The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South

I have anticipated getting the opportunity to read "The Cooking Gene" for some time as I have followed his work at his Afroculinaria blog and have coworkers and students who have spoken highly of him after attending lectures and meals. It surpassed my expectations and I feel it is one of the most important books to be published this year. It will be a resource, reference and guidebook for classrooms, churches, workshops, and families.This is not a recipe book as you know it. Recipes are sprinkled within, often at the ends of chapters as a highlight for the topic within. I found it nearly impossible to read without wanting food and drink at hand. It is at once an impeccably researched and perfectly executed ethnography of the cuisine of the U.S. South, and compelling, deeply personal, spiritual discovery of his own place as an African American gay Jewish culinary historian embedded within the inescapable trauma of chattel slavery and settler colonial violence."The Cooking Gene" is a family bible that contains the plants and animals, of songs and recipes of Twitty's ancestors, a personal origin story of the foods he hated as a child and has dedicated his life to understand as an adult. The DNA of food within landscape and heartbreak, poverty and resistance is present on each page. It is about race, and it is not. It is compassionate and critical, transcending boundaries while drawing them firmly. It is a book of education, a contemplative account of countless evils that traces a possible path toward redemption from the "second original sin" that lies at the founding of the United States, sins that perpetuate and live in the headlines and protests, the White House and the streets of Charlottesville and Ferguson, Chicago and Detroit, L.A. and Portland.Much of this book impressed me as a professional public historical archaeologist and educator who worked for some time in the National Parks system. I felt many moments of recognition and familiarity in parts about the archaeology of slave cabins, and how his own personal experiences brings a meaning I can never experience when uncovering a sprinkle of seeds in the packed earthen floor of a dwelling. His position as informant and expert brings necessary critique to the work that white academics do--anthropology, history, and museums are as embedded in whiteness and colonization as much as any other institution, and does much of the work to keep marginalized people marginalized, the past silent and dead rather than in the hands of the people who own it.I had to read this book twice, because I devoured it like a beignet the first time, knowing that I would need a second bite to really taste it. I will likely take more as I make room to digest what I have eaten so far. My own personal ties to the South lie in a complicated and obscure diaspora from various migrations from the Scotland, Bavaria, Cornwall and London to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Rhode Island and then North Carolina, then west through Missouri, Ohio, to Utah, then Eastern Oregon where I was born. "The Cooking Gene" spoke to these in a way I did not expect.In each chapter, there were details that finally provided sense of discordant and messy family gatherings in Eastern Oregon. My own career in historical archaeology of colonial west was born of my need to understand the causes of the endless arguments and traumas that divided my family along religious, political, and racial lines, and my community upon lines of religion, class, race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and political ideology. Much like this nation itself, my family were wedded only by accident of birth and the Southern recipes from my grandmother's kitchen.My mother attributed these recipes to her mother's strategy in the Depression in rural Utah by cooking such meals for her family and sold them to the community of miners in their tiny home--a former chicken coop on Paiute lands. For her, they were both guilty pleasure and secret shame, associated with the taint of poverty and rumors of her mother's mixed Paiute, German, English, Scottish, and Cherokee lineages. Grandma spoke Paiute, and was claimed by her people there. Yet her written genealogy reveals only hints at some of these details.From "The Cooking Gene" I now know more about how the foods and traditions that united us as family were rooted in a carefully cultivated landscape of power, enslavement, genocide and survival that is the South. I have never planned to pursue DNA testing, but now I feel compelled to follow Michael's journey to understand these mysteries.Every reader, regardless their race or disparate identities, will make a connection to their ancestors and their experiences within this book. Twitty brings us Southerners--even those removed for generations like me--gratitude and a redeeming hope for a nation that has never been united though we are mishpocheh.

