My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef

by Kwame Onwuachi, Joshua David Stein

Featuring more than 125 recipes, My America is a celebration of the food of the African Diaspora, as handed down through Onwuachi’s own family history, spanning Nigeria to the Caribbean, the South to the Bronx, and beyond. From Nigerian Jollof, Puerto Rican Red Bean Sofrito, and Trinidadian Channa (Chickpea) Curry to Jambalaya, Baby Back Ribs, and Red Velvet Cake, these are global home recipes that represent the best of the patchwork that is American cuisine.

Interwoven throughout the book are stories of Onwuachi’s travels, illuminating the connections between food and place, and food and culture. The result is a deeply personal tribute to the food of “a land that belongs to you and yours and to me and mine.”

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Nonfiction, Cooking, Food and Drink, African American, Collections

304 pages, Hardcover

First published May 17, 2022

About the author

Kwame Onwuachi is the executive chef at Kith and Kin and owner of the Philly Wing Fry franchise in Washington, D.C. He was born on Long Island and raised in New York City, Nigeria, and Louisiana. Onwuachi was first exposed to cooking by his mother, in the family’s modest Bronx apartment, and he took that spark of passion and turned it into a career. From toiling in the bowels of oil cleanup ships to working at some of the best restaurants in the world, he has seen and lived his fair share of diversity. Onwuachi trained at the Culinary Institute of America and has opened five restaurants before turning thirty. A former Top Chef contestant, he has been named a 30 Under 30 honoree by both Zagat and Forbes.

(source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Nannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5)

I feel a little bad not rating this the full four stars, because it has so many recipes, and I love the history lessons and the author's intelligent and important commentary, but I'm so disappointed at the lack of pictures! That sounds like such a silly thing to say, but when maybe one out of eight recipes has any pictures, the cookbook feels a lot more dry.

However, thank GOD there's finally a cookbook published in the recent years that can lie flat! Again, it sounds ridiculous, but when you're trying to make a recipe, referencing the ingredients and steps are a lot more difficult when you have to keep opening the book back up.

However.2, it would be a bit difficult to cook quite a few of these recipes unless you had planned a week of them (I think?). Most of them require you to reference an earlier recipe (a spice mix or a sauce or a stock or a glaze—sometimes several in a single recipe and sometimes even the sauces/spices reference other sauces or spices, etc.), which only keep for a few days and which usually makes more than a single recipe requires. Most of the recipes also require a great deal of work and expense. The burger, for example, wants you to grind three cuts of beef yourself (granted, you can also have a butcher do it for you), brine the cucumbers for the pickles yourself, etc. None of these are necessarily bad; they just may be more labor intensive than I think most people are prepared for or would have time for.

Everything looks and sounds absolutely delicious, though.

[Karrie Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't just a cookbook, it's also a history lesson on food. I just wish there were more pictures of Kwame's dishes.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

This would have been a full 5 stars, alas, the lack of pictures knocked a star off. Cookbooks like this are totally my jam — they explore cuisines I’m not very familiar with and want to learn about, as well as giving a short history of the dish and where it originated.

If only there were more pictures of the dishes themselves.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This cookbook is ridiculous! At most, it’s a cookbook for other chefs and those with an unlimited budget and easy assess to ingredients. Before I can make a recipe, I have to make a bunch of purées, spice blends, a glaze, a coloring agent, pastes, sauces, etc.. Does your local grocer or bodega carry soy sauce powder, crayfish powder, goat shoulder and banana leaves? The most relatable and uncomplicated recipe is for zucchini bread. Most of the recipes are not accompanied with photos. If you want to eat like Kwame, go to his restaurant.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

As delicious as many as these recipes sound, I likely won't make a damn one of them. But I love this book for its stories of place, of time, of family.

[Tammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this cookbook along with Kwame's memoir. I might be a big fan. I haven't yet tried many of the recipes but the shepherd's pie was AMAZING. I loved it so much, I ended up buying a copy of the cookbook for my husband (shh, don't tell him, it's for Christmas). I'm sure the public library I borrowed the book from will appreciate getting it back.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

A bit pretentious and wordy, not really something that's accessible for the home cook. Almost all of the recipes require you to make your own spice mixes, base sauces, stocks, and oil mixtures even, and you have to constantly refer back to the first chapter for these. I understand how this would work in a restaurant, as you'd have this stuff ready to go since these are the dishes you're always cooking, but if you just wanted to try out a couple in this book you'd have to make sure you had the spices mixed up already or a sauce/puree/oil/stock made.

