MasterClass | Tracing Your Roots through Food with Michael W. Twitty
I recently finished watching Tracing Your Roots through Food with Michael W. Twitty, a video series hosted on the streaming service MasterClass. During this course, Twitty used his vast knowledge of international cuisine, genetics, lingustics, and history to describe the food culture of the American South. Based in part on his book, The Cooking Gene, published by Amistad and winner of a James Beard award in 2018, Twitty emphasized the importance of understanding the relationship of the transatlantic slave trade and Black Diaspora to modern American cooking, especially the soul food tradition. His style of delivery balanced his kind, generous demeanor with serious discussion on heavy topics.
Twitty described how he grew up in a family that loved to cook, citing his parents and grandmother as influences on his culinary interests. He turned a family interest into an academic passion. In 2011, he started the blog Afroculinaria as a platform for examining African American heritage and foodways. He worked as an interpretor at Colonial Williamsburg, performing the work of an enslaved chef to bring awareness to the importance of Africans in the colonial economy and to better understand his ancestors. Twitty rose to fame in 2013 after penning a viral open letter to Paula Deen after she admitted during a court deposition to using racial slurs. His eloquent prose caught the attention of literary agents, allowing him to publish The Cooking Gene.
When Twitty researched the origins of soul food, he employed techniques from an astonishing range of disciplines. He recorded oral histories and recipes of people in his community and from other African American enclaves. He learned about Southern American chefs, including cookbook author Edna Lewis and French-trained chef James Hemings, who was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson. Twitty researched his family geneology using written documentation and took DNA tests to analyze his genetics. Once he had identified the lands of his ancestors, he traveled to those market places to experience their food. Throughout his journey, Twitty studied linguists and identified the words from African foods that were appropriated into English. While teaching the class, he seamlessly switched between languages to best explain ingredients and cooking techniques.
Twitty focused on the African American experience of understanding history and conducting geneological research, but much of his advice was applical to people of all backgrounds interested in learning more about their ancestors. Twitty demonstrated the best ways to record recipes from older generations. Documenters must visit the chef many times to observe how the dish is made, taste the final product, and learn how to make it themselves. He detailed the process of traveling to archives to read documents such as census or property records, and taking a variety of DNA tests to generate comprehensive results.
Two of the lessons towards the end of the course were live cooking demos of historic recipes with a modern, American twist. Twitty prepared okra, corn, and tomato “stewp” using ingredients from Africa and the Americas and describing the importance of vegetables in the diets of enslaved people. He compared historic and modern tools for making accara, a black-eyed pea fritter sold as street food in West Africa. Both recipes were only possible because of transatlantic trade, and the recipes were included in an accommanying class guide.
The full class comprised of eighteen lessons with a run time of three hours and twenty minutes. I watched the class over several sittings and would advise the same for other viewers to allow time for processing the wealth of information. The lessons had excellent pacing and sophisticated editing. The interviews and cooking with Twitty were set in a homey kitchen. Footage of his childhood, his work as a historical interpreter, and his trips around the world interspersed the interviews. Thematic music puntuated key moments in the lessons, adding another facet to the cultural immersion. The closed captions had higher accuracy than most MasterClass series, although these appeared unfinished in a few episodes. This course far exceeded my vague expectations to become one of my favorites on the platform.
Abby Epplett’s Rating System
Experience: 10/10
Accessibility: 8/10