy ice cream. “It gives more variance … and I try to be inclusive on the menu.” It’s also a nod to his roots in Louisville, Kentucky, where beef hot links are more prevalent. He chose a beef hot link for this particular pie to honor some of his Muslim family members, as well as other folks who eschew pork. “I wanted different expressions of proteins on the menu,” Louis said. The standout element here is the all-beef hot link instead of the pork links one might expect on a traditional soul food menu. Soul Slice’s best seller is its Cajun shrimp pizza, which is topped with Cajun shrimp, beef hot links, tomato, green onion, pickled peppers and tomato sauce. It was captivating to me.” It’s Soul Slice’s second best selling pie, Louis said. “It’s kind of hard to wrap your brain around. “Black eyed peas on a biscuit crust actually taste like meat,” said Louis. Less the alpine cheese, Louis said, the BEP is a vegan pie. The most gutsy pie might be Soul Slice’s black-eyed peas pizza, which contains slightly crunchy but meaty black-eyed peas, the sweetness of sweet potato, and savory roasted garlic, green onion, alpine cheese and (for acidity) tomato sauce. “Our tomato sauce carried all the flavors of the ingredients on the biscuit crust.” If you taste it, it’s a little bit sweet” Louis said. “The tomato sauce is not to mimic the sauce of Italian. And while there are five pies that have a tomato sauce base, Louis says that none of them use oregano or any other Italian seasonings in the flavor profile. The crust contains no butter, is not spun or twirled and doesn’t contain traditional elements of pizza dough, Louis said. The preparation of Soul Slice’s vegan-friendly biscuit crust is one big difference between its offerings and Italian-style pies. It is basically soul food on an open face biscuit with soul food ingredients.” But while Soul Slice uses the word “pizza” on its menu, Louis told Nosh that “We play in the genre of pizza but it is not pizza. For anyone who grew up on traditional soul food, the presentation seems downright sacrilegious. Since then, the restaurant has already gained attention for its menu of unique, biscuit crust “pizzas,” topped with Southern-style foods like black-eyed peas and hot links.ĥ849 San Pablo Ave (at 59th Street), OaklandĪt first glance, Soul Slice’s menu is intimidating and adventurous, a wide selection of traditional soul foods all served in pizza form. After nearly three decades and six brands, Lewis opened his newest venture, Soul Slice, on June 19 in Oakland, a date chosen to honor the Juneteenth holiday and the roots of soul food. “Let’s just change the narrative of soul food,” said Karter Louis, former musician and restaurateur. Donate The black-eyed peas pizza at Soul Slice.
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