African American Cookbook: Traditional And Other Favorite Recipes

by Phoebe Bailey

          An African American Traditional and Other Favorite Recipes is a wonderful collection of traditional recipes and food memories, as well as contemporary favorite foods. Woven among the 400 recipes are rich historical anecdotes and sayings. They were discovered or lived by this cookbook's contributors, many of whose ancestors participated in the Underground Railroad or lived nearby where it was active. Presented in an easy-to-use format for cooks of all traditions, this is a cookbook rich in history and rich in easy-to-prepare, wonderfully tasty food.

Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Good Books and Arcade imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of cookbooks, including books on juicing, grilling, baking, frying, home brewing and winemaking, slow cookers, and cast iron cooking. We’ve been successful with books on gluten-free cooking, vegetarian and vegan cooking, paleo, raw foods, and more. Our list includes French cooking, Swedish cooking, Austrian and German cooking, Cajun cooking, as well as books on jerky, canning and preserving, peanut butter, meatballs, oil and vinegar, bone broth, and more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Genres: Cookbooks

248 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2002

Reviews

[La La · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars on the blog.

I was excited to see this offered on Hoopla, but I was disappointed with it.

First of all there needed to be more traditional African American recipes and less "other favorites", there are so many Italian recipes the book could be called the African and Italian American Cookbook. There are also Amish, Polish, Mexican, and Asian recipes included. I think there are more "other favorites" than African American traditional recipes. The recipes were all mixed together, too. I would have preferred a definite Traditional section and a separate Other Favorites section.

The ebook (which is the version I read) had no photos, and there were no separations between sections and/or recipes. Clicking on the section title or recipe name in the contents also did not take you to either. It was a nightmare trying to navigate through the contents looking for specific recipes especially because, as I mentioned above, all the traditional and nontraditional recipes were mixed together. At the $11 purchase price I feel the ebook is not cost effective in any way.

My top reason for wanting to read this cookbook was for the promised history and historical context of the traditional recipes. There really was none. There were some random quotes from Harriet Tubman and Fredrick Douglas, and hymns sprinkled through the contents with no rhyme or reason; and a few generic paragraphs about slave life, usually having nothing to do with food. I honed in on a paragraph which mentioned slaves wanting to keep traditional African continent foods in their diets as much as possible, but then no history or information was given about how they were doing this, nor what those foods were. Most of the "history" for the traditional recipes was the author saying her grandmother used to make this, or her mother used to make that, but with no background as to why. The only solid interesting historical information I found was an explanation of the phrase "high on the hog". This was the type of food history I was looking for and didn't get.

The traditional African American recipes which were included were varied and interesting. I have put the ebook on the Kindle wishlist I check frequently for ebook sales, and if this cookbook ever shows up for $1.99 I will grab it. At that price it will be worth the time to go through and bookmark all the foods I grew to love at my ex in-laws' Sunday and holiday family meals, and some others like Cajun influenced foods I have yet to try.

I feel this cookbook would be more successful, and definitely more impactful, if it were shortened to include only the traditional foods, with better formatting, and more in-depth historical information included.

This was my monthly Nonfiction reading during my Black History Month blog celebration.

[Stephen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was disappointed by this cookbook. My hope was to read a text in which the food traditions of enslaved West Africans demonstrated their culture of origin and the conditions they endured in the United States. I hoped to better understand how Native American cooking, the cooking of Spanish and French immigrants, and the food traditions of poor white people in the South resulted in what is sometimes called "soul food." It is difficult to define "African American cooking." Black people in New Mexico make and eat green chili sauces. Black people in Minneapolis catch and eat walleye. Black people in North Dakota probably eat lefse! There is a specialty within the publishing industry whereby cookbooks are manufactured for various communities. The two most often seen examples are the Junior League cookbooks of many American cities and the church-supper cookbooks produced by congregations. (I understand this latter sort as my own recipes appear in at least three of them.) Phoebe Bailey's book is very much like one of those church-auxiliary cookbooks composed of recipes submitted by the ladies of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of which her brother is the pastor. Many of recipes do not seem to be African American recipes at all: pasta primavera, fettucine alfredo, Chinese broccoli beef, tempura, chicken teriyaki, Portuguese chicken, Bombay rice dressing, three recipes for minestrone, Czechoslovakian cookies, Jewish apple cake, and Hawaiian punch. The text does include some quite wonderful stories about the Underground Railroad and explains the hidden meaning in many of the songs sung by slaves during that era. But not so much about the cooking. Better volumes already on my shelves are Edna Lewis & Scott Peacock, The Gift of Southern Cooking: Recipes and Revelations from Two Great American Cooks, New York: Knopf, 2003; Princess Pamela, Princess Pamela’s Soul Food Cookbook, New York: New American Library, 1969; and Sallie Ann Robinson, Cooking the Gullah Way: Morning, Noon and Night, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007. I have not yet seen Toni Tipton-Martin's Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking: A Cookbook (2019) but the early reviews are categorically positive, and it looks like it belongs in the collection.

[Eva · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a church cookbook that did not market itself as such. Instead the title leads one to think it has a much clearer focus than it does. Like any anthology with multiple contributors the recipes vary in quality. Many of these recipes sound perfectly reasonable, some are dubious, and then there are the food crimes. They make you ask yourself if you trust anything that was published alongside this:

Sweet & Sour Shrimp
Makes 6-8 servings
21-oz. can cherry pie filling
3 Tbsp. firmly packed brown sugar
3 Tbsp. vinegar
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 green pepper, sliced in thin strips
8-oz. can sliced water chestnuts, well drained
1 lb. peeled and cooked medium shrimp
hot cooked rice

1. Combine pie filling, brown sugar, vinegar, and ginger. Mix well.
2. Add green pepper, water chestnuts, and shrimp. Mix just to combine.
3. Cover with waxed paper. Microwave 4-5 minutes on high, stirring 2-3 times.
4. Pour over rice in serving dish.

Personally I can not bring myself to try anything included in this cookbook since it does not appear there was any recipe testing or quality control. Also this recipe is not attributed, so I assume it is from the editor, which makes me even more leery of everything else.

[Angela Koblitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to know what are truly authentic African American recipes, this is the only book for you. A masterpiece!

[Angie Riddick · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice recipes to try. good history on African American cooking and received to try.

[Monique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich with history and delicious ingredients. Reminds me of my grandmas kitchen. A true masterpiece.

[Sharon Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have tried several recipes and really love this book. Wonder if there is a follow up book!

[Felita · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't wait to whip up some of these recipes. The songs were an added bonus.