Rafia Zafar’s “Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning” – A Book Review by Amanda Leavitt, MA

Rafia Zafar’s “Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning” – A Book Review by Amanda Leavitt, MA

In simply reading African American cookbooks of the nineteenth century onward, Rafia Zafar asserts that one can get an idea of not only recipes of the time but also the priorities of African American cooks and butlers outside of the culinary scope. In “Recipes for Respect”, Zafar argues that African Americans wrote cookbooks and manuals, as well as leveraged culinary and other expertise, to address “the Black American imperative to access dignity, status, and civil rights ” (Zafar 2019,1). Zafar further asserts that Black Americans use strategies including “genre, the creation of a Black culinary history, and through the settings where cooking and eating intersect to catalyze movements for social justice” (Zafar 2019, 2).

The book is divided thematically into seven chapters, the first bearing the name of the book itself. In this initial chapter, Zafar provides examples of ways Black Americans approached their efforts to achieve access to status. She utilizes three authors’ hospitality manuals to provide examples of Black American butlers using the written word to simultaneously earn credibility among their white employers while subliminally communicating to other future butlers and servants ways to be efficient in their roles and achieve the same credibility. Robert Roberts, Tunis Campbell, and Tom Bullock were the three sources most referenced in this chapter, as Zafar notes they “provided not only recipes for meals but also for interracial social skills, business acumen, and negotiating power.” For example, Roberts’ work provided instructions for relevant on-the-job skills paired with “interracial etiquette” (Zafar 2019,7-8).

The second and third chapters speak to “genre”, one of the “strategies” Black Americans used to pursue dignity (Zafar 2019,4). By using sources like Malinda Russell’s “Cook Book”, Zafar provides examples in these chapters of Black cooks who wrote with their identity as a Black person and descendent of slavery to establish credibility in the kitchen. Abby Fisher is another focus of the second chapter, as Fisher was the “second Black American woman to publish a cookbook” (Zafar 2019, 23). Fisher’s book was published, in contrast to Russell, during a low point in white America’s interest in slave life, and so Fisher makes little mention of it to appeal to all audiences. 

Zafar follows this conversation with a closer look at George Washington Carver as an “early proponent of what we now call sustainable agriculture and farm-to-table eating” (Zafar 2019, 30); she also argues that along with his contributions to the agricultural industry, with his experiments and discoveries around sweet potatoes, peanuts, and other crops, Carver’s move to the Deep South established him as a “race man” with priorities to help the Southern farmer optimize his land (Zafar 2019,33). In writing bulletins like “Three Delicious Meals Every Day for the Farmer”, Carver provides examples of meals that can consist of the same ingredients, highlighting not only his farming expertise but his command of the kitchen (Zafar 2019, 35). 

In Chapter Four, Zafar moves forward in time, and provides examples of literary works that “designate food sharing as a field of action for civil rights”(Zafar 2019, 43). In focusing on Anne Moody, Alice Walker, and Ernest Gaines’ literary works, Zafar illustrates how commensality is a common theme in Black cookbooks. Moody wrote about “the fraught nature of commensality and the inequality that prevents such togetherness”(Zafar 2019, 43). At one of her lowest moments, Moody experiences a moment with a white teacher, bonding over a shared meal, which shows her food can bridge even the widest of gaps. Zafar shares stories like these to support her argument that food is a facilitator of conversations around social change.

In “The Signifying Dish”, there is a deep dive into culinary literary works by Black women. These books present not only recipes and instructions but also an emphasis on the lack of representation of Black contributions to these works. In “Vibration Cooking”, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor’s explicit goal was to “eradicate culinary racism”, and she wrote not only about the kitchen but society at large (Zafar 2019, 60). Along with Alice B. Toklas, Smart-Grosvenor was constantly surrounded by artists and was an active participant in the creative community, giving yet another perspective to contrast the experience of the elite white family.

Zafar focuses on Edna Lewis in the sixth chapter, as Zafar argues that cookbooks are a form of elegy, “a thoughtful way of measuring and commemorating a way of life”(Zafar 2019, 70). While the previous chapters focus largely on race, in this chapter Zafar dives deeper into the role of gender, especially with regard to elegy. Zafar states that some authors are nostalgic in their writing, while some simply use the past as a means to write about the present and future. She notes that elegy/Sankofa was previously predominantly written by men and that writers like Lewis introduced a female perspective. Alice B. Toklas was another author at the time Zafar cites as a primary example of these writings. 

In the final chapter, Zafar centers on the unfinished work of Alfonso Schomburg. While his cookbook was incomplete, the pieces that are referenced in Zafar’s book speak to the argument that “African American cuisine ranged from the simplest homestyle meal to elaborate, French-derived feasts” (Zafar 2019, 80). His writing includes references to “Black folkways” as well as quick recipes for the modern cook (Zafar 2019, 89). Zafar does not identify why this work is unfinished, but she highlights that these “musings” add to a library of sources that speak to the Black culinary experience. 

Regarding her sources and method, Zafar consulted numerous primary sources, predominantly cookbooks, to form and support her argument. She also cites a myriad of secondary sources on Southern Cooking and African American history and culinary history. In segmenting the book as she did, she highlights predominant African American contributors to the culinary world. She effectively presents evidence to support her claim, especially in the first introductory chapters where we analyze the hospitality manuals. She efficiently extracts the subtext of these works to reaffirm that African American cookbook authors took the opportunity to not only write about the art of cooking but also about the way cooking can be liberating. 

“Recipes for Respect” is an effective work that demonstrates food and cooking go beyond the kitchen, especially in the African American community. The book recognizes that many of the subjects have been written of before, and Zafar analyzes them from a new angle, particularly with regard to George Washington Carver.  Opportunities for further study could exclusively focus on the civil rights movement in the 1960s which she focuses on in one chapter in her first book.

Sources:

Zafar, Rafia. Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press, 2019. 

(Zafar 2019, pg)