Bryant Terry’s Black Food addresses the African diaspora not only through the lens of food: history, culture, wellness, memory, and a sense of wholeness come into play, too. and so much more. He shares recipes from the book and discusses his work on food justice at the first ever Santa Fe Literary Festival, and takes time out of his busy schedule to talk with TABLE Magazine’s, Gabe Gomez.
Bryant Terry’s Black Food (2021) Cookbook
In Black Food (2021), Bryant Terry invites readers to rethink food through the lens of culture, history, and justice. The book opens with an essay by chef, artist, and intellectual Lazarus Lynch, “Black, Queer, Food,” where he writes:
“Identity, in itself, does not tell us the whole story of another. Rather, identity is a portal to discovering more intimately the deeper parts of another. And, in its most rigid interpretation, identity is fraught with constructs we must undo.”
This statement frames the book’s purpose: to undo and rebuild our understanding of Black foodways while reclaiming traditions that continue to shape communities worldwide.
A Polyphony of Voices
Black Food is not just a cookbook. It is a chorus of essays, poems, prayers, and recipes from across the African diaspora. Contributors include writers, thinkers, and chefs who bring depth and perspective. Recipes range from The Best Potato Salad Ever to Jamaican Style Ackee and Callaloo Patties.
The chapters, with titles like Motherland, Spirituality, Black Women, Food & Power, and Radical Self Care, provide thematic structure. Each section blends history, culture, and flavor into a textured whole.
A Touchstone for Movement
Terry describes the book as a journey. “I imagined an arc that started on the African continent and ended with the idea of a Black future,” he explains. To set the tone, the book begins with the poem From Scratch, which opens with: “On the first day, God made a meal plan.”
Like the African diaspora itself, the format moves and evolves. It resists linearity and instead creates a living document of experience, resilience, and imagination.
Terry Takes Food as Context, Not Just Recipes
Terry, Chef-in-Residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, adapts many chapters from his teaching programs. His aim was never to create just another cookbook. “I wanted to encompass all the ways we are human,” he says.
Unlike most cookbooks, Black Food foregrounds essays before recipes. The context comes first, offering readers history and meaning before the ingredients. This structure distinguishes it in a crowded field of food media.
Reclamation and Resistance
The book is also a reclamation project. “We can’t talk about reclaiming traditional foodways without acknowledging structural barriers,” Terry notes. Access to fresh food remains limited for many communities. Recipes here acknowledge those realities while still celebrating joy and tradition.
Contributor Tao Leigh Goffe, PhD, captures the sensory and cultural depth of diasporic food: “For those of us who are part of the Black Diaspora, we know what it means to associate a flavor with a sound, a song, a color.”
Bridging the Chasm
For Terry, food is more than sustenance. It is art, culture, and community. He critiques the industrialized system that has commodified food and severed it from human connection. “My work has been about bridging that chasm,” he says. This is why his books often include suggested soundtracks or films—to connect recipes with memory and mood.
The book closes with the chapter Black Future, introduced by Ashante Reese, PhD. She writes: “We build on the past and the present to give our food and our communities a future in which we have space and time to delight in feeding ourselves and each other.”
This vision expands the book’s mission beyond the kitchen. It insists on holistic nourishment—food as care, memory, and community accountability.
Multitudes on the Page and Plate
Ultimately, Black Food reminds us that advocacy is not only the work of those most impacted by historical trauma. Readers are asked to remember, reflect, and participate. Eating is not a passive act. It is memory, reclamation, and connection.
Black Food teaches us that as the world of food and cuisine expands, so does the narrative of tradition and the history we taste on our tongues. Eating, after all, is what connects all of us; it’s universal––multitudes in every bite.
Recipes reprinted with permission from Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora edited by Bryant Terry, copyright © 2021. Published by 4 Color Books, an imprint of Ten Speed Press and Penguin Random House.
Purchase Black Food at your favorite local bookseller.
Story by Gabe Gomez
Photography by Oriana Koren*
*Photograph copyright © 2021 Oriana Koren
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