A review by pattydsf
Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking: A Cookbook by Toni Tipton-Martin

4.0

”As I knelt on the cool hardwood floor in my home office, surrounded by books that span nearly two hundred years of black cooking, I realized my ancestors had left us a very special gift: a gift of freedom, culinary freedom.”

“In Jublilee, I have tried to honor the kind of joyous cooking that would have turned yesterday’s enslaved and free cooks into today’s celebrity chefs with glittering reputations grounded in restaurant fare and cookbook publishing.”


Tipton-Martin pulled out all the stops when she assembled this cookbook. It is beautiful, the recipes are interesting, and the history lessons are amazing. I learned so much about American cookery history and the role of African-American cooks in that story. Not only did many of the recipes come with a story, but periodically Tipton-Martin included an actual older recipe. We have become accustomed to a standardized recipe format, but that is fairly new. Some of the older recipes made me wonder how anyone could cook well from such scant instruction.

I am so impressed that Tipton-Martin was able to uncover so much valuable information. She says that she looked everywhere for cookbooks by African-Americans and I believe it. In each section of this book, Tipton-Martin quotes from a variety of cooks and chefs.

If you enjoy cookbooks, I highly recommend this one.