Thank you for this amazing memoir and dissertation. The Cooking Gene is a work of art.I normally take notes when reading a book of non-fiction so that I may save the best lines and information for later reflections. I had to stop taking notes in the first chapter of The Cooking Gene because I was on pace to rewrite the entire book by hand! Not only is every page rife with information I didn’t know, but from presenting our world through the unique lens of Mr. Twitty’s experience, I was able to retool much of my own conclusions with a stronger foundation. This book is a treasure chest of knowledge, well crafted thought, and unique understanding, that in reading, I feel a mixture of advancement in truth and revelation of a humanity that spans multiple generations.All told, The Cooking Gene is an All-American story about simply being an American through experience, culture, and of course, food. This is a story that we all know, even if our awareness arises from memories resonating as Mr. Twitty’s words strum harmonic truths that echo in our subconscious. Mr. Twitty’s story is genuine, but it reflects my own life and I am certain that we all can relate in our unique way because The Cooking Gene is certainly an American story. While the symbolism for the red, white, and blue colors is already established, the rich chroma of the gold thread sewn in our flag should represent the amazing people who hold all the pieces together. Let’s reserve a stitch for Mr. Twitty and all that he has done and continues to do everyday to join our present with our past.Prospective reader: Don’t hesitate to purchase The Cooking Gene.Mr. Twitty: Please do not wait 40 years to write the next volume. We need your perspective on a periodic basis.

I preordered "The Cooking Gene" months ago and eagerly awaited its arrival. My own hype was immediately satisfied as I turned to the first page. I quickly became engrossed by Michael Twitty's wonderful, inviting storytelling. This is the story not only of his ancestors and how they came to shape who he is, but of the food that is so familiar (or so it would seem) to so many of us which they bequeathed.I first heard Michael Twitty's name about two years ago. There was an article about him in some publication (I forget which), and I was intrigued by his story- a black, gay, Jewish culinary historian who grew up not far from where I did, who was rediscovering and publicizing how "southern" cooking's roots lay in the foodways of Africa and the story of people bringing those foodways with them as they traveled (whether forcibly or voluntarily). It was such an intriguing idea to me and one that I looked forward to exploring. As a Jewish educator myself (like Twitty), in addition to reading about the food he knows and the history he has researched, I was very interested in reading about how he reconciles the many parts that make up his heritage. I was not disappointed, in the least, on any of those counts.The book's sensory imagery stuck with me, and helped to bring Twitty's story alive. Reading about how tobacco is harvested, or how rice is planted, or how he spent a whole day picking cotton, one can't help but feel achy and tired. Twitty's gift is that he, quite literally, knows from whence he speaks. It's one thing to know where our food comes from; it's quite another to prepare it with period utensils and crockery, while wearing period clothing, as he describes. To do that is no small thing, and to write about such experiences is a gift.A must-read for history buffs, foodies, genealogists, and anyone who wants to know how what's on our plates came to be. Bravo.

Probably my fault. I was expecting a cookbook with some biographical info in it. What I got was a biography with a few recipes.

This is not a cookbook although it does have some recipes you'll be happy to try -- it's a history of America told through descriptions of landscape, first person testimony, family history, imagination, and food. Twitty shows the world through his eyes, and in the process he makes clear how global, national, and even geographic forces can be understood from a particularly personal perspective. This book made me laugh, cry, and think. I've been lending it to friends, buying copies as gifts. If I had the power to make every American living in the south read this book -- and, yes, I mean EVERYONE -- I would. Canadians who want to understand American race relations will find this book a perfect place to start their self-education. Highly, highly recommended.

I would like to congratulate Michael Twitty to creating an excellent introduction to this topic. I really enjoyed myself in those two afternoons in which I devoured it and it makes me hungry for more. I will definitely be on the look out for follow up books.

I am writing this only because I am shocked there are no UK reviews. I never normally write a review before I finish a book but if I wait until then it will be past Christmas because this book is *dense*. I am a fast reader but every paragraph is so packed with things not just that I didn't know but hadn't thought about (and I've read a lot about African American history over the years). Twitty uses food not just to interest us in his family's and people's past, but as archeological evidence which can be stitched into DNA evidence and records of bills of sale to enhance what we know and how we think about it.

This is a thoughtful book about the creation of real American cooking using all the skills and natural genius that the black slaves possessed. This was one area where their creativity could more freely be expressed. It needs to be recognized and appreciated for what it is, the creation of a truly American cuisine.

Excellent! Entertaining, educational, historical, relevant!