Retta Cooked It!

Michael Twitty, renowned author of the 2018 winner of the James Beard Award for Best Food Writing and Book of the Year, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South examines the foodways that form the foundation for how we eat and how we define food. He shares his passion with those curious about the origins of southern food with honesty and in context. Mr. Twitty’s body of work and his book, The Cooking Gene, is about more than food though, his book is also a memoir, a celebration of his ancestral roots and his craft; he is a chef and culinary historian, that intrigued me.

Mr. Twitty is a recent discovery for me. I am fascinated by his work and his contribution to the world to help tell a more complete, historically accurate and unvarnished story of southern American cuisine and our own history.  Twitty lives his passion in old southern plantation kitchens and over hearths in slave quarters. He embraces the history of our ancestors as enslaved people that introduced new foods and cooking methods from Africa that were as elemental to their survival as it was to the evolution of southern cooking. He takes us through time from regions in Africa to the shores of a new land, through the southern antebellum slavery era and translates it in way that can be better understood and more deeply appreciated.

One of the things I love about this brother is he is unafraid to tell truths many are uncomfortable hearing. He deconstructs a lot of protective myths that have wound their way through centuries. Twitty unapologetically blows holes through common misunderstandings that have warped our past and aided in the misappropriation of traditions and twists facts that minimize the contributions of black people to American history in general and southern cuisine in particular.

During one of Mr. Twitty’ talks he recounted a cringe inducing experience he had on a plantation tour. The guide, a Daughter of the Revolution, throughout most the tour couldn’t be bothered to mention the engine that kept that plantation humming – slaves – until she was challenged. Only then did she begrudgingly mention slavery and in doing so, used that well worn brush that is commonly used to whitwash silly little things like history. She magically transformed slaves into servants it seems, without missing a beat and even then made only a passing reference.

During this one month, the shortest one too, I might add (I’m just sayin’) out of an entire year where we openly celebrate our heritage, it’s important to realize that it’s the Michael Twittys and others that remind us of the important unassailable fact that.while we have come a long way despite the minimizing of our contributions, we aren’t “there yet”.

The Cooking Gene can be purchased on Amazon.com. I am not receiving any compensation from the author or Amazon.