Amazon.com Review
Some of the great professional cooks in the country happen to be African American, and
A Taste of Heritage happens to be a collection of foods and dishes that reflects both their family histories and their training. Chef Joe Randall has reached out to 11 of his peers to contribute to this well-rounded cookbook that often makes sublime meals of humble ingredients. It's not a cookbook to keep on the bookshelf--
A Taste of Heritage is one you'll want to keep in the kitchen.
Each contributor is profiled at the end of the book, and offers a menu of favorite dishes. This is a wonderful addition that enables you to get to know each chef by his or her food, not just by personal history. The mighty Patrick Clark, for example, suggests a summery menu of Bay Scallop Chowder, Roasted Rack of Pork with Cider-Pepper Glaze, and Sweet Potato and Wild Mushroom Hash, sweetened at the end with White Chocolate Banana Cream Pie. Chicago's Kym Gibson offers Curried Chicken, Red Mint Rice, and Sautéed Green Tomatoes and Olives. The list goes on and on, with Chef Randall rounding out the selections.
This is not a book about being fancy for fancy's sake, or tricking out some simple fare with trendy ingredients. Nor is it about the cooking found in African American church basements. This is a book about pride and culture and heritage--a book that celebrates all the life-sustaining goodness that can be cooked into food and passed along in good times and bad times alike. While a great deal of the heritage can be laid on the doorstep of the South and southern cooking, these chefs have moved all over the country and served all kinds of palates, and their deep knowledge about what makes food delicious gives these recipes their true bottom. It's a mélange, like a fine gumbo.
The weakest link in A Taste of Heritage is the editorial content provided by Toni Tipton-Martin, food editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The proof in this book isn't in the reading, but in the pudding. --Schuyler Ingle
African American cooking evolved from slaves' mere necessity to stay alive into a vibrant tradition yielding an extensive range of dishes melded out of various heritages to create a cuisine unique in the world. Basic, familiar African American foods, such as greens and ham hocks, appear in this compilation, but few would recognize so extraordinary a result of fusion cooking as chit'lin pizza on a cornmeal crust. In Randall's (and coauthor Tipton-Martin's) capable and confident hands, such a dish seems natural, combining an old southern comestible with currently fashionable Italian expression. If that isn't enough, the Carolinas' favorite crab cakes pair with France's ratatouille to supplement these fried seafoods with vegetables. Leah Chase, Patrick Clark, Edna Lewis, and other African American cooks have brought celebrity to contemporary African American cooking, and each of them has contributed to this volume's recipes. In the book's concluding section, the authors offer seasonal menus, and chefs contemplate the effects of today's African American cooking and assess its future in an increasingly homogeneous food world.
Mark Knoblauch
