The cooking gene : a journey through African American culinary history in the Old South / Michael W. Twitty.

  • Twitty, Michael W., 1977-
Date:
[2017]
  • Books

About this work

Description

"Culinary historian Michael W. Twitty brings a fresh perspective to our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry--both black and white--through food, from Africa to America and from slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touchpoints in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. Twitty travels from the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields to tell of the struggles his family faced and how food enabled his ancestors' survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and visits Civil War battlefields in Virginia, synagogues in Alabama, and black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the South's past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep--the power of food to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together"--From jacket.

Publication/Creation

New York, NY : Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2017]

Physical description

xvii, 443 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : colour illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition

First edition.

Bibliographic information

Includes bibliographical references (pages 423-437).

Contents

Preface: The Old South --Chapter I. No more whistling walk for me -- Chapter 2. Hating my soul -- Chapter 3. Mise en place -- Chapter 4. Mishpocheh -- Chapter 5. Missing pieces -- Chapter 6. No nigger blood -- Chapter 7. "White man in the woodpile" - Chapter 8. 0.01 percent --Chapter 9. Sweet tooth -- Chapter 10. Mothers of slaves --Chapter 11. Alma mater --Chapter 12. Chesapeake gold -- Chapter 13. The Queen -- Chapter 14. Adam in the garden -- Chapter 15. Shake dem 'simmons down -- Chapter 16. All creatures of our G-d and king -- Chapter 17. The Devil's half acre --Chapter 18. "The King's cuisine" -- Chapter 19. Crossroads -- Chapter 20. The old country -- Chapter 21. Sankofa -- Author's Note -- Selected Bibliography -- Acknowledgments.

Type/Technique

Languages

Where to find it

  • LocationStatus
    History of Medicine
    DFXN.65
    Open shelves

Permanent link

Identifiers

ISBN

  • 9780062379290
  • 0062379291