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felicitygs[goodreads link]
This is probably one of the most important books I've read recently, and also, by nature of the subject, one of the hardest. Just reading the title should make it clear that this is ultimately a book deeply involved in the American slave trade--its history and its impact on Southern food culture.
I'm also not entirely sure how to write this particular review. I'm white, to start off, so even while reading this I've been wrestling with what to say and how to say it. Michael Twitty is also a professional, has done way more research than I've ever ever considered doing in my entire life, and this book is as much a semi-family biography as it is a history of African American food.
But he loves food. He loves Southern food, and food history, and the ways and whys and hows our shared food culture came to be, and I can understand that. So, to start, foremost:
If you have any interest in Southern food (and, thanks to that, African American food), you absolutely need to read this book.
That said, in no particular order, a couple thoughts:
This is probably one of the most important books I've read recently, and also, by nature of the subject, one of the hardest. Just reading the title should make it clear that this is ultimately a book deeply involved in the American slave trade--its history and its impact on Southern food culture.
I'm also not entirely sure how to write this particular review. I'm white, to start off, so even while reading this I've been wrestling with what to say and how to say it. Michael Twitty is also a professional, has done way more research than I've ever ever considered doing in my entire life, and this book is as much a semi-family biography as it is a history of African American food.
But he loves food. He loves Southern food, and food history, and the ways and whys and hows our shared food culture came to be, and I can understand that. So, to start, foremost:
If you have any interest in Southern food (and, thanks to that, African American food), you absolutely need to read this book.
That said, in no particular order, a couple thoughts:
- This book is emotionally draining. There are spots that it was a slog to push through, not because the material is boring, but because Twitty goes to such pains to make clear the sheer scale of just what was going on in the American slave trade, and how that affected people.
- I love how he talks about his family, and I love the glimpses of them throughout the narrative, such that it is.
- Sometimes those list of who is connected to who get hard to follow. A chart would have been nice to refer to; I suppose I should have made my own as I went.
- All the people he talks to in this search, both culinarily and genetically, are delights.
- The US education system does the worst fucking job of really conveying just how broad and deep and systemic and large American slavery was.
- Food is good
I found Twitty's prose hard to follow in places; he puts some clauses and things in a different order than I'm used to, and I have no idea how much of that is just colloquialism and a byproduct of how he speaks, and how much of it is my absence from the USA for so long and how much is just plain difficult to understand writing. It's never unreadable--I just had to retrack sentences often enough that it stuck out to me while reading. But that's not a knock, and don't for a second think that means I don't still whole-heartedly believe this is a very piece of work that should be read by anyone with any love for Southern food. It's important work, and important research, and I cannot imagine just how difficult it was for him to write--both from a research standpoint, and an emotional one.
Anyway, go read this book.