Thank you for visiting The Cooking Gene website. We recently updated this site to reflect the release of the book, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South. The book is available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other fine booksellers across the country. While we have added the book …
Here We Go
We are on the road. It seems like a blur---Maryland, then Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. This morning, Alabama. Every place has a different story in my family tree and another set of stories and meanings for the Ancestors who lived in each state and county. I am overwhelmed with the thought of …
Partnering With the George Washington Carver Seed Bank
We will be partnering with The George Washington Carver Seed Bank to work with African American farmers and Reverend Al Sampson to create a seed bank for African American food systems. This is a crucial and fundamental part of the Cooking Gene. We started talking to Reverend Sampson months ago and his project is exactly …
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That Cotton Thing…and Food….
Friendly Reminder: Sunday May 6th at 11:59 pm our campaign is done. Its going to mean cutting places, venues, community service opportunies, and losing time to do genealogical research if we don't make our goal--so please please please don't take my work here for granted and all the sweat our team has put into this …
Are You Really What You Eat? Or are You the Meals that You Cook?
"Over Yonder" Cooking at the GreenmarketWe have four days left to raise some 3,000 plus for our campaign. Over 600 people viewed this blog yesterday. If only 180 had made a contribution to our Campaign of 18$ or more, the Campaign would have been an overnight success…We need you—Now. Please contribute 18 or more today: www.indiegogo.com/The-Cooking-Gene-Project-The-Southern-Discomfort-Tour When I …
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Meet Edward Booker, Aged 112
Name: Edward Booker Relation: Great-Great-Grandfather of Michael W. Twitty through his paternal grandmother, Eloise Booker Born: 1839 Died: 1953 Where: Prince Edward County, Virginia around the town of Prospect. Occupation: Former enslaved indivdual on the Booker tobacco plantation, Freedman and landowner, and tobacco farmer I need help telling his story--and finding out more about him …
We are Featured on the CNN Food Blog: Eatocracy
Great Feature over at Eatocracy Please check it out and share it. And remember only 6 days left to help donate to the Cooking Gene Projectand there are many great gifts still left to be claimed. Enjoy 🙂 AND SHARE AND SHARE AND SHARE AND SHARE---- 6 days until our campaign ends--even if you can't give …
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The Cooking Gene: Our Press Release
For Immediate Release: Contact: Michael W. Twitty E-mail: thecookinggene@gmail.com Phone: 240-330-9291 Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? “Southern Discomfort" Tour Back to the Old South An African American Culinary Historian Searches for his Family’s Food Roots and Slaveowners. Washington, D.C. –From May through July 2012, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty will travel from Maryland to Louisiana tracing his ancestry across …
Meet Andi Cumbo: “You Will Not Be Forgotten”
Writer Andrea (Andi) Cumbo has a project in the same family of The Cooking Gene entitled "You Will Not Be Forgotten," a fascinating project that examines the history of the plantation where she lives in Fluvanna County, Virginia. It just so happens that Andi knows people with the surname Booker, which represents a large group …
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Explaining: Looking for My Families’ Slaveowners
This project is sacred to me and the people who have elected to spend time working on it with me. Making that video was not easy. Although I treated it as though it were a matter of routine, I began to feel emotionally wound up and hurt as I stammered out the names. I realized …
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The Cooking Gene 