Kosher/Soul?: Black-Jewish Identity Cooking

Being African American and Jewish is for many a combination that many can’t wrap their heads around. However, for thousands of Jews of color; having heritage, faith and family in both Diasporas—African and Jewish—and their many intersections means creating material, social and ideational lives that interweave identities and histories. For Michael, this includes food and the ways Black and Jews have mediated otherness and oppression using what they eat as well as the global stories Diasporic foodways have to offer. Join Michael on an exploration and a taste of what he calls, “KosherSoul.”  (His new book KosherSoul is available as of August 2022.)

From Cultural Appropriation To Cultural Amplification: 
Our Next Steps As A Society

Since the emergence of the second phase of the culture wars, no phrase since “reverse racism,” has so much ink been spilled over like “cultural appropriation.” Join Michael for a lively dialogue defining what appropriation is and is not, and how we can advance this complex and emotional conversation in ways that empower and push our society to a more nuanced inclusivity. 

The Cooking Gene: Tracing My African American Story Through Food

For African American culinary historian Michael W. Twitty there was a giant hole in the story of American cooking as big as the one in the story of most African American families. Putting the microscope on himself, Michael decided to fully trace out his family history through the story of Southern and American food. Using genetic research, historic interpretation, nature study, heirloom gardening and interviews with contemporary voices in food, his journey led him back to his family’s origins in West and Central Africa and a front ring seat in the debate over race and food in American life.

The Price Of Hyper {In}Visibility: Being Gay, Black, And Male In America

From Lil Nas X, to Empire, from Ru Paul to Pose, Black gay men have never been more hyper visible in American culture and yet Black gay men are still facing unique struggles and challenges that are unique to their diverse journeys. Join an actual Black gay man, openly gay author Michael W. Twitty for a discussion on the dichotomy between visibility and invisibility and slow acceptance. Learn the history of Black gay men in America and take a peek at solution points for a brighter future for the LGBT community and beyond.

From A Haunted Plate: Becoming An 18th and 19th Century Black Chef

Michael takes you on journey through the practical arts of food sourcing and cookery through the lens of a colonial or antebellum era African American cook. He will take the audience from lecture to discussion on the ways that traditional West and Central African food traditions met and melded with each other, those of indigenous peoples and Western Europe and then morphed over decades into centuries. Michael discusses the history of the cuisine as an extension of the foodways of Africa in early America with emphasis on the cooking techniques, cultural transformations, and flavor principles unique to this translation of Western cuisine by early African American chefs.

You Don’t Get To Be 400 By Being Stupid: The Genius Of African American Culture

Black culture in America endures a constant tug of war in the court of public opinion between hype, marvel and hypervisibility and being seen as a detriment, a pathology or degradation. Worse, some don’t really believe there is a Black American or African American culture. Join Michael for an exploration of seven secrets to the endurance of African American civilization and how those will be building blocks for the future. What has African American culture been? Where is it going? 400 years after the tragic beginning at Jamestown, Virginia; let’s have a birthday party for Black America celebrating its cultural resilience and rootedness. 

Culinary Justice: Defining A Theory Of Gastronomic Sovereignty

Food justice, social justice, environmental justice, food sovereignty—and entire language has developed around how we want to see and live in a better world where fairness and right action prevail. In an extension of these concepts, Michael has begun to promote his notion of culinary justice—the idea that historically oppressed peoples have a right to authority, sovereignty, prosperity and acknowledgement in their contribution to national and global foodways. Join Michael for a lively discussion to explore the way the preparation of food unites and divides out narratives and how we can use it for the good.