Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking

“A celebration of African American cuisine right now, in all of its abundance and variety.”—Tejal Rao, The New York Times

JAMES BEARD AWARD WINNER • IACP AWARD WINNER • IACP BOOK OF THE YEAR • TONI TIPTON-MARTIN NAMED THE 2021 JULIA CHILD AWARD RECIPIENT

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The New Yorker • NPR • Chicago Tribune • The Atlantic • BuzzFeed • Food52

Throughout her career, Toni Tipton-Martin has shed new light on the history, breadth, and depth of African American cuisine. She’s introduced us to black cooks, some long forgotten, who established much of what’s considered to be our national cuisine. After all, if Thomas Jefferson introduced French haute cuisine to this country, who do you think actually cooked it?
 
In Jubilee, Tipton-Martin brings these masters into our kitchens. Through recipes and stories, we cook along with these pioneering figures, from enslaved chefs
 to middle- and upper-class writers and entrepreneurs. With more than 100 recipes, from classics such as Sweet Potato Biscuits, Seafood Gumbo, Buttermilk Fried Chicken, and Pecan Pie with Bourbon to lesser-known but even more decadent dishes like Bourbon & Apple Hot Toddies, Spoon Bread, and Baked Ham Glazed with Champagne, Jubilee presents techniques, ingredients, and dishes that show the roots of African American cooking—deeply beautiful, culturally diverse, fit for celebration.

“Toni Tipton-Martin, I thank you for writing Jubilee. . . . Your graceful writing beckons, your immaculate historical research illuminates, your recipes are ones I will be cooking . . . for years to come. I let out an audible gasp upon seeing the beautiful black hands gracing Jerrelle Guy’s lovely photographs, those hands as much a visual reminder of what has been missing for so long from American culinary culture as they hold promise for a possible, more equitable future.”—Adeena Sussman, The New York Times Style Magazine, “The Cookbooks You Need for 2020”

“Equal parts historical highlight reel and cookbook, Jubilee captures centuries’ worth of joy, pain, and effort from black chefs across the diaspora and distills them into recipes that carefully guide and educate.”—Bon Appétit