When the holidays roll around, there is one thing that we know is going to happen: someone is going to cook a bomb ass meal and/or dish. As a Black person, food is the love language. There is no better way to let someone know you love them than with food. The book Black Food by Bryant Terry is so much more than a cookbook. It shares art and stories spanning the African diaspora. We get an understanding of the food we grew up with as well as the food we never got to try. This book gives us the ability to experience home within ourselves and each other. I speak on it through the lense of a Black person but it holds value for all of us. A constant theme in the books chosen for this calendar is understanding. When we understand what it is like to be taken from home and find a way to still experience joy and create foods that not only connect the diaspora but the American experience, we find common ground. We all know what it is like to lose something and it never be found; never quite whole again. The American experience is lost and we have to be the ones to reshape it; to make it into something new. We use the past to connect us but we also must use it to create something beyond what is known.
There is a list of recipes in this book that leads us into the renewed and reshaped American experience. They are the following:
I Love New York Pink and Gold Cookies
Poulet Yassa Osso Bucco
Ghanaian Crepe Cake
Sweet Potato Grits
Whiskey Sour
But, this book is more than recipes. The stories, essays and poems give us a look at how we are still connected to the Motherland; how migration influenced our food ways; how faith, religion and spirituality influence us; how we can still enjoy a leisurely lifestyle; how we can still be in touch with the land and practice food justice; how Black women and queer people have space in this food landscape; and how we need to practice self-care to get to liberation.
This book belongs on your coffee table, bookshelf, kitchen; wherever it can spark conversation. If you want to purchase for yourself or gift to someone else, click the link above.
xoxo~Christilisa