Jessica B. Harris on Making Vast Connections Across African American Cooking and Culture

Dr. Jessica B. Harris is renowned as the grande dame of African American cookbooks. One of the world’s foremost historians, scholars, writers, and thinkers when it comes to food—and African American cooking in particular—she has, over the past 40 years, published 12 books documenting the foods and foodways of the African diaspora, including Hot Stuff (1985), Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons (1989), Sky Juice and Flying Fish (1991), The Welcome Table (1995), The Africa Cookbook (1998), and High on the Hog (2011)—the latter of which became a Netflix docuseries and, in turn, a New York Times bestseller. Through her cookbooks, her work, and her very being, Harris is a living testament to the polyvocal, far-reaching traditions and histories of African American food and culture.

On the episode, Harris talks about her love of West African markets, her disregard for recipes despite being the author of numerous cookbooks, and the widely unrecognized yet critical differences between yams and sweet potatoes.

Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[00:49] Dr. Jessica B. Harris

[05:28] Harris’s “French-Speaking Theater in Senegal” N.Y.U. Doctoral Dissertation

[05:49] Carrie Sembène

[07:45] Souvenirs du Sénégal by J. Gérard Bosio and Michel Renaudeau

[10:17] R.A.W.

[21:06] Hot Stuff (1985)

[21:43] The Welcome Table (1995)

[22:01] Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons (1989)

[22:05] Sky Juice and Flying Fish (1991)

[22:06] Tasting Brazil (1992)

[23:12] The Africa Cookbook (1998)

[23:15] Beyond Gumbo (2003)

[23:28] Rum Drinks (2010)

[23:56] Vintage Postcards From the African World (2020)

[24:46] High on the Hog (2011)

[25:46] High on the Hog Netflix Series

[33:53] “African/American: Making the Nation’s Table” Exhibition

[33:57] Ebony Test Kitchen

[34:00] Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

[34:29] New York Botanical Garden

[35:41] Stephen Satterfield

[01:05:00] My Soul Looks Back (2018)

[01:05:14] Maya Angelou

[01:05:15] James Baldwin

[01:05:16] Toni Morrison

[01:05:17] Nina Simone

[01:07:46] Yahdon Israel

[01:09:29] Nancy Harmon Jenkins