Three cookbooks that explore Black history, food
Here’s what I’m reading, and cooking from, right now in honor of Black History Month (and because they’re exceptionally good cookbooks):
⏹ “Still We Rise: A Love Letter to the Southern Biscuit With Over 70 Sweet and Sa- vory Recipes” by Erika Council (Clarkson Potter, $26) covers the basics, the extraordinary and every biscuit in between. As owner and chef of Atlanta’s Bomb Biscuit Co., Council knows biscuits. But this book is about more than just making the tallest, fluffiest, tenderest biscuit. It is also a celebration of Black bakers and their culinary contributions. Beyond the 40 biscuit recipes, you’ll find recipes for spreads, jams, butters, sauces, pimento cheese, biscuit sandwiches, bis-cakes (think pancakes), quiche and biscuit bread pudding. Interspersed in the recipes are stories from Council’s childhood, the cooks in her family, the cooks she’s met along the way, and recipe origin stories.
⏹ “Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs and Juice: Cocktails From Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks” by Toni Tipton-Martin (Clarkson Potter, $30) highlights and celebrates the influence and contributions of Black mixologists to the American cocktail canon. In addition, Tipton-Martin explores the complicated history of how various media have portrayed alcohol consumption by Black Americans as something to be feared, judged and degraded — in stark contrast to how white alcohol drinkers were often portrayed as elegant. As Tipton-Martin writes in the introduction, “‘Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs and Juice’ picks up where ‘Jubilee’ left off, taking a closer look at the long story of African American mixology traditions, innovations and craftsmanship.” (“Jubilee” is also deserving of a spot on your bookshelf. Tipton-Martin was the first Black woman to be food editor of a major daily American newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, in 1991, and is a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance. Her 2015 book “The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks” is
another must-own for anyone interested in American culinary history. In “Jubilee,” Tipton-Martin builds on “The Jemima Code” with modern recipes inspired by and adapted from the recipes of enslaved cooks and Black chefs, caterers, culinary writers, entrepreneurs and others.)
■ “Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes From Five Generations of Black Country Cooks” by Crystal Wilkinson (Clarkson Potter, $30) is a beautiful, heartfelt multigenerational story in the recipes of a Black Appalachian family in Kentucky. It is as much memoir as cookbook, yet it reads like a novel, which isn’t surprising if you know Wilkinson is a poet and literary author. We cook.
We share our food. We heal.
I know that women in my family have been kitchen ghosts for centuries. Peeping over the shoulders of our daughters and granddaughters and sons and grandsons. Saying:
Just a little bit more. Turn your fire down. Not too much salt. Please have some we have plenty.
And I imagine myself many years from now, standing in my great-grandchildren’s kitchens, nodding my head as they cook, whispering in their ears, “That’s right. Keep it up. We will always have plenty.”
These books are a proof positive that Black history is American history, especially when it comes to culinary history. American food, especially Southern food, would not exist without the innovation, expertise, creativity and ingenuity of Black cooks, bakers and artisians.