Michael Twitty is a community scholar of traditional African American food culture. For ten years he has been involved in many projects related to exploring foodways from the Smithsonian to Colonial Williamsburg and has presented at conferences related to the subject.
For our story on the botanical legacy of Africa, Twitty helped us trace African American cuisine, to plantation plots, all the way back across the Atlantic to African soil; "To see an okra plant that you know that was growing in Mt. Vernon or Monticello, to see a kind of rice grown in the rice plantations of 17th century South Carolina- it gives you the sense of such connection. Because I always tell people- my own corny saying, but: growing history is knowing history."
Twitty's personal initiative is to document the West and Central African heritage in the regions where his ancestors were enslaved. His first book, Fighting Old Nep: The Foodways of Enslaved Afro-Marylanders 1634-1864 is a compendium of his extensive research enriched with recipes which he has collected from the descendants and writings of enslaved peoples. He also has assembled a unique collection of heirloom seeds - seeds that were carried by enslaved peoples from Africa and the Caribbean. The fruits and vegetables harvested from these seeds became the dietary staples of the African American family.
Read Twitty's full bio, Portrait of a Cook as a Young Man at his site, Afro Foodways
