Koshersoul (Michael W. Twitty)
Koshersoul (Michael W. Twitty)
The James Beard award-winning author of the acclaimed The Cooking Gene explores the cultural crossroads of Jewish and African diaspora cuisine and issues of memory, identity, and food.
“Twitty makes the case that Blackness and Judaism coexist in beautiful harmony, and this is manifested in the foods and traditions from both cultures that Black Jews incorporate into their daily lives…Twitty wishes to start a conversation where people celebrate their differences and embrace commonalities. By drawing on personal narratives, his own and others’, and exploring different cultures, Twitty’s book offers important insight into the journeys of Black Jews.”—Library Journal
In Koshersoul, culinary historian and James Beard Award–winning author Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinct culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish Diaspora. The creation of African-Jewish cooking is a conversation of migrations and a dialogue of diasporas offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them. Yet, the question that most intrigues Twitty is not who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. In recounting his own passage to and within Judaism, Twitty explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks.
As intimate, thought-provoking, and profound as The Cooking Gene, this timely, remarkable food memoir teases the senses as it offers sustenance for the soul.