This week I am reading from The Cooking Gene by Michael W. Twitty. I’d like to get at least halfway through this book over the next ten weeks so my goal is to make it from the introduction through chapter three this week, through chapter seven next week, and through chapter eleven for week four. This book is the ideal way to start this ILC as it dives directly into looking at not just a personal lifetime history of food but also an ancestral view of how these feelings, ideas, and habits came to be.
In the preface of the book Twitty vocalizes the unspoken truth of ancestry in the Old South, which he defines as “the former slaveholding states and the culture they collectively birthed from the days of contact through civil rights.” (Pg. xiii). Twitty points out how traditionally African features such as curly hair and dark gums are explained away through some European line of genetics, despite history making obvious the origin of these things being the presence of slavery in these regions. Twitty explains how he embarked on a tour of the Old South looking for sites of culinary historical significance, and how returning to the Old South is an act of mixed reactions to those whose ancestors were enslaved on those lands.
The first chapter begins with Twitty painting a picture for the reader as he prepares to cook on a plantation, donning what he calls his “transformative historical drag” at five A.M to begin making his meal. As he continues to describe how he recreates this scene of his ancestors, he also discusses how singing became a necessary part of cooking for enslaved people, how songs were used to tell or keep time, and how the music itself became a mixing pot of language and culture.
While reading the pots, Twitty explains that his meals span from 1730-1880 to follow the experience of the majority of his family as he traced them from their arrival in America. He reflects on the Westernization of the modern kitchen, and his writing has a tone of nostalgia as he talks of his grandmother’s three stone and pot setup.
“The little hearth- located under heaven or a thatch structure or building used during the rainy season- was itself a ritual space, an altar, a face of spirits, usually a female entity representing motherhood and nurture, the pot itself a kind of womb.”(pg.13)
In chapter two Twitty shares his dislike for his culture as a young child, stating that while his first non-milk food was cornbread mashed in potlikker, fast food tuned his taste buds away from soul food and his ancestral cooking. His mother is a recurring character in his stories, so masterfully written as an overbearing mother you learn to be grateful for I felt like I knew her. Later in the chapter Twitty tells the story of how his grandmothers would make chitlins, specifically how they were served every holiday, despite the majority of the family detecting them. He explains how he didn’t understand why anyone would willing eat chitlins, that he avoided them at all costs and that no one explained their history until he was much older. I want to ask him more questions about this, though he states that he will still never eat them, I wonder if he would ever cook them. This book has the qualities of a riveting memoir with the addition of an in-depth lesson of generational trauma and how it both survives and heals through food.
In chapter three I found myself going back to the same story over and over., it opens with the line “When I was six Daddy took me to discover the South’s past in an empty jar.” (Pg.51). The innocence of this line combined with the age of Twitty in the story immediately brought me deeper into his writing as he told of a car ride to his family homestead in South Carolina during which he desperately had to pee. Instead of taking him to a gas station, his father pulled over to the side of the road and sent Twitty into the field to pee in a jar. His dad explained to him that when his father, Twitty’s grandfather, had taken him to South Carolina when he was a child that neither of them were allowed to use the gas station bathroom, explaining segregation to a child who heard “colored” and thought of crayons. Twitty reflected on what the rest of that drive was like, as a six-year-old who had just learned there were people who wished him dead because of the color of his skin, unsure that he was going to enjoy the South, unaided by his dismay at his first meal of unfamiliar foods. This chapter overall had a very strong message of keeping memories alive for the sake of future generations, and his exploration of the past for the sake of his own life and identity.
Writing prompt #1 What are the memorable kitchens of my life? How did they coincide with monumental life events or changes? Did their physical location impact the way I interacted with it? Is there one meal or memory that stands out, and how did it impact my relationship with food and cooking?
The first kitchen I remember is in my childhood home in Reigate, England. It wasn’t the first place I had ever lived but the first house I have any memory of, on a narrow street very near my primary school. The kitchen was narrow, a straight walk through to the back door and the garden. I don’t remember what color it was but I think the walls might have been blue. Both my parents worked, and over summer break they often devised activities to do with us when we got antsy, my favorite was decorating cookies (biscuits) with tubes of icing from the store, usually just blue and pink (two kids, two colors of icing, makes sense). Nothing was homemade in that activity, but I loved standing up on the chair with my mom or dad over my shoulder to look at the smiley face I had drawn in pink sugar. This was my kitchen aged 2-10, it was probably ground zero for many fights with my sister, many delicious meals and good times, unfortunately it was just too long ago for me to remember in detail. I am hoping to get more details from my parents.
