© 2024 WFAE
90.7 Charlotte 93.7 Southern Pines 90.3 Hickory 106.1 Laurinburg
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
WFAEats
Welcome to WFAEats — a fun adventure where we explore all things tasty and interesting in the Charlotte food scene. We want to share stories, recipes and culinary escapades and hear about yours!

Cookbooks To Celebrate Black History Month

Looking for a tasteful way to celebrate Black History Month? Look no further than the shelves of your favorite bookstore.

But with more that 1.3 million search results online, how do you find a place to start? That’s easy: Ask an expert.

Carolinian Nancie McDermott has been writing cookbooks since the 1990s. All this month she’s been posting pictures and links on Facebook to some of her favorite cookbooks authored by African Americans. It’s an idea she got from her friend, Nicole Taylor a/k/a The Food Culturist, who hosts a Brooklyn-based radio show called “Hot Grease.”

Says Nancie, “I was a guest on the show a couple of years back for [my book] Southern Cakes, and we have been friends ever since.”

Some of the books being highlighted are brand new and easy to find, such as Adrian Miller’s Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time. Check out Lolis Eric Elie’s Treme: Stories and Recipes from the Heart of New Orleans.

Some are “new classics,” time-tested and beloved, such as Sheila Ferguson’s Soul Food: Classic Cuisine from the Deep South. Famed chef Leah Chase is featured with her book, And Still I Cook.

Other books are harder to locate, such as The Foods of Georgia's Barrier Islands, with recipes by Cornelia Bailey, Yvonne Grovner and Doc Bill. You’ll need to hunt a bit for used copies of cookbooks by culinary icon Edna Lewis, but it will be worth it.

Of course, history marches on. There are more and more cookbooks being published all the time, too many to sample. But that can be a good thing. In reading, just like cooking, it’s smart to take a short cut once in a while – and learn from your friends whose tastes you trust.

Amy Rogers is the author of Hungry for Home: Stories of Food from Across the Carolinas and Red Pepper Fudge and Blue Ribbon Biscuits. Her writing has also been featured in Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing, the Oxford American, and the Charlotte Observer. She is founding publisher of the award-winning Novello Festival Press. She received a Creative Artist Fellowship from the Arts and Science Council, and was the first person to receive the award for non-fiction writing. Her reporting has also won multiple awards from the N.C. Working Press Association. She has been Writer in Residence at the Wildacres Center, and a program presenter at dozens of events, festivals, arts centers, schools, and other venues. Amy Rogers considers herself “Southern by choice,” and is a food and culture commentator for NPR station WFAE.