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.
Themes
Identity and Self-Discovery
In 2011, Michael Twitty set out on a journey to discover his heritage. He called this journey his “Southern Discomfort Tour” (xiv) for various reasons, including the fact that when he was a child, he “hated soul food” and “didn’t really like being black” (25). His understanding of his heritage was shaped by societal attitudes and scattered stories shared orally through family members. He did not yet understand the complexity of his heritage. Facing it is part of the discomfort of his journey.
As Twitty peels back the curtain on his family’s history, he realizes that much of that history has not been recorded. He feels as though his country has attempted to wipe out the contributions of his family, to delete their very existence. Through rigorous research, he pieces together a narrative detailing the bravery and hardship of his ancestors. He learns of the violence the women in his family must have faced and imagines what his predecessors must have felt leaving Africa, being sold at auction, and working in white kitchens and plantation fields. Along the way, he recreates the experiences of members of his family tree. He cooks in plantation kitchens and at Confederate reenactments. He picks cotton and makes persimmon liquor. Twitty believes that by inhabiting the lives of his ancestors, he can better understand who he is.
When Twitty discovers that he has significant European ancestry, he struggles with this fact, recognizing that this heritage likely resulted from rape. He visits the Bellamy farm where a distant grandfather enslaved Black people to advance his own wealth. Southern kitchens were not idyllic spaces where Black and white cultures intermingled to create culinary excellence; these were spaces of subjugation, where Black women were exposed to the viler natures of enslavers. Although Twitty struggles to connect to his European heritage, he argues that acknowledging the complexity of various backgrounds may help Americans deal with the pain and shame associated with the history of slavery.
Twitty explains that being a chef is about reclaiming one’s roots and letting that reclamation guide artistic expression. While he tackles larger questions about ownership and authority of cuisine, Twitty embodies his heritage and develops an identity that is based on a rich, cultured, and complex history. His art—the food he creates and the words he puts on the page—are the manifestations of that identity and of a lineage he keeps alive.
The Impact of Slavery on American Foodways
American culinary history is dominated by white chefs. Twitty acknowledges this in the first chapter. He cooks in plantation kitchens, attempting to reconnect with his ancestors, and his white customers look on with amusement. Some even try to challenge Twitty’s knowledge, and many of the farmers and gardeners at local markets act as though he is ignorant about the plants and gardening techniques required to grow them. He believes that being taken seriously as a Black chef requires intense study and expertise; he must know more about this food and its history than anyone else. He must defend his position within American culinary culture, which, like much of Western history, often fails to acknowledge the influence and contributions of minoritized groups.
Throughout the work, Twitty shows how slavery played a role in the cuisines of the American South. Enslaved Africans utilized their knowledge and tenacity to carve out a culinary identity that profoundly changed the Southern diet. Arriving in an unfamiliar country, filled with unfamiliar plants and animals, meant that they had to adapt, and the Southern table is a testament to their ability to do so. Okra, Carolina gold rice, and even chitterlings represent a few of many dishes that originated in Africa and were then melded with European techniques and Indigenous knowledge of native foods. The gardens of enslaved families were their own forms of resistance—spaces where Black people could reclaim and shape their culinary identity.
While the African diaspora affected American foodways through the vehicle of slavery, slavery itself originated with agriculture. Twitty outlines how through the waves of crop emphasis—sugar, tobacco, rice, and cotton—slavery became “the largest forced migration in American history” (17). Twitty points to cotton as the catalyst for some of the worst humanitarian violations in the country’s memory. Through it all, Black people found the means of survival and a culinary voice. Even so, while the myriad Black cultures in the Americas defined and developed Southern cuisine, Black voices are often left out of the conversation, and Black chefs are unrecognized for their contributions. Twitty has made the news repeatedly for calling out white chefs for taking credit for dishes that originated from Black cultures. The resilience and persistence of enslaved Black people opened the doors for innovation and creative expression through music, art, and food—and Twitty is committed to championing that history’s recognition.
Beauty and Ugliness
In the preface of The Cooking Gene, Twitty describes the dual nature of the Old South. He contrasts the stately pecan trees that adorn his grandfather’s homestead in South Carolina with the Confederate statues and hanging trees found in Southern towns. When it comes to the Old South, “there is a lot of beautiful and a lot of ugly mashed together” (xiv). This duality pervades Twitty’s work. His story of the Old South contrasts the beauty of landscape, food, and love with the ugliness of slavery. In a country that desperately wants to forget about slavery, Twitty asserts that it is important to confront all parts of one’s history, the good and the bad.
Southern food contrasts sharply with the Eurocentric food of capitalistic American culture. Twitty remembers learning phonics alongside an image of a perfect sandwich—tidy and colorful on white bread. This was not the food of his ancestors. That food revolted him when he was a child. As an adult, though, he uncovers the beauty of Southern food by revealing its layered history. The kitchen table also partakes in beauty and ugliness. The kitchen was where he cooked and learned from his mother and grandmother, heard his first showtunes, and watched figure skating. It was also where his mother reprimanded him for his sexual orientation.
As Twitty wrestles with his identity and heritage, he recognizes the beauty and the ugliness in his ancestry. He sees the violence, hardship, starvation, and trauma of surviving in a country that stripped his relatives of their humanity. He sees the beauty, too—the food, stories, rituals, and perseverance that shaped a culture and led to Twitty’s very existence. While visiting West Africa, Twitty finds a vibrant society that feels familiar to him in a deep and meaningful way. However, he closes his trip with a visit to a hotel and dock where ships carried kidnapped Africans to the Americas to live out generations of slavery. Even here, a place that feels like home, ugliness persists. Yet, by spreading his mother’s ashes in the water below the dock, Twitty can also create a kind of homecoming—one that acknowledges both the lightness and darkness in the stories and histories of his family and country.