The second kitchen belonged to my grandparents, specifically on my dads side. Unfortunately neither of them are with us anymore, but they were some of the most amazing people I have ever known. My sister and I would spend most Friday nights with them in Caterham when we lived in Reigate to give my parents a night off and it was only thirty minutes or so in good traffic. My grandmother made a traditional roast dinner that could have been served in the palace, and every night away was a treat getting to help her cook. Help was a loose term for make the instant gravy while she does the cooking, and then making box mix cupcakes with her right before she was done with the oven. I can remember the smell of her deep freezer when she showed me that she had stocked up on our favorite snack, frozen hashbrown potatoes shaped into a smiley face. They were so common in England I think I probably cried over the shock of not having them when we moved. This was also my kitchen from ages 2-10, less frequent but that just adds novelty for a child.
The third important kitchen was in Walnut Creek, California from ages 10-13. I hated that kitchen, it was weirdly shaped, smelled bad, and had no microwave. Food was a contentious subject at the time, as my parents poorly handled a conversation about weight gain and food began to feel like a rebellion for the wrong reasons. Our Halloween candy was kept on top of the fridge, we were allowed two pieces after dinner every Friday, a rule that drove me to seek out sugar at every turn. Food became a reward or a punishment in this kitchen, also driven by our change in location. In America the portion sizes were noticeably bigger, and in California pretty much every kid we knew was on a swim team, so naturally our parents put us on one too. I don’t want to go into too many details but kids are cruel, and swimsuits leave no way to hide.
The fourth kitchen was the last before I left for college, in Issaquah Washington. This was my kitchen for the last three years of high school, it saw me in and out of my eating disorder and through many many fights with my mother. The kitchen wasn’t usually named as the cause of a fight, but food and eating was a contentious subject I never felt they understood until I got to college. Despite this, this kitchen still held some respite from the rest of the world for me, as an underage overachiever I found myself eating in parking lots between activities far too often, and when we could make it through a conversation there was almost nothing as reassuring as my moms falafel. I tried to learn to cook here, and looking back I can do most of the things I attempted then with relative ease now, I just lacked patience and maybe the common sense to just look up the answer sometimes.
The fifth kitchen is my current kitchen, and it is the first that has felt fully mine. Staples of my kitchen include baked mac and cheese, pot roast, chili, and tater-tot nachos. I have only been here since June but this is my learning kitchen, I am not afraid to try new things here. The kitchen itself is far from the best kitchen I have ever used, it constantly breaks, it’s too small for all our things, and these apartments seem to attract fruit flys no matter how often you clean, but it is where I can put my heart into my food, I feel no fear or judgment. The physical kitchen is not what makes it my favorite, but the people I share it with and the love it has allowed me to cultivate for my food.
Writing Prompt #2 What food rituals does my family keep, and how did they impact my relationship with food/cooking?
1. On Christmas eve or Christmas day every year my dad would take me to the butchers a few streets away to pick up our reserved turkey. They could have gotten one earlier and frozen it, or bought one frozen, but my parents liked to get fresh ones to cook and it was worth it to them to spend holiday time getting up early for it. Like my parents, I want the best for the best, if any day is worth getting up for fresh poultry, its Christmas. The best part is we didn’t usually eat Christmas dinner on Christmas day, we waited for Boxing Day so my mom didn’t spend Christmas cooking and my grandparents would come over.
2. Every year my mom would make the most insane birthday cakes, from scratch, and decorated with our current interest. I remember my princess-themed party (I think I was six?) she made a cake that looked like Cinderella’s shoe on a pillow, the shoe was made of sparkly blue fondant she had to color herself. She has did this every year until we moved out, and I think she would keep doing it if we asked. My first birthday cake was a ladybird, which she recreated for my 18th birthday. I now will not let a friend’s birthday pass without making sure they had a cake.