{"id":220765,"date":"2025-10-29T09:42:40","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T13:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/?p=220765"},"modified":"2025-10-29T11:26:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T15:26:58","slug":"michael-w-twittys-new-cookbook-is-a-sweeping-ode-to-southern-cooking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/michael-w-twittys-new-cookbook-is-a-sweeping-ode-to-southern-cooking","title":{"rendered":"Michael W. Twitty\u2019s New Cookbook Is a Sweeping Ode to Southern Cooking"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>It\u2019s been eight years since Michael W. Twitty\u2019s James Beard Award\u2013winning debut, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/1939\/9780062379276\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Cooking Gene<\/a>,<\/em> was released. Since then, he\u2019s traveled the world for a comprehensive study of Southern culinary history through a global lens.<\/p>\n\n\n<!-- Promo shortcode start --><div id=\"nlf-1c\" class=\"gg-promo topic-distilled\"><div class=\"grid\"><div class=\"left\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/promos\/bourbon-tall.jpg\" class=\"tall\" alt=\"glass of bourbon with ice\"><\/div><div class=\"right\"><form id=\"nlf-1\" method=\"post\" class=\"form\" action=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/newsletters\/\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"gg_form_submit\" value=\"nlf-1\"><div class=\"hed\">Get Our Bourbon Newsletter!<\/div><div class=\"dek\">Distilled is our newsletter about the South\u2019s favorite spirit.<\/div><div class=\"action two-items\"><div class=\"input-left\"><input type=\"text\" name=\"email\" class=\"email-input\" value=\"\" placeholder=\"you@example.com\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"group_id\" value=\"151240180\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"shortcode_form\" value=\"nlf-1\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"subscription_99416\" value=\"on\"><input type=\"hidden\" name=\"prev_page_id\" value=\"220765\"><\/div><div class=\"gform_footer\"><div style=\"display:none;\"><input type=\"text\" name=\"nl-nov-st\" id=\"nl-nov-st1\" value=\"\" autocomplete=\"off\" tabindex=\"-1\"><input type=\"text\" name=\"nl-nov-b\" value=\"\" autocomplete=\"off\" tabindex=\"-1\"><input type=\"text\" name=\"nl-nov-r\" id=\"nl-nov-r1\" value=\"2025-11-14\" autocomplete=\"off\" tabindex=\"-1\"><input type=\"text\" name=\"nl-nov-et\" id=\"nl-nov-et1\" value=\"\" autocomplete=\"off\" tabindex=\"-1\"><\/div><button data-sitekey=\"6Lc-hRkaAAAAAI84hbB81Jl48pGievR_C_UgHdnY\" data-callback=\"on_submit_nlf_1\" data-action=\"submit\" class=\"g-recaptcha button button-primary after-email\">Sign Up<\/button><\/div><\/div><div class=\"captcha-terms\"><p>This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google <a href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/privacy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/terms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p><\/div><\/form><script>document.getElementById('nl-nov-st1').value=Date.now();document.getElementById('nl-nov-r1').value='';function on_submit_nlf_1(token) {document.getElementById('nl-nov-et1').value = Date.now();document.getElementById('nlf-1').submit();}<\/script><\/div><\/div><\/div><!-- Promo shortcode end -->\n\n\n\n<p>In his new cookbook, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/a\/1939\/9781837290871\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Recipes from the American South<\/a><\/em>, Twitty contends that Southern food suffers from oversimplification. \u201cSome Southern points of interest offer little jars of moonshine and canned \u2018roadkill,\u2019\u201d he writes in the book\u2019s introduction. \u201cOthers take home bags of benne wafers labeled in elegant flourishes, and heirloom vegetable seeds surround replica punch bowls at historic plantation homes or living history sites. The South itself is very much self-aware of the push-pull between competing stereotypes about Southern history and identity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"778\" height=\"1100\" src=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NA-Press-Kit_9781837290871-778x1100.jpeg\" alt=\"Recipes from the American South book cover\" class=\"wp-image-220758\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NA-Press-Kit_9781837290871-778x1100.jpeg 778w, https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NA-Press-Kit_9781837290871-212x300.jpeg 212w, https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NA-Press-Kit_9781837290871-768x1086.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NA-Press-Kit_9781837290871-849x1200.jpeg 849w, https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NA-Press-Kit_9781837290871.jpeg 1186w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 778px) 100vw, 778px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Recipes from the American South<\/em> offers a counterpoint that blends layers of history, cultural influences, and growing traditions without sacrificing a sense of heritage and place. Twitty chatted with <em>G&amp;G <\/em>about the cookbook and shared recipes for <a href=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/recipe\/texas-caviar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Texas Caviar<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/recipe\/virginia-fried-apples\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Virginia Fried Apples<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/recipe\/michael-w-twittys-breaded-crab-chop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Breaded Crab Chop<\/a>.