“Today's American food culture is a contested landscape in search of values, new direction, and its own indigenous sense of rightness and self-worth. It's a culture looking toward ecology, the regional flow of seasons, and opportunities for new ways to… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share Image
“It is also clear that structural racism is beating down the black chef. It started with segregation; black chefs in the South were either poorly paid shadow figures (often women) working for all-white establishments, or were locked into their own neighborhoods in Jim Crow. Nashville Hot Chicken wasn't a pan-Nashville dish; it was locked behind the walls of racial separation.… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share
“So much was lost—names, faces, ages, ethnic identities—that African Americans must do what no other ethnic group writ large must do: take a completely… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share Image
“The Old South is a place where people use food to tell themselves who they are, to tell others who they are, and to tell stories about where they've been. The Old South is a place of groaning tables across the tracks from want. It's a place where arguments over how barbecue is prepared or chicken is served or whether… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share
“Before I officially began the journey to dig deeper into my food and family roots, I was racking up an internal encyclopedia about other people and how food affected their lives as proxy for the stories in my own bloodline and body. This made for really uncomfortable armor. It never really fit me right. These were other people's tales and… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share
“My entire cooking life has been about memory. It's my moth indispensable ingredient, so wherever I find it, I hoard it. I tell stories about people using food, I swap memories with people and create out of that conversation mnemonic feasts with this fallible, subjective mental evidence. Sometimes they are people long gone, whose immortality is expressed in the pulp… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share
“Jewish food and black food crisscross each other throughout history. They are both cuisines where homeland and exile interplay. Ideas and emotions are ingredients - satire, irony, longing, resistance - and you have to eat the food to extract that meaning. One memory is the sweep of the people's journey, and the other is the little bits and pieces of… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share
“You have to know a lot of songs to cook the way our ancestors cooked. The songs are like clocks with spells. Some enslaved… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share Image
“So much was lost - names, faces, ages, ethnic identities - that African Americans must do what no other ethnic group writ large must do: take a completely shattered vessel and piece it together, knowing that some pieces will never be recovered. This is not quite as harrowing or hopeless as it might sound I liken it to the Japanese… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share
“There is no chef without a homeland. To be a chef today is to center yourself in the traditions of your roots and use them to define your art and speak to any human being about who you are; your plate is your flag. Many of our most pungent memories are carried through food, just as connections to our ancestors… — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share
“Nothing ever really escapes memory, and even the things we forget often are condemned to it.” — Michael W. Twitty Copy Share Image
