For more information, feel free to contact Michael Twitty by clicking here.

For questions about the website or its contents, please contact Michael Nocerino by clicking here.

All photos courtesy of C.H. Weierke, 2003-2007 unless otherwise noted.

Copyright 2007 AfroFoodways.com All rights reserved.

Photo of Mr. Twitty courtesy of Christopher Assaf.

Hello and welcome to AfroFoodways.com.

My name is Michael Twitty. I'm a burgeoning culinary historian and my focus is on the foods and cooking traditions of my ancestors, especially those who were enslaved African Americans. Through my writing, teaching and cooking I invite you to come with me on a journey of cultural discovery through what I call our ancestral "foodscape." Having completed Fighting Old Nep about the food culture of enslaved African Americans in Maryland, I am now finishing a companion work about African Virginians entitled, Simmons, Cymlings, and Sweet Potato Pumpkins. The next stop is North Carolina, and then I'm on to cooking bigger pots of gumbo.

Our plates are a place where we meld our past with our present and future. Food at its best is about our relationship with Spirit, time, space, our ancestors, the earth and each other. It bridges cultures and connects continents. It embodies our spirits, and tells us about ourselves. This site is about our unique gift to the world's gastronomic heritage — our own edible jazz — some might call it soul food — some people just call it dinner. Where some people see mere sustenance, I see a delicious cultural text rich with its own culinary grammar, aesthetics, hidden meanings, and secrets.

Plantation kitchen at Somerset Place, Creswell, North Carolina

I use research and experimentation to learn and teach about historic crops, open-hearth cooking, and the wild resources and heritage breed livestock our ancestors gathered and prepared as they set about creating new African American cultures through food. With these tools, I hope to follow the food — from Senegal down to Angola to South Carolina and Alabama. The history of African American foodways holds the secrets of how its creators struggled to stay human in a dehumanizing world and prevailed. Now more than ever, we all need those lessons today.

In the words of our ancestors: “Come, sit at my table, eat and you will know me...”

To see more about how the food we eat reminds us of African American food tradition, look at our Memories AND see how the Foodscapes of Slavery were born.

AfroFoodways.com Mourns the Passing of Karen Hess, Culinary Historian

Although I never had a chance to met her, I was inspired by her work and looked forward to seeing how far I had to go after she perused one of my manuscripts. I first read a Karen Hess book when I was 18, and the fire hasn't gone out since. She authored The Taste of America (1977) with her husband John Hess, and provided encyclopedic notations on several historic cookbooks and manuscripts, including the Martha Washington and Virginia Randolph. I was inspired by her Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection (1992). Karen, your work and your passion for accuracy, elegance and the uniqueness of the American food experience will be sorely missed!

"Building Houses Made of Chicken Legs: An African American Scholar Looks at the Links Between Power, Gender, Culture and Food."

An Interview with Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson.

March 2007 — April 2008

Maryland Humanities Council Speaker's Bureau

To have me speak to your school, group, or organization on the foodways of enslaved Afro-Marylanders, or about the wild foods of Maryland please visit the Maryland Humanities Council web site at:

http://www.mdhc.org/programs/speaker_display.htm?record_id=158