South Bend Woman Promotes Vegan Alternatives to Soul Food Staples

SOUTH BEND — This is Jasmine Bradley’s time of the year.

Bradley, 25, likes to cook, and with Christmas among the holidays left on the 2021 calendar, she will be spending much of her time in the kitchen. It’s been that way since she was a little girl observing her mother and grandmother in the kitchen preparing holiday staples such as turkey, dressing, collard greens, and macaroni and cheese.

“My grandmother and my mother, they are the biggest cooks in the family, and even as a kid, I was in the kitchen,” she said. “I wanted to know how did you make something. It smelled so good.”

Bradley said that she wanted to watch, and then she wanted to help — even if that meant nothing more than making a cake from a mix. She wanted to be around the food, and also the sisterhood that developed among the women who made the food.