Koshersoul Book Release with Michael Twitty and Joan Nathan
Thursday, Sep 22, 2022
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Thursday, September 22
Doors at 6:30pm, Event at 7:00 pm ET
Live at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History
Join for an evening with the acclaimed James Beard award-winning author, Michael Twitty, as we celebrate the launch of his new book Koshersoul: The Faith and Food Journey of an African American American Jew. In conversation with Joan Nathan, another superstar James Beard award-winning Jewish food guru, the two will explore the cultural crossroads of Jewish and African diasporic cuisines and related issues of memory, identity, and food.
The conversation will be immediately followed by a book-signing with Michael Twitty and Joan Nathan. As a special treat, all attendees will receive a sample of Michael Twitty’s homemade spice mix and a “Best of Philly 2021” award-winning brownie from Second Daughter Baking Co.
More about the Koshersoul
In Koshersoul, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, the creation of African-Jewish cooking is a conversation of migrations and a dialogue of diasporas offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them.
Having wrestled with his identity as a Jewish American of African descent, Twitty uses the culinary arts and history to write a narrative of what it means to be a Jew of Color in America. Koshersoul does not represent a fusion of the two cuisines, but instead honors and lifts up the myriad intersections between the African American and Jewish American diasporic identities.
The question that most intrigues Mr Twitty is not just who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, Twitty contends, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. Koshersoul also explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks, including Twitty’s own passage to and within Judaism.
As intimate, thought-provoking, and profound as The Cooking Gene, this remarkable book teases the senses as it offers sustenance for the soul.
Koshersoul includes 48-50 recipes.
About the Author
Michael W. Twitty is a living history interpreter, culinary historian, and food writer personally charged with teaching, documenting, and preserving the African American culinary traditions of the historic South and the wider African Atlantic world as well as parent traditions in Africa. He blogs at Afroculinaria. His first two books, The Cooking Gene (HarperCollins 2017), and Rice: A Savor the South Cookbook (UNC Press 2021), were both released to great acclaim. The former won Twitty the 2018 James Beard Award, making him one of the few Black authors so awarded.
The video below is a clip from PBS NewsHour featuring Michael Twitty and his work at Colonial Williamsburg.
About the Moderator
Joan Nathan has authored an astounding eleven cookbooks over the last five decades exploring a multitude of Jewish cuisines both near and far, beginning with her first entitled The Flavor of Jerusalem. A Rhode Island native, Nathan received an education in French literature and public administration from the University of Michigan and Harvard University respectively, before living in Israel where she worked under Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem. Nathan’s most recent work, King Solomon’s Table: a Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World was released by Alfred P. Knopf in April of 2017. She has been awarded numerous accolades including a spot on NPR, Food and Wine, and Bon Appétit magazines 10 best cookbooks of 2010 for Quiches, Kugels and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France; both the James Beard Award and the IACP/Julia Child Cookbook of the Year Award in 1994 for Jewish Cooking in America, the R.T. French Tastemaker Award for American cooking in 1985 for An American Folklife Cookbook, and many more. In later years, Nathan hosted a James Beard Award nominated television series on PBS called Jewish Cooking in America with Joan Nathan, produced the award-winning documentary Passover: Traditions of Freedom, and was featured as a guest on several radio and television programs. More recently, Nathan was granted the Silver Spoon Award from Food Arts magazine, a Special Recognition Award from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, the distinguished Grande Dame award, and countless other recognitions for her efforts in revering Jewish culinary arts.
Preorder a Copy Today
Interested in preordering a copy of Koshersoul to be signed by the author for yourself or as a gift? Visit our online Museum Store and preorder your copy today. Additional books by Twitty and Nathan also available for purchase – Click Here
Safety / Covid 19:
*This event will occur in the DELL THEATER CONCOURSE LEVEL.
*Masking in the auditorium is mandatory.
Live at The Weitzman
101 South Independence Mall East (Corner of 5th & Market)
Philadelphia, PA 19106
This program is presented by the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in partnership with the African American Museum of Philadelphia and Jews in ALL Hues.