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Your book covers so much ground. How would you sum it up?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a scope of Southern food and cooking, and I\u2019m aiming for it to not be either too expansive or too limited. I talk about how these recipes relate not just to specific cultures and moments of history, but also to moments of the life cycle, ecosystems. The fact that Southern food is seasonal is extremely important. Anybody in the South who has a garden right now knows this is one of the hardest-working times of the year. I don\u2019t think there are many other regional cuisines in America where those ancient transitions of the four seasons are deeply part of the cuisine.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m working against a narrative that says, \u201cThey just made something out of nothing.\u201d I mean, yeah, sometimes they did and did it beautifully. But some of these recipes go back thousands of years. We\u2019re talking about the sum total of millennia\u2014not just a couple hundred years\u2014of the knowledge of the seeds of the plants, of the foods, of how to have spiritual relationship with that food.&nbsp;<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p><div id=\"div-gpt-ad-3165205\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad mobile inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-9849286\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad tablet inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-9328178\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad desktop inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>One of the points you make in the introduction is that \u201cthe South is not a monolith, and no area can provide the breadth of the Southern story or fully set the Southern table.\u201d How does that belief inform the cookbook?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is one of the first cookbooks done by a solitary Black author that is a sweeping treatment of Southern food. Not just soul food, not just one version, but the whole thing, from Appalachia to East Texas to parts of Southern culture that often get ignored.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People think you have to be in Mississippi to be Southern. And I have to remind them, Mississippi didn\u2019t show up until 1817\u2026You have to talk about the French, the Spanish, the Germans, the many different varieties and ethnic groups from West Africa. You have to talk about the still-living Indigenous communities who are still exerting influence on the culture.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several hundred years ago, there was a soup called caldo verde. And then it moved from the Portuguese through African hands and hands of people of all different backgrounds in the South and became collard greens. What\u2019s even more powerful\u2014even though I hate to admit it\u2014is that those foods are going to be something very different in the South 400 years from now.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What was your experience like growing up in the South?<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was born and raised in Washington, D.C., but I have heritage from the South: middle Alabama, Virginia, and South Carolina. I remember how excited I was when my father took me down to see my grandfather in South Carolina\u2014I could hardly sleep the night before. My grandfather taught me how to milk a cow, even though I got two drops out of that cow. I remember riding around in the truck with my granddaddy picking yellow watermelons. And I was thrilled. Every scintilla of my being was on fire. Little six-year-old me was helping my daddy read the map. It brings me to tears.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for me, it was going to North and South Carolina with my father, and finally making it to Georgia and Alabama with my uncle, and going to those parts of Alabama where my grandparents are from, including Birmingham. I had the advantage of meeting the generation that knew their grandparents who were enslaved.&nbsp;<br><br><\/p><div id=\"div-gpt-ad-9853254\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad mobile inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-8220463\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad tablet inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-8012538\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad desktop inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What do you hope people take from this cookbook?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want people to mess this beautiful book up. I want there to be flour in it, I want hot sauce stains. I want there to be gravy fingerprints from children and grandparents.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s gorgeous and I\u2019m very proud of that. The pictures of the foods themselves are so artful\u2014not artsy, but artful. I said to my publisher, \u201cPlease avoid all red checkered tablecloths, and don\u2019t give me messy food.\u201d I don\u2019t like it when I open up a cookbook and the food is strewn all over the table. Give me Sunday potluck\u2013worthy food. I want it to be emotional and tell a story.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want all Southerners to see themselves in this cookbook. I want this cookbook to function the same way the family tree in the back of the Bible used to function. I want people to see themselves, make their note, and pass it on to the next generation, because I really do believe in the power of our food to bring together all of our narratives and have us understand: We are one Southern family. We may be dysfunctional as hell, but we\u2019re still a family.