A review by jherta
The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South: A James Beard Award Winner by Michael W. Twitty, Michael W. Twitty

5.0

At first I was a little disappointed this book didn’t fit what I thought it would be—a more linear history of Soul/Southern food traced through the roots of slavery. It’s a little bit of that, but it reminds me more of another favorite of mine—On The Road. Both center on a man traveling to discover their personal American Story, and telling that story in a beautifully written steam of consciousness. In this instance a history and culture that has been suppressed for hundreds of years through horrific violence, and its impact on the author’s identity, is reclaimed. It importantly reinforces the idea that the biggest influence on Southern Cuisine was the cooking of enslaved Africans and their descendants. It also contextualizes Soul/Southern food through the lens of violent oppression versus the fight to survive and retain humanity and culture. From an outsider’s view it seems to serve as a manifesto for African Americans to be empowered to tell their own stories and make speaking directly to their communities the priority—and only incidentally to those in privilege such as myself. As a Southerner and an American I know these experiences and contributions of a people whose stories, cultures, and bodies have been historically suppressed/oppressed, is a vital and important history to tell.