Take a photo of a barcode or cover
538 reviews for:
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South
Michael W. Twitty
4.12 AVERAGE
538 reviews for:
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old South
Michael W. Twitty
4.12 AVERAGE
Michael W. Twitty does just what his title mentions; he takes the reader on a journey. Twitty intertwines his genealogical heritage that has been meticulously researched and backed by DNA analysis with the culinary history of the South and follows this history back to Africa. As Twitty unfolds his ancestry, he looks at the staple crops grown on Southern plantations, where those before him worked as enslaved people. He discusses the history of the foods and culinary traditions the enslaved held fast to as they were forced to make a new home in the American South. As he explores these topics, he connects the paths of his ancestors from Africa to the South and imagines how they lived and endured.
Twitty spent years researching his ancestry, visiting plantations and areas along the South where his ancestors lived. Eventually, he would visit England to explore his European heritage and finally to Africa, where he was invited to feast on the foods and dishes that are the foundations of Southern American cuisine. Twitty also briefly looks at the Jewish roots of his family as a comparative analysis of culinary history.
Michael W. Twitty is a chef and culinary historian exploring his heritage to the very foods he grew up on. These foods are the inspiration and basis of his unique style of cooking. I'm looking forward to reading his latest book, which explores in-depth his Jewish roots and their influence on his culinary journey.
Twitty spent years researching his ancestry, visiting plantations and areas along the South where his ancestors lived. Eventually, he would visit England to explore his European heritage and finally to Africa, where he was invited to feast on the foods and dishes that are the foundations of Southern American cuisine. Twitty also briefly looks at the Jewish roots of his family as a comparative analysis of culinary history.
Michael W. Twitty is a chef and culinary historian exploring his heritage to the very foods he grew up on. These foods are the inspiration and basis of his unique style of cooking. I'm looking forward to reading his latest book, which explores in-depth his Jewish roots and their influence on his culinary journey.
Absolutely fascinating, but far too long and rambling to hold my attention. Should have been like a documentary or show instead of a book.... or had 50% fewer pages.
A search for self told through a lens of food, American history, geography, and race.
Given that it is called The Cooking Gene, it didn’t occur to me that it was about genealogy. In the beginning it was a little hard to get through, keeping all the names straight given that ancestors double every generation. I’m not more than generally familiar with the south & with Africa, so I learned a lot about the foods & cultures which I’m really happy about.
I struggled to get into it and ended up not finishing it...
3.75. I loved the intro and the final chapter soooo much. Very beautifully written. The bulk of this was at parts fascinating and lovely to see his enthusiasm for the food of his ancestors and finding out who is ancestors were (for good or bad); and other parts a bit tedious and got bogged down by the genealogy. I think going into this, if I would have known it was so much more memoir than a straight culinary history of African American food, then I might have been prepared for that. Overall, I would recommend this though. And here's a paragraph that I really loved from the conclusion:
"We have to this strange cultural moment where food is both tool and weapon. I am grateful for it. My entire life I knew, and many others knew, that our daily bread was itself a kind of scripture of our origins, a taste track of our lives. It is a lie that food is just fuel. It has always had layers of meaning, and humans for the most part despise meaningless food. In America, and especially the American South, "race" endures alongside the sociopolitics of food; it is not a stretch to say that race is both on and at the Southern table. But if it is on the table alone we have learned nothing; we continue to reduce each other to stereotypical essences."
"We have to this strange cultural moment where food is both tool and weapon. I am grateful for it. My entire life I knew, and many others knew, that our daily bread was itself a kind of scripture of our origins, a taste track of our lives. It is a lie that food is just fuel. It has always had layers of meaning, and humans for the most part despise meaningless food. In America, and especially the American South, "race" endures alongside the sociopolitics of food; it is not a stretch to say that race is both on and at the Southern table. But if it is on the table alone we have learned nothing; we continue to reduce each other to stereotypical essences."
adventurous
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Super informative and super interesting, I learned a lot! But I was at a severe disadvantage from reading it on Kindle - couldn't flip back to the family tree to follow what he was saying. Also it was quite dense.