The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in… (2017 original; edició 2017)

What a beautiful, emotional, thought-provoking book. Mr. Twitty wrote a work that in an autobiography of himself and his known family, and so much more. It's about genealogy, and the ugliness of slavery, and food--food, being more than sustenance, but a source of stories, history, culture, and soul. This is a read that will linger with me for a very long time. ( )

An awful lot of lists of places, ethnic groups, and foods, but also a narrative of the meaning of food, heritage, and place to a Black man whose conversion to Judaism and his gayness make him often unusual in any group in which he finds himself. Twitty navigates the fact that there are white rapists in his family tree, and that tracing Black genealogy has been difficult because of the erasures of slavery; he uses genetic testing to identify his various lineages and emphasizes its contingent and probabalistic, but still helpful, results. ( )

African American history, anthropology, and food... written by a Black chef and scholar. Lengthy but worth it. ( )

an enlightening exploration of the history of African-American culinary history--and therefore all of American history--and his trips to the Old Country (Ireland!), down to Electric Avenue, and to see the Akan Drum were enlightening, too. ( )

As someone who researches food security and community development, especially the impact in low-income communities of color, I was looking forward to hearing of Twitty's journey. I was not disappointed.

The book, at times, seems to be wandering from theme to theme, sometimes repeating in one chapter what had been covered previously in a prior section. But once I completed the entire work, it became clear that he was taking us, as reader, along the multitude of paths that he himself experienced. His story, like those of so many, is not a linear one. Taken as a whole, it is in the twists and turns the that nuanced story is revealed.

This is truly his individual story, but there are lessons for us all contained in the pages. I learned more about the complex interaction between cultures and cuisine than in anything else I've read in a while. ( )