Some of my most vivid memories from childhood take place in the kitchen. Like during the holidays, when my late great-aunt’s house became crowded with folks—the elder women bustling from stove to table, the men standing around the table waiting to begin the family prayer, heat and the aroma of chicken and turnip greens and fresh cornbread made-from-scratch engulfing us. And laughter. There was always laughter (and some fussing) that filled the house. This scene from my childhood is a familiar one, an extension of a shared legacy among Black folks, especially those of the rural South.
In her memoir-cookbook, “Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts,” Crystal Wilkinson invites us into her kitchen, but also into her family’s story—five generations of Black Appalachian country folk. Wilkinson teaches us how food holds memories, how cooking can be a kind of time-traveling as the steam from a pot of butter beans transports you back to standing in your granny’s kitchen watching her move with tenderness and precision. Each recipe Wilkinson gifts to us tells a story not just about Black Appalachian life, but about our history as Black folks in this country.
She writes: “I am the keeper of the stories, the writer, the one who has carried the stories in my apron for so many years, the one who considers a rusty metal recipe box my finest family heirloom. I am the one who makes a pot of chicken and dumplings and cornbread, who conjures up the kitchen ghosts of my rural homeland every time I cook.”
Wilkinson sat down with Black Joy to discuss the role of her ancestors in piecing together parts of her family history, her thoughts on the sacredness of family recipes and share some of her favorite childhood memories involving food and family.
Tell me about the process of excavating your family history dating back to your fourth great-grandmother, Aggy. What steps did you take to find this information?
The woman who’s on the book cover, Patsy Wilkinson Riffe, is grandma…
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