I can see how this would be a useful resource for some people, but it's not for me.

Also, very few pictures! Cookbooks need pictures! I'm gonna say this every time until people stop being stingy with photos of the finished recipes.

[Erin Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought this for my GF and attempted to make the jerk chicken with rice and peas. It took 3 days!!!
First you have to make 5 different sauces/purees just to get the chicken in the brine...some of the sauces require that you first make one or two previous sauces. It was intense. Then you brine for 1 day and then you "marinade" for another additional 24-48 hours...and that's just the chicken. The rice and peas called for some of the previous sauces as well as an additional "sauce" that's made with basically burnt sugar in oil. The problem is that the receipe calls for you to add water to boiling hot sugar/oil and that caused a HUGE HUGE HUGE mess all over my kitchen. It was ommitted completely. And I didn't really see the point because the recipe also calls for palm sugar in addition to the "browning" aka burnt sugar. Both the rice and peas and the jerk chicken were delicious. BUT....not delicious enough to make again for three days. I would have to make all the purees and pastes and sauces again because there's not really enough left over to make a second batch. So now I have little containers of leftover sauces/purees that will probably just go bad in my fridge unless I figure out another use for them.

All in all, the recipes look and sounds delish, but I do not have time to spend days making the Mise en place for one or two recipes. I would love to eat at his restaurant tho!

[Jenn Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I'm understanding what I see online correctly (maybe *this* isn't the final title?), an earlier possible title for this was "Food of My People: Recipes from the African Diaspora" and I feel like that is a lot more descriptive and indicative of what's contained here. The "My America" title is concise and meaningful, but lacks depth.

I've been following Kwame and his career since I first saw him on Top Chef, and he has always struck me as someone who is not only passionate, but also thoughtful about the food he cooks. This is not a miscellaneous collection of recipes he likes, it's a carefully curated and organized journey through history - that of Kwame's family and the larger African diaspora. This was not just enjoyable, but super informative. I'd say it could have more photos, but as always with ARCs it's possible the version I'm seeing will continue to be tweaked.

Would definitely recommend.

Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for this eARC in exchange for my honest review.

[Rosalie Lochner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is beautiful, the narrative is engaging, and it made me want to cook, but it's definitely a book for chefs or at least people accustomed to multi-stage meal prep. Kwame does a great job laying out his building block recipes, and employs those building blocks to construct more elaborate recipes. This is not a methodology of cooking that I am used to (and you’re probably not either if you’re reading this blog). I intended to make “Brown Stew Chicken” but before I could even begin, I had to prep: “Garlic and Ginger paste,” “Peppa sauce”, “Browning”, “House Spice”, and “Chicken Stock.” The scale of the recipes is also unmanageable for people looking to dip their toe in. Peppa Sauce requires: 50 scotch bonnet peppers, 2 cups spiced pickling liquids and ¾ cup garlic cloves. That being said, I am going to keep a few of his building block recipes in my back pocket, and I think that his book is worth checking out.

[Margery Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty interesting recipes here. in particular there's a series of rice recipes that sound wonderful. also intrigued by coco bread which i am definitely going to try. the thing that bugs, is his use, and naming, of various spice mixes. I get that the use of the spice mixes creates a theme to his recipes and i appreciate that but i kind of hate the way he refers to them by initials. for example 'RGP' which is roasted garlic puree. ok does seem like I should be able to keep that in my head but there's also 'GGP' and 'NKO" as well as 'Green Seasoning,' 'Berbere,' 'Peppa Sauce,' 'Spice Pickling liquid,' all in one recipe. making sense of that involves an awful lot of flipping back and forth in the book. anyhow, many of the recipes do sound delicious.

