Abstract
This study argues that the cookbooks of Bryant Terry, African American chef and food justice activist, act as an archive for black culinary epistemologies. This archive has two effects: First, it contests the notion that “slow foods” is an idea of European origin. Terry’s cookbooks emphasize the ways in which black communities have contributed culinary knowledge to “slow foods,”—consuming fresh, local, homemade, nutritious foods—for hundreds of years. Secondly, Terry’s cookbooks counter the dominant narrative that black food consumption is pathological. Contemporary scholarly and popular literature emphasizes black consumption of unhealthy foods, including foods high in sugars, fats, and calories. Terry presents a counter-narrative in which black communities eat fresh, local, nutritious foods as part of an ancestral, African diasporic tradition. Through a cultural studies analysis, I argue that Terry’s four cookbooks, Grub (2006), Vegan Soul Kitchen (2009), The Inspired Vegan (2012), and Afro-Vegan (2014), are sites that recuperate black culinary epistemologies. Notwithstanding a few notable exceptions, very little academic literature has been written about the relationship between race, knowledge production, and the Slow Food movement. Terry’s work underscores how black chefs and black communities claim their own stake in food justice politics. This paper brings together literature in popular culture, food studies, and ethnic studies to argue that Terry’s cookbooks are sites of political contestation.
Presenters
Marilisa NavarroAssistant Professor of African American Studies, College of Humanities and Sciences, Thomas Jefferson University, East Falls, Pennsylvania, United States
Details
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Theme
KEYWORDS
Slow foods, Knowledge Production, African Americans, Cookbooks
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