Kosher Soul: A discussion with author Michael Twitty
Join our latest conversation on the Joy Trip Reading Project
Please join The Joy Trip Reading Project for our next online discussion with Michael Twitty, author of "Kosher Soul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew" on Thursday June 22, 2023, at 5PM Central Time.
Register for this online conversation via Zoom:
https://uwmadison.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0rf--hpzkoGtWy2WaQVCpL-PL_5hiWH3A_#/registration
Michael’s work is a braid of two distinct brands: the Antebellum Chef and Kosher/Soul. Antebellum Chef represents the vast number of unknown Black cooks across the Americas that were essential in the creation of the creole cuisines of Atlantic world. The reconstruction and revival of traditional African American foodways means seed keeping, growing heirlooms and heritage crops, raising heritage breeds and sustainably gathering and maintaining wild flora and fauna that our ancestors relied upon. The responsible exploration of the Southern food heritage demands that the cooks of colonial, federal era and antebellum kitchens and enslaved people’s cabins be honored for their unique role in giving the Southland her mother cuisine. It is important that we not only honor the Ancestors but provide a lifeline to contemporary communities and people of color looking for a better life in the new economy, a way out of the health and chronic illness crisis, and a way to reduce the vast food deserts that plague many of our communities. To honor the food past and provide for the food future is what Michael calls, “culinary justice.”
Kosher/Soul is the brand that deals with what Michael has termed “identity cooking.” Identity cooking isn’t about fusion; rather it’s how we construct complex identities and then express them through how we eat. Very few people in the modern West eat one cuisine or live within one culinary construct. Being Kosher/Soul is about melding the histories, tastes, flavors, and Diasporic wisdom of being Black and being Jewish. Both cultures express many of their cultural and spiritual values through the plate and Kosher/Soul is about that ongoing journey.
Michael is a return guest on the Joy Trip Reading Project. In 2021 we spoke to him about his James Beard Award-winning book the Cooking Gene
This discussion of his latest title promises to be another enlightening and entertaining event. We hope you can join us!
Author discussions on the Joy Trip Reading Project are made possible thanks to the support of the Schlecht Family Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and The National Park Service in partnership with the Together Outdoors and University of Wisconsin Madison Nelson Institute of Environmental Studies.