[Charles Eldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This cookbook is very much chef/author Kwame Onwuachi’s experiences as a young black chef in America as the title says. It is quite personal, and I appreciate learning about his journeys and influence. However, it does not make for a cohesive cookbook. The recipes are all over the gastronomic map: Ethiopian doro wat, next to Jamaican jerk chicken, next to American South chicken & waffles. A reader might find a few go-to recipes within, but it doesn’t present itself as a cohesive resource that I would want to add to my cookbook collection. I’m glad I picked this up at my local library system and learned about the author, but the functionality of the cookbook is low for me.

[Jenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part history book, part memoir, this cookbook contextualizes the foods in both the author’s history and the history of the African and African-American diaspora. Organized similarly to most cookbooks—legumes, vegetables, beans and rice, meats, chicken, seafood, desserts and breads, the book starts with pantry, the spice mixes are the heart of most recipes in the book. The author Onwuachi is a terrific writer with both a humorous and poignant tone. I look forward to mixing some house spice and making red beans and rice, mac and cheese, and banana pudding.

[Erin]

I don't think I can find all the ingredients, and making my own spices and stock from scratch is not totally practical since I'm not feeding an army all the time.

That said, I've made two of the recipes and they're new favorites: red beans and rice, and lamb shepherd's pie. Those have relatively simple ingredients and just require a lot of slow cooking, which pays off in flavor. Delicious.

If I ever get a chance to visit his restaurant, I would love to try out some of these dishes that really only a restaurant kitchen can pull off.

[Scott Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can't go wrong with the recipes.

I was a little taken aback by the identity politics in the title, but this chef is coming from a wide set of experiences that make him a lot more of a worthy and valuable human being than a blank member of a social category.

I found this to be a very valuable and inspiring work. If only, for reminding me of a lot of food that I eat, and a lot of food I have yet to try, that normal cookbooks do not often combine under the same covers.

Rare and well done.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most recipes seem like classic recipes from Nigeria, Caribbean, Southern, etc. I was looking for New American/fusion.
Many recipes called for premade/homemade spice mix but most people are trying out new recipes or making 1-2 dishes; you will have to buy the premade spice mix, scale down the spice mix recipe (prob still have some leftover) or make a whole bunch that you may not use again. So the recipes' useability is low.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like how the book is organized - it feels less like a cookbook and more like a Cooking System. The daunting part is how many of the pantry staple sauces/spice mixes you need to have in order to cook from it. I learned a lot and enjoyed reading but honestly don't know how many recipes I would actually attempt.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little chef-y. I will have to create a wile pantry to get started and lots of acronyms.. nko, ggp, which will have you referencing back to the pantry chapter. My partner is super-hyped that I am planning to try my hand at Jamaican beef patties and coco bread, which are arguably his favorite foods.

[Deborah Cleaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute delight from the initial recipes for spice mixes and basic stocks through the more complex global recipes that utilize them told by a chef who doesn’t just cook but delves into food and it’s history and sharing his own history with these dishes. A breath of fresh air and foodie joy.

[Dray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of multiethnic, multinational dishes coupled with an engaging narrative. Creative, expanding, honoring, and distinctive - the recipes are mostly within everyday reach and is fare that I have rarely seen on restaurant menus (I don't live in a large metro area). Recommended.

[Cait · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very personal book, drawing from the American south, Caribbean, Nigeria and Ethiopia. For me: meat heavy, and I wanted more of a deep dive in some places, and less in others.
No recipes book marked to make

[Lacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great variety of recipes to try. Loved the pantry section which included the recipes for the spice mixtures and sauces used throughout.

[Rachel Heller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has good recipes

[Pinky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Want to try the Jollof Rice, Corn Maque Choux, and the M'semen recipes.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous and moving look at the Black diaspora through food and the eyes of one young, Black chef. Definitely worth a perusal!

[LdyGray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recipes and essays about the food of the Black diaspora.

[Mahir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid cookbook with a geographic breakdown of food's origins. I made some of the chicken, shrimp, and pork belly recipes. I'd consider buying it.

[Sarah LeDonne · Rating 4 out of 5]

For when I have a bigger kitchen and access to more ingredients. Definitely intriguing.

[Elizabeth]

As seen in the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

[Riegs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very practical and delicious, I was pleasantly surprised by the ease of most recipes. I wish the publisher had afforded the author more legit photos of individual dishes though.