For every lover of food culture, this scrupulously researched and accessible cookbook presents one-of-a-kind dinner parties inspired by seminal moments in culinary history. In ten chapters—each an important moment in food history, from Ancient Rome to Al-Andalus in Spain, from the Ethiopian Empire to nineteenth-century New York City—the authors pair menus with immersive retellings of historic culinary breakthroughs, and present the ingredients and modern techniques adapted for today’s kitchens to allow cooks of all abilities to entertain with dishes that were created and enjoyed hundreds of years ago but remain relevant to today’s food tastes and values.   Readers learn to orchestrate feasts from Apicus, blend spices from the Silk Road, feature indigenous ingredients of the Americas, revisit the “classics� from the Court of the Sun King, and savor the complex delicacies from the birth of the American restaurant scene. The home cook can prepare an entire seven-course Tudor feast, for example, or pick and choose dishes from around the world throughout time. Rich illustrations, hand-drawn maps, and contemporary photography create an immersive experience, while Harris’s foreword puts these historic foodways and their legacies into contemporary context.

Scarlett O'Hara munched on a radish and vowed never to go hungry again. Vardaman Bundren ate bananas in Faulkner's Jefferson, and the Invisible Man dined on a sweet potato in Harlem. Although food and stories may be two of the most prominent cultural products associated with the South, the connections between them have not been thoroughly explored until now.

Southern food has become the subject of increasingly self-conscious intellectual consideration. The Southern Foodways Alliance, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, food-themed issues of "Oxford American" and "Southern Cultures," and a spate of new scholarly and popular books demonstrate this interest. "Writing in the Kitchen" explores the relationship between food and literature and makes a major contribution to the study of both southern literature and of southern foodways and culture more widely.

This collection examines food writing in a range of literary expressions, including cookbooks, agricultural journals, novels, stories, and poems. Contributors interpret how authors use food to explore the changing South, considering the ways race, ethnicity, class, gender, and region affect how and what people eat. They describe foods from specific southern places such as New Orleans and Appalachia, engage both the historical and contemporary South, and study the food traditions of ethnicities as they manifest through the written word.

In this captivating new memoir, award-winning writer Jessica B. Harris recalls her youth "surrounded by some of the most famous creative minds of the seventies and eighties...James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Nina Simone" (New York magazine)-in a vibrant, lost era of New York City. In the Technicolor glow of the early seventies, Jessica B. Harris debated, celebrated, and danced her way from the jazz clubs of the Manhattan's West Side to the restaurants of Greenwich Village, living out her buoyant youth alongside the great minds of the day-luminaries like Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. My Soul Looks Back is her tribute to that fascinating social circle and their shared commitment to activism, intellectual engagement, and each other. With "simmering warmth" (The New York Times), Harris paints evocative portraits of her illustrious friends: Baldwin as he read aloud an early draft of If Beale Street Could Talk, Angelou cooking in her California kitchen, and Morrison relaxing at Baldwin's house in Provence. Harris describes her role as theater critic for the New York Amsterdam News and editor at then-burgeoning Essence magazine; star-studded parties in the South of France; drinks at Mikell's, a hip West Side club; and the simple joy these extraordinary people took in each other's company. At the center is Harris's relationship with Sam Floyd, a fellow professor at Queens College, who introduced her to Baldwin. More than a memoir of friendship and first love, My Soul Looks Back is a carefully crafted, intimately understood homage to a bygone era and the people that made it so remarkable.

With more than two hundred traditional and contemporary recipes, "The Africa Cookbook "is a unique window into the long culinary history of a diverse continent. From the savory stews of the western savannah to the curries and chutneys of the Swahili coasts, prominent scholar Jessica Harris has assembled a collection of recipes that reflects the modern innovations and rich heritage of kitchens across Africa. Potatoes with Mint Leaves and Garlic from Algeria and Senegal's classic Theibou Dienn are among the many flavorful dishes that offer a change of pace for contemporary North Americans. Illustrated with archival photographs and peppered with history and anecdote, "The Africa Cookbook "is a celebration of cultures and individuals whose contributions to the way we eat have long been ignored.

Winner of the IACP Award for Culinary History

Acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris weaves an utterly engaging history of African American cuisine, taking the reader on a harrowing journey from Africa across the Atlantic to America, and tracking the trials that the people and the food have undergone along the way. From chitlins and ham hocks to fried chicken and vegan soul, Harris celebrates the delicious and restorative foods of the African American experience and details how each came to form an important part of African American culture, history, and identity. Although the story of African cuisine in America begins with slavery, "High on the Hog "ultimately chronicles a thrilling history of triumph and survival. The work of a masterful storyteller and an acclaimed scholar, Jessica B. Harris's "High on the Hog "fills an important gap in our culinary history.

Scarlett O'Hara munched on a radish and vowed never to go hungry again. Vardaman Bundren ate bananas in Faulkner's Jefferson, and the Invisible Man dined on a sweet potato in Harlem. Although food and stories may be two of the most prominent cultural products associated with the South, the connections between them have not been thoroughly explored until now. Southern food has become the subject of increasingly self-conscious intellectual consideration. The Southern Foodways Alliance, the Southern Food and Beverage Museum, food-themed issues of Oxford American and Southern Cultures, and a spate of new scholarly and popular books demonstrate this interest. Writing in the Kitchen explores the relationship between food and literature and makes a major contribution to the study of both southern literature and of southern foodways and culture more widely. This collection examines food writing in a range of literary expressions, including cookbooks, agricultural journals, novels, stories, and poems. Contributors interpret how authors use food to explore the changing South, considering the ways race, ethnicity, class, gender, and region affect how and what people eat. They describe foods from specific southern places such as New Orleans and Appalachia, engage both the historical and contemporary South, and study the food traditions of ethnicities as they manifest through the written word.

Savor the food, flavor, rhythm, and romance of the Caribbean.

A truly authentic guide to down-home traditional Caribbean cooking, the kind you'd find at roadside stands, Sky Juice and Flying Fish captures the feel of the Islands, bringing the blue-green sea, the tropical breeze, and the exotic scents of the Caribbean into the American kitchen.

A culinary history of each of the Islands provides the perfect introduction to the 150 mouth-watering recipes for appetizers and soups, entrees, side dishes, and desserts, all featuring the distinctly exotic seasonings -- ginger, garlic, chili, coconut, curries, and rum -- of the Caribbean.

Begin your meal with plantain chips and a rum-spiked 'ti-punch. Go on to Bajan Fried Chicken from Barbados, complemented by a banana-ginger chutney and served with Jamaican Rice and Peas. Finish up with a sumptuous coconut pudding.

A glossary lists ingredients from achiote (small reddish berries) to z'yeux noirs (black-eyed peas), which can be found in grocery stores, Caribbean markets, or through the mail-order source list provided in the appendix.