Iona’s Cafe & Grill is one of Springfield’s most popular eateries. Located at 439 Main St., Indian Orchard.
Now Serving Breakfast, Lunch, and Soul Food in Indian Orchard… Again
Soul food is a variety of cuisines originating in the Southeastern United States. It is common in areas with a history of slave-based plantations and has maintained popularity among the Black American and American Deep-South “cotton state” communities for centuries.
Iona’s is owned and operated by Kelly Dobbins. Known for delicious southern-style breakfasts typically found somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line, Dobbins is from Springfield MA.
A Culinary School graduate, he learned a great deal during his studies, yet, he operates in the shadow of his beloved grandmother. Each recipe served, is a reminder of days spent in hot kitchens with Grandma.
The expression “soul food” may have originated in the mid-1960s, when “soul” was a common word used to describe Black American culture.
Iona was my late grandmother, Dobbins shares. “She passed away in 1997,” Dobbins explains that Ms. Iona had a huge impact on his life. He says, I would go spend every weekend with her and my grandfather, and when she transitioned on, her death took a part of my life from me.
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So what I decided as I worked to develop my business was that I would name my restaurant after her as a way of paying homage to her. So I can always you know that she will continue to be a part of people’s lives.
Kelly reminisces on the many times that she would tell him, Mr. Kelly, Don’t let anybody ever tell you can’t do anything. You know what? She was right! So here we are.
Kelly says he still uses a few of her recipes, like when he does his catering jobs. An example is his bread pudding. That’s her recipe. He wishes he could have gotten a hold of more of her recipes though. Says he seriously tried searching for them, but, he doesn’t think that she wrote her recipes down. She was old school, her recipes were in her head.
The actual origins of soul food trace all the way back to slavery. A large amount of the foods integral to the cuisine originate from the limited rations given to slaves by their planters and masters. Slaves were typically given a peck of cornmeal and 3-4 pounds of pork per week, and from those rations came soul food staples such as cornbread, fried catfish, BBQ ribs, chitterlings, and neckbones.
Enslaved Africans needed to eat foods with high amounts of calories to balance out spending long days working in the fields. This led to time-honored soul food traditions like frying foods, breading meats and fish with cornmeal, and mixing meats with vegetables (i.e. putting pork in collard greens). Eventually, this plantation-invented style of cooking started to get adopted into larger Southern culture, as slave owners gave special privileges to slaves with cooking skills.
Asked what the most popular dish is at Iona’s always smile Kelly responds, Fish and Grits are what the people seem to love most. The smothered chicken on Wednesdays coming in second.
Kelly, forever involved in the community he services also opens his doors to area politicians for meet and greets. He says political and community involvement is very important to him, and thus works hard to ensure that neighborhood residents know that his doors are open for more than just food. Kelly says involvement personal to him because growing up they didn’t have much, so he is trying to give back to the community and making things better for those coming behind him.
Because it was illegal in many states for slaves to learn to read or write, soul food recipes and cooking techniques tended to be passed along orally, until after emancipation. The first soul food cookbook is attributed to Abby Fisher, entitled What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, and published in 1881. Good Things to Eat was published in 1911; the author, Rufus Estes, was a former slave who worked for the Pullman railway car service. Many other cookbooks were written by Black Americans during that time, but as they were not widely distributed, most are now lost.
Time and distance may have caused African Americans to lose many of the recipes from the old way, but at places like Iona’s… the vibrant scent of yesteryear still lingers on.
If I could have one more day to enjoy gramma’s biscuits and syrup… fried corn and fried chicken… with a simple glass of sugar water, I’d change my life, and write books and stories of how God himself or herself came to dinner to dine on gramma’s food. Some scents and tastes were created to be remembered.
