A Presentation by Toni Tipton-Martin, Culinary Journalist,
former Staff Writer for the Los Angeles Times and former
President of the Southern Foodways Alliance. Cookbooks are one
way women assert their individuality, develop their minds and
structure their lives, but culinary history has been cruel to
African American cooks. Their legacy has been characterized by
dim, demoralizing portraits of “noble savages” managing the
domestic responsibilities of white mistresses, and of lowly
servants toiling endlessly in “big house” kitchens. Despite
affirming examples of real, professional empowered, beautiful –
slim – black cooks, it is still far too easy to associate
African American cooks with the “toothy, grin- and calico-
swathed plump face” belonging to the world’s most well
recognized black cook: Aunt Jemima. For more than 200 years, the
Aunt Jemima image has been powerful shorthand – the embodiment
of America’s deepest antipathy for and obsession with the women
who fed us. Signs of their talent, heart, and wisdo