<br><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You\u2019re sharing three recipes with us today: Texas Caviar, Virginia Fried Apples, and Breaded Crab Chop. Can you tell us about them?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People think black-eyed peas and beans have to be sodden and overcooked, and I think the Texas Caviar is a really cool way to understand that we can gently cook them or use the canned version and have a bright salad. The name, of course, is fun in itself. And I had to make a point that Southern foods have nicknames. Anybody could say \u201cblack-eyed pea salad\u201d or \u201cvegetable salad.\u201d We say Texas Caviar. We don\u2019t say okra and rice, we say Limpin\u2019 Susan. We don\u2019t say black-eyed peas, we say Hoppin\u2019 John. These dishes are family members, and so they have names like family members.<\/p><div id=\"div-gpt-ad-2147234\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad mobile inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-4816640\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad tablet inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-4299570\" class=\"ad-container in-line-ad desktop inContent\" data-ad-size-mapping=\"inContent\" data-ad-path=\"\/68000349\/in-between-modules\" data-ad-sizes=\"[ [336, 280], [300, 250], [300, 50] ]\" data-ad-channel=\"\" data-ad-type=\"In-between Modules\" data-page-terms=\"flagged\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n<p>The Virginia Fried Apples was my grandmother\u2019s recipe. The British Crown mandated that planters and farmers must grow apples and peach trees from the Chesapeake throughout the Lowcountry, which translated to later generations. Of course, apple country begins in the Piedmont and moves into the mountains. And I didn\u2019t realize until my daddy and my grandmother told me that apples were fruit, vegetable, drink\u2014the stuff of life. They were good as preserves, cooked, as cider. So the recipe is me looking at my grandmother\u2019s way of cooking and going, \u201cOh, this was a staple.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The crab chop is based on a recipe that\u2019s just so damn beautiful from Peter S. Feibleman\u2019s Creole and Acadian cookbook. It\u2019s a crab chop, but it has a crab claw in place of the bone that you might see in a pork chop. It also was photographed against one of those old-school New Orleans plates that had the menu on the plate. I wanted to resurrect some of these recipes and give two or three versions. So, for example, there\u2019s Maryland crab cakes, and there\u2019s this crab chop. They\u2019re similar but they\u2019re dissimilar. They may not have the same fillers and ingredients or tell the same kind of story. It was really important to resurrect these recipes because I know that in time, good old-school recipes get forgotten because they\u2019re way in the back of cookbooks and people aren\u2019t looking anymore.<\/p>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI really do believe in the power of our food to bring together all of our narratives and have us understand: We are one Southern family.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":220805,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-10-29T13:42:45Z","apple_news_api_id":"b025ee7e-ecdd-412f-af87-63981af9e323","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-10-29T15:26:57Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AsCXufuzdQS-vh2OYGvnjIw","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1780],"tags":[74,470,29711],"authors":[30796],"issue":[],"recipe-type":[],"class_list":["post-220765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-and-drink","tag-books","tag-cookbooks","tag-food-drink","authors-madison-powers"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.3 (Yoast SEO v26.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Michael W. Twitty\u2019s New Cookbook Is a Sweeping Ode to Southern Cooking &#8211; Garden &amp; Gun<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cI really do believe in the power of our food to bring together all of our narratives and have us understand: We are one Southern family.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/michael-w-twittys-new-cookbook-is-a-sweeping-ode-to-southern-cooking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael W. Twitty\u2019s New Cookbook Is a Sweeping Ode to Southern Cooking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cI really do believe in the power of our food to bring together all of our narratives and have us understand: We are one Southern family.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/michael-w-twittys-new-cookbook-is-a-sweeping-ode-to-southern-cooking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Garden &amp; Gun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gardenandgun\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-29T13:42:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-29T15:26:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/michael-w-twitty-1-960x1200.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@gardenandgun\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@gardenandgun\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/michael-w-twittys-new-cookbook-is-a-sweeping-ode-to-southern-cooking\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/articles\/michael-w-twittys-new-cookbook-is-a-sweeping-ode-to-southern-cooking\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Gabriela Gomez-Misserian\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/gardenandgun.com\/#\/schema\/person\/e6cca540eec31439cf98cf9427370a13\"},\"headline\":\"Michael W. 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