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A review by bashsbooks
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks by Crystal Wilkinson
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I reference cookbooks all the time, but I made a decision early on in my reading-tracking journey not to include them. I did this for a few reasons: 1) most of the time, I was only looking at a couple recipes, 2) many cookbooks don't have much in them aside from the recipes, and so 3) if all a cookbook is presenting is recipes, and I'm only making and eating two, what business do I have reviewing the whole book?
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts is a different kind of cookbook. I'm excited to try some of the recipes (corn pudding, I love you), but there's so much more here than that. There's history, genealogy, poetry, and storytelling. It's a real love letter to Wilkinson's ancestors and culture. The manner in which she imagines her foremothers' lives is so vibrant and real that her reminders that she's imagining this are necessary.
This kind of meditation on cooking, family, time, and connection is extremely underrated - Wilkinson's work here is truly elevating the food writing bar.
I think about the stereotype of a long-winded food blogger writing a novel before a recipe, the scrolling through ads, the thinking get to the fucking point. What Wilkinson does differently is she makes it abundantly clear that you can't have the dishes without the stories (and vice versa), and she isn't trying to pad out a nothing-burger for profit. Like her cooking, this book is a labor of love.
Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts is a different kind of cookbook. I'm excited to try some of the recipes (corn pudding, I love you), but there's so much more here than that. There's history, genealogy, poetry, and storytelling. It's a real love letter to Wilkinson's ancestors and culture. The manner in which she imagines her foremothers' lives is so vibrant and real that her reminders that she's imagining this are necessary.
This kind of meditation on cooking, family, time, and connection is extremely underrated - Wilkinson's work here is truly elevating the food writing bar.
I think about the stereotype of a long-winded food blogger writing a novel before a recipe, the scrolling through ads, the thinking get to the fucking point. What Wilkinson does differently is she makes it abundantly clear that you can't have the dishes without the stories (and vice versa), and she isn't trying to pad out a nothing-burger for profit. Like her cooking, this book is a labor of love.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racism, Slavery, Grief
Moderate: Racial slurs, Death of parent, Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Animal death, Child death, Mental illness