The history of African Americans and their contributions to cuisine are documented through work of Dr. Jessica B. Harris and hosted by Stephen Satterfield, founder of Whetstone Magazine.
“The limitations that are put on us by people’s framing of what Black hands can do it’s exhausting, but it doesn’t stop the work, and it doesn’t hinder my freedom, because, I have the ownership of knowledge, we’re the innovators of everything that’s beautiful and everything that is pop culture right now its born out of this country its born out of us its taken and its monetized and whitewashed, and sent out all over the globe it’s ours and so its just taking ownership of that”.
Chris Williams, Owner of Lucille’s Restaurant in Houston, Texas, as quoted from “High on the Hog How African American Cuisine Transformed America” on Netflix
Picture Credit – John Pinderhuges
According to Heritage Radio Network, there’s perhaps no greater expert on the food and foodways of the African Diaspora than Doctor Jessica B. Harris. She is the author of twelve critically acclaimed cookbooks documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa’s Gifts to New World Cooking, Sky Juice and Flying Fish Traditional Caribbean Cooking, The Welcome Table: African-American Heritage Cooking, The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent, Beyond Gumbo: Creole Fusion Food from the Atlantic Rim. Harris also conceptualized and organized The Black Family Reunion Cook Book. Her book, High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America, was the International Association for Culinary Professionals 2012 prize winner for culinary history. Her most recent book is My Soul Looks Back: A Memoir.
In her more than four decades as a journalist, Dr. Harris has written book reviews, theater reviews, travel, feature, and beauty articles too numerous to note. She has lectured on African-American food and culture at numerous institutions throughout the United States and Abroad and has written extensively about the culture of Africa in the Americas, particularly the foodways. In the most recent edition of the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, author John Mariani cites Harris as the ranking expert on African American Foodways in the United States.