Guide to African American reference
Guide to Afro-Caribbean reference
Jul 28, 2008
By Ashley Boyd Staff Writer
(Source: TouscaloosaNews.com, Wednesday, July 23, 2008.)
(Tuscaloosa News/Michael E. Palmer)
A few of the cookbooks from the David Walker Lupton collection are seen here Friday July 18, 2008 in the William Stanley Hoole Special Collections Library in Tuscaloosa.
The growing collection catalogues more than a century of African-American cuisine and culture. Tracing the roots of the soul food movement and beyond, the collection contains more than 450 titles with recipes from African food diasporas - past and present.
According to Louis Pitschmann, dean of the UA Libraries, the reprint version of 'What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking,' published in 1881, features recipes by a former Alabama slave and was thought to have been the earliest publication by an African-American chef until Malinda Russell's cookbook 'A Domestic Cook Book: Containing a Careful Selection of Useful Receipts for the Kitchen,' originally published in 1866, came to light. The Lupton collection's reprinted version of Russell's book offers valuable insight into the life and influences of this African-American chef in the 1800s.
'Cookbooks are widely accepted among scholars both as documents of history and works with literary interest,' said Elaine Martin, a professor of German and authority on food in film and literature. 'Their study can illuminate the lives of people in new and innovative ways.'
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Last modified by: Thomas Weissinger on 7/28/08