42 pages • 1 hour read
Michael W. TwittyThe Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 4-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary: “Mishpocheh”
From an early age, Twitty has been fascinated by how people connected to food and the way food aligned with meaning. At home, he experienced the blending of many food cultures and absorbed words in other languages as he pored over cookbooks. His first encounter with his own family’s culinary history was through a television program featuring Georgia chef Nathalie Dupree, who described how an enslaved Black child beat biscuit dough to ensure airiness. His love of other cultures led Twitty to Jewish literature and film; at the age of seven, he announced to his mother that he was Jewish.
Twitty was mesmerized by the emphasis Judaism placed on learning and analysis. He memorized the Jewish alphabet and took classes in Black-Jewish relations. He devoted himself to spiritual practices and studied Jewish cuisine. In New Orleans, Twitty learned about how Black cooks welcomed and taught Jewish immigrants. In Birmingham, he saw how Jim Crow affected the Jewish population. Passover is Twitty’s favorite holiday; he enjoys thinking and learning with others about the concepts of slavery and freedom through a narrative of food. He connects these experiences with his work in plantation kitchens, where he inhabits the past and the lives of his ancestors.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Missing Pieces”
African American genealogy presents a slew of problems to the individual seeking information about lineage. Many describe the process as coming up against an “invisible brick wall” (81). Up through the Civil War, there were few records of Black individuals in the United States. After the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, most formerly enslaved families cast off the names of their enslavers and took new last names such as “Jackson” and “Freeman.” Twitty’s own family was an exception. They kept the names of their enslavers, including the name “Twitty,” and Because they did, Twitty was able to get more information about his forebears.
Enslaved people were recorded in business ledgers as important transactions of property. In a library in Virginia, Twitty discovered a list of the names of men and women shipped from Africa. Many of the African names were replaced with Eurocentric names in a way that represents a broader erasure. Whereas for many white Americans, genealogy is a hobby, for Twitty and other African Americans, it is a form of reclamation of that which has been erased.
Other factors contribute to the problem in tracing one’s African American history. The prevalence of white fathers introduced secrecy and perceived illegitimacy. The illiteracy of many enslaved individuals meant that they were not capable of keeping their own records. Furthermore, slavery was not something that was talked about; trauma rendered it silent.
Chapter 6 Summary: “No N***** Blood”
At the age of 13, Twitty interviewed his grandmother to learn more about her father, Joseph Peter Todd II, a formidable figure in his family’s history. When the Klan attempted to intimidate Joseph, he brought his family out onto the porch to play and sew as though nothing was happening. While he defended his family with ferocity, he was also known for his gentleness. Unlike other men at the time, he never spanked his children, and he always respected his wife, Mary. A schoolteacher, Mary taught him how to read and write. While she worked, Joseph did many of the household chores, including cooking, in which he was skilled. He was especially celebrated for the Sunday breakfasts he hosted for his extended family. Twitty’s grandmother believed Twitty to be the reincarnation of Joseph Todd.
Mary was light-skinned, like her own family. Despite their African ancestry, Mary’s mother disowned her briefly for marrying Joe. Although they reconciled and Mary’s mother came to Sunday breakfasts, she refused to eat anything that Joseph cooked. Twitty recognizes the hypocrisy in Mary’s family’s colorism. The family stories inspired Twitty to seek out his own white ancestor, whom he calls his “white man in the woodpile” (98).
Chapter 7 Summary: “White Man in the Woodpile”
After Twitty locates his fifth great-grandfather, Reverend William Bellamy, in his family tree, he drives to North Carolina to visit what is left of Oak Forest, Bellamy’s cotton plantation. Twitty grapples with his grandfather’s legacy. Bellamy enslaved 46 men and women, and he built a successful farm through their labor. Bellamy’s records and Twitty’s research reveal a lavish lifestyle for the period. Bellamy’s white family enjoyed peach brandy, honey from their own bees, coffee, and a tempting table of delectable dishes—all made possible by the enslaved families whom Bellamy forced to work.
When the current owner shows Twitty the place where the plantation kitchen used to be, Twitty mourns the loss of this landmark, recognizing the complex history of such a space. Even as Twitty works in plantation kitchens and recaptures the experiences of the Black cooks who inhabited them, he recognizes that these spaces were often sites of terror and rape and that his own existence is a product of these exertions of power and violence. As he traces the Bellamy line, he learns that some of his white and mixed-race ancestors fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War and that he has a smattering of living white family members. He wonders if the acknowledgment of these familial connections might lead to healing and unity.
Chapters 4-7 Analysis
Twitty explains that the best way to learn about your own identity is to learn about the identities and cultures of others. As a young man, he read voraciously and sought out the cuisines of others whose experiences were different from his own, but it was his encounters with Judaism that led him on the path of better understanding himself. ”Twitty identifies with Judaism because of the “unrestrained passion it has for questions, analysis, study, review, revision, and that dance it seems to revel in between tradition and intellectual anarchy” (70). These qualities not only speak to Twitty’s own character and values, but also guide him on a journey of personal transformation.
This journey involves digging into his family history—a difficult endeavor in a country that has actively sought to erase the experiences of Black people. He sees the ramifications of this larger cultural attitude in his own family, particularly in his light-skinned great-grandmother who believed herself to be above her relatives and refused to eat food that was prepared by Black hands because she thought it was dirty. His great-grandfather, by contrast, was gentle, intelligent, and brave, and this contrast speaks to the broader juxtaposition of Beauty and Ugliness Throughout the work.
Twitty thus shows the two sides of his family’s history, alongside that of his country. While slavery exerts the darkest stain on the fabric of the United States, the contributions and cultures of Black communities are profoundly beautiful and complex. This theme is further developed when Twitty recognizes that his link to Bellamy is created by sexual assault. Twitty must reconcile the reality of his lineage with the beauty of his own existence. Bellamy is a part of Twitty. Yet, what he did is something that Twitty wishes could be erased. In this way, Twitty inhabits two worlds—the rich, beautiful, and complex history of his family and the dark underbelly of privilege and power.
