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Loading... Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American Jew (2022)104 | 3 | 264,481 |
(3.88) | 4 | "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. In Koshersoul, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, 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. The question that most intrigues him is not just who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, Twitty contends, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. Koshersoul also explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks, including Twitty's own passage to and within Judaism. As intimate, thought-provoking, and profound as The Cooking Gene, this remarkable book teases the senses as it offers sustenance for the soul. Koshersoul includes 48-50 recipes"--… (more) |
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One day, after having a million conversations and seeing millions of faces and sharing enmity and joy with one another, it hit me that this is why we cook for one another, share food and talk about food and beyond—we just want to be family to one another. We have a history, and we are still piecing it together. We just don’t want to always give our origin stories before our names. In 1855, Rabbi David Einhorn, a Bavarian Jew, was appointed to Har Sinai, the oldest synagogue associated with the Reform movement, but he was run out of town in 1861 after delivering a fiery sermon in German against the institution of slavery. The German Jews lived around Druid Lake Drive and Eutaw Place. Baltimore’s Jewish community in the 1950s, when I was a kid, was a middle-class community. A lot of people had Black women working in their homes. We went to segregated schools. My elementary school wasn’t just all white but 90 percent Jewish. Your neighborhood was where you were. It was who you were. (Marc Steiner) True to the season of Passover, spring collards are increasing in bitterness while winter collards mellow and sweeten. They were once endemic to the gardens of enclaves African Americans, a replacement for the many leafy greens our ancestors ate in West and Central Africa. Honestly, it’s exhausting. It’s something on the other side of peace. I crave acceptance even as I worry that around the next corner is rejection. The marketplace has its consequences for those of us kippa’ed while Black, and I’m not the only one. But there were also people who would aid and abet my one-man yeshiva, and because they believed in me, I am a proud autodidact, and not a victim of suicide. When you have confidence in the journey, you don’t feel like you’ve failed; you feel like the challenge is to conquer your failings. Koshersoul is my self-coined term for our vantage point, not a group affinity, tend, or even tradition. It’s another word for kinfolk. …the Chocolate Chosen, our people within a people, Jews of African descent. Mendel, a serious foodie with African American Jewish and Egyptian Jewish heritage, said not only does he miss bacon, but he misses crab from his nonkosher foray: “I am from Baltimore!” | |
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▾References References to this work on external resources. Wikipedia in EnglishNone ▾Book descriptions "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. In Koshersoul, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, 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. The question that most intrigues him is not just who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, Twitty contends, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. Koshersoul also explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks, including Twitty's own passage to and within Judaism. As intimate, thought-provoking, and profound as The Cooking Gene, this remarkable book teases the senses as it offers sustenance for the soul. Koshersoul includes 48-50 recipes"-- ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description
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I liked hearing about the Black-Jewish relationship from this Black author rather than from the Jewish point of view, with which I am familiar.
The chapter about radio personality Marc Steiner’s reminiscences of growing up in Jewish-Black 1950s Baltimore as segregation was trying to end held a special fascination for me because that was my hometown at that time. His descriptions of that place at that time were spot on.
The chapter called “Katie - ‘I Feel Like Me’” made me cry. It was about a Hebrew school student of the author’s who finally felt like her true self when presenting a school project about Jews of Japan. She herself was the daughter of a Jewish Japanese American mom and an Ashkenazi Jewish dad. After making her presentation, she told her teacher, the author of this book, “I feel like me...the whole me.”
One thing that especially touched me deeply is that Twitty writes with such love for Judaism. As a born Jew, I never want to take my religion for granted, but as the author was a convert, my respect for him deepens as that which is so meaningful to me is just as meaningful to him.
The one thing in this book I didn’t like was the author saying he was not a fan of shakshuka, poached eggs in a highly spiced tomato sauce dish. How can that be?! :)
The second half of the book about the intersection of African American and typical Jewish food had some absolutely great cooking ideas which I can’t wait to try. Using smoked turkey necks or Liquid Smoke for flavoring beans or soup sounds fabulous. I also can’t wait to try making fake crab cakes!
To me, this was a fabulous book and quite a special treat to read. ( )