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vishnu_'s review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
milo10000's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.5
This book alternatively feels beautifully flowing, well written, and moving, and too long and stale. Overall I greatly enjoyed it, and I'm planning on making some of the recipes that Twitty includes.
When this book was recommended to me it was as a culinary history book, and it is that, but it's also much more. Twitty's journey to find himself through his ancestors is universally touching, and the memoirist's lens he uses to do so makes it that much more personal. The parts I thought got a bit dry mostly involved his genetic testing, which is explored at great length with (it seemed to me) varying levels of zeal.
This book and journey is an accomplishment regardless.
When this book was recommended to me it was as a culinary history book, and it is that, but it's also much more. Twitty's journey to find himself through his ancestors is universally touching, and the memoirist's lens he uses to do so makes it that much more personal. The parts I thought got a bit dry mostly involved his genetic testing, which is explored at great length with (it seemed to me) varying levels of zeal.
This book and journey is an accomplishment regardless.
kevinsmokler's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
jmrprice's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating. I grew up in SC and although I am not a black man, so much of what Twitty shares sounds like scenes from my own gatherings...
Last chapter seemed abrupt. Overall an entirely engrossing read.
Last chapter seemed abrupt. Overall an entirely engrossing read.
cecile87's review against another edition
4.0
DNF. I appreciate this book very much. But I didn’t have the patience to get through to the end. This is a college semester-type book—at least for me. Very dense.
Not an easy read. I got used to his prose, but this book is much more than food history. Food and cooking methods, as we know, are reflective of culture and survival.
The commentary on enslavement, the lost family lines many Blacks have had to accept, the craziness of white denial, the smugness of the whites who work for and visit plantation museums (the history they miss or just get wrong), requires patient reading. The snippets that reflect the casual cruelty, the dark exploitation that is reflective in many of our gene pools. There’s the theft of recipes that made famous food writers famous but originated in the plantation quarters of the enslaved. Wondrous dishes made from the scraps allowed by the commodifiers. The savagery of people from the white tribe that continues to this day—brought me to tears. That we may actually be genetically linked to those who find us expendable is ironic.
I had to read in small doses. It is a lot of book from a very bright, wordy and reflective person. It would have been a better experience for me had he put the different themes in their own sections of the book rather than mash them all together.
Not an easy read. I got used to his prose, but this book is much more than food history. Food and cooking methods, as we know, are reflective of culture and survival.
The commentary on enslavement, the lost family lines many Blacks have had to accept, the craziness of white denial, the smugness of the whites who work for and visit plantation museums (the history they miss or just get wrong), requires patient reading. The snippets that reflect the casual cruelty, the dark exploitation that is reflective in many of our gene pools. There’s the theft of recipes that made famous food writers famous but originated in the plantation quarters of the enslaved. Wondrous dishes made from the scraps allowed by the commodifiers. The savagery of people from the white tribe that continues to this day—brought me to tears. That we may actually be genetically linked to those who find us expendable is ironic.
I had to read in small doses. It is a lot of book from a very bright, wordy and reflective person. It would have been a better experience for me had he put the different themes in their own sections of the book rather than mash them all together.
chris_allen's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
daumari's review against another edition
5.0
ugh I once again forgot to put in the right edition (and I thought I did, but maybe this was before I deliberately entered ISBN numbers) so my page numbers are off.
anyway, Twitty is a lyrical author, and here he has crafted a gorgeous, personal narrative that feels the weight of historical trauma and a yearning for what was lost due to institutional slavery obscuring names, places, and lineages. This knowledge (and book) is derived from his crowdfunded Southern Discomfort tour, seeking out the old foodways and digging into his own ancestry with genealogists and historians. The family tree in the book goes back generations, but this is the achievement of hard digging, as many slave records merely give first names, if at all as part of the dehumanizing process.
The structure felt rambly, which I initially disliked, but in the author's note at the end, he says if he could've given a linear timeline he would've considered it, but instead the genre-shifting narrative that revealed itself to him as he learned about the ancestors is what he arrived at, and it makes the story all the more stronger. At the end of most chapters are relevant recipes, though once again I did not try to cook any of them.
Between genealogists and a DNA test, Twitty finds he's about a quarter Caucasian, and there are several points in his great^3+ grandparent line where forcible assault introduced white men into his family tree, and this is explored through visiting both the Bellamy plantation and a few weeks in Ireland/England (though for the latter, he finds more familiar culinary DNA between the foodstuffs of west Africa to the South than England).
I initially started reading this last spring, but had to return it. I resumed at the beginning of 2019 when a library hold came back. Might reread earlier chapters too.
anyway, Twitty is a lyrical author, and here he has crafted a gorgeous, personal narrative that feels the weight of historical trauma and a yearning for what was lost due to institutional slavery obscuring names, places, and lineages. This knowledge (and book) is derived from his crowdfunded Southern Discomfort tour, seeking out the old foodways and digging into his own ancestry with genealogists and historians. The family tree in the book goes back generations, but this is the achievement of hard digging, as many slave records merely give first names, if at all as part of the dehumanizing process.
The structure felt rambly, which I initially disliked, but in the author's note at the end, he says if he could've given a linear timeline he would've considered it, but instead the genre-shifting narrative that revealed itself to him as he learned about the ancestors is what he arrived at, and it makes the story all the more stronger. At the end of most chapters are relevant recipes, though once again I did not try to cook any of them.
Between genealogists and a DNA test, Twitty finds he's about a quarter Caucasian, and there are several points in his great^3+ grandparent line where forcible assault introduced white men into his family tree, and this is explored through visiting both the Bellamy plantation and a few weeks in Ireland/England (though for the latter, he finds more familiar culinary DNA between the foodstuffs of west Africa to the South than England).
I initially started reading this last spring, but had to return it. I resumed at the beginning of 2019 when a library hold came back. Might reread earlier chapters too.