For soul food devotees, it all boils down to flavor. Lots and lots of flavor. It is a Southern-derived flavor that blacks migrating to the north brought with them in the early part of the last century. Hall, whose parents hailed from Arkansas, has strived hard replicating the exact taste he recalls sampling in his mother’s cooking. “My mother was an excellent cook. Down through the years I have tried to get the taste and the flavor that my mother had, and I have found it some,” he said. “I use the stock from smoked meat (ham hocks, etc.) for seasoning greens and beans. I add salt, pepper and garlic powder. I slow cook those greens and beans in that broth, simmering them for hours. That’s one of the primary methods to get that soul food flavor we remember from down south. That’s the essence of it.”