A review by millibear
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced
If it wasn't clear, this book is framed around Michael Twitty's journey of discovery regarding his family roots so it's more memoir than a back-to-front culinary history. It's a passionately researched book--learned a lot even just from unexplained context (like John de Conqueror root). As a piece of narrative nonfiction, all the attributions are going to be in the end of the book (if you were looking for them during, like I was).

Loved Twitty's specificity where he could be particular research and records permitting. I don't feel like the chapters themselves were tightly structured, but that could partly be to my own confusion early on on how much memoir vs. history text the book was. Overall, I think this accomplished what Twitty set out to do. I'm glad I read it and glad I could read Twitty's search through his histories and his meditations on food as ancestry in the violence of American slavery.
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