Black Country Kitchen Ghosts

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

I wanted to tell you about a book that I’ve been giving to friends and family lately. It’s part memoir and part cookbook. It’s called Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts, and it’s by novelist and poet Crystal Wilkinson.

Wilkinson opens the book this way. People are always surprised that black people reside in the hills of Kentucky. Those not surprised that we were there are surprised that we stayed. In fact, Appalachia is home to almost two million black residents, and her book is about the food ways and the folk ways that are passed down through five generations of one such family, namely her own, and about what she calls the kitchen ghosts who preceded her.

She writes, “The art of cooking and engaging with my kitchen ghosts made me realize that food is never just about the present. Every dish, every slice, every crumb and kernel also tethers us to the past.” With a novelist’s ear, she listens to, and then she relays the voices of those ancestors, and she shares memories from her own childhood, like seeing her grandmother cook.

She writes, “I watch her stir and pour and flip and taste. I take note of how she twists her mouth when the steam hits her face, signaling the potatoes are ready for mashing. I know the ease in her shoulder when the fried chicken has reached its crispy, golden perfection.”

Grant, this is a sumptuous, sensuous book, and it includes some amazing recipes for Appalachian comfort food, like blackberry cobbler and hot milk cake and dressed eggs and pimento cheese with a kick. And there are beautiful, beautiful images, not just of the food, but of Wilkinson’s family and that part of the country. It’s just a real treasure.

Now, what is it about the tie of the land and food that surpasses the generations that we can move away and still feel that call?

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, this is what she talks about again and again in the book is just, you know, feeling the presence of those kitchen ghosts, those women who came before her and moved in the same ways and combined the same spices and smells and techniques.

I mean, I can remember specific meals from like 1972, you know?

Really?

Seriously, yeah. I can remember kitchens from the 70s, the specific people and moments. It’s the strangest thing.

Right. And just the way that a whiff of something, a whiff of biscuits or something like that can just take you immediately back to your childhood.

Tell us the title and author of that book again, Martha.

Yes, it’s Praise Song for the Kitchen Ghosts, Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks. It’s by Crystal Wilkinson.

Of course, we will link to that from our website at waywordradio.org as we do all the books that we mention on this show.

Martha and I are big readers, and we’d love to hear what you’re reading and recommending to your friends. Send us an email to words@waywordradio.org, and you can call us toll-free in the United States and Canada, 877-929-9673.

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