Cookbook Review: Braided Heritage

Dr. Jessica B. Harris weaves together foodways and history in her latest cookbook on American cuisine

How do you define American cuisine? When you are Dr. Jessica B. Harris, whose career as a writer, author, and food historian reaches back to the 1970s and you’ve spent a lifetime researching the African diaspora, the topic is tangled. Or rather, woven. In pulling together her eighteenth book, Harris considers the three cultures that have been braided together to create what we now call American cuisine: Native peoples, Europeans, and African Americans. Braided Heritage: Recipes and Stories on the Origin of American Cuisine (Clarkson Potter), is her way of repositioning the conversation, giving equal acknowledgment to all three cultures—and, she reminds us, “three is a magic number.”