So there are a few different threads that are coming together to make this project:
—My love for African American foodways, historic and otherwise, Southern foodways–historic and otherwise, and the land and the people that make them possible…and making sure that the story of the African/African American contribution get’s told in an accurate, respectful and and academically rigorous manner…
—My passion for my family history, African American genealogy, and the consequences of discovering one’s journey in terms of one’s evolving personal identity and “location,”
—Our collective connections and evolving identity as the inheritors of this legacy—as the descendants of the enslaved and their enslavers, as Americans, people of the Western world, people of the Atlantic world, and people of the African world…all of us bound and connected by events and trends that happened so long ago.
—The legacy that was left us and the legacy we will leave the future.
So I want to blog my way through the Old South and its legacy…weaving time and space, people and nature into one story–and while doing that journey—document how my family fits into a bigger story. This work is based on 25 years of reading, interviewing, learning and now its ready to go out into the field to capture a last glimpse of a world that is quickly fading in our collective memory.
But let’s not forget I’m a cook!
I see food as our way into explore the lines that have divided us and the conflicts and challenges that have impeded our progress towards The Table of Brotherhood. This is where we all sit down and hash it out. Welcome to The Cooking Gene.
The Cooking Gene 