Bound to the Fire: How Virginia’s Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine

Deetz, an assistant professor of history at Randolph College and a former chef, illuminates the real lives of enslaved cooks on the plantations of 18th- and 19th-century Virginia. Images of African-American cooks in American popular culture, such as Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, are largely advertising agency creations associated with servility rather than with creativity or self-determination, she argues. But these men and women shaped both plantation life and Southern cuisine, while occupying a kitchen space that was “a crossroads between black and white worlds.” Though few of these enslaved women and men left written records of their experiences, Deetz draws on sources that include runaway-slave ads, travelogues, and recipe collections in order to catch glimpses of cooks in the kitchen and beyond. Her vivid portraits reveal these cooks producing the African-influenced dishes at the core of Southern hospitality, and occasionally poisoning their owners with those same dishes. Most importantly, Deetz recasts the image of the plantation cook as a figure of power, dignity, and, frequently, resistance. This is a lively and insightful account of a still-largely-unfamiliar aspect of the history of American slavery. Illus. (Nov.)

Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated the college where Deetz teaches.