High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America - Paperback

by Jessica B. Harris (Author)

New York Times bestseller
From the Winner of the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award
Now a Netflix Original Series

The grande dame of African American cookbooks and winner of the James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award stakes her claim as a culinary historian with a narrative history of African American cuisine.

Acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris has spent much of her life researching the food and foodways of the African Diaspora. High on the Hog is the culmination of years of her work, and the result is a most engaging history of African American cuisine. Harris takes the reader on a harrowing journey from Africa across the Atlantic to America, tracking the trials that the people and the food have undergone along the way.

From chitlins and ham hocks to fried chicken and vegan soul, Harris celebrates the delicious and restorative foods of the African American experience and details how each came to form such an important part of African American culture, history, and identity. Although the story of African cuisine in America begins with slavery, High on the Hog ultimately chronicles a thrilling history of triumph and survival. The work of a masterful storyteller and an acclaimed scholar, Jessica B. Harris's High on the Hog fills an important gap in our culinary history.

Author Biography

Jessica B. Harris is the author of eleven cookbooks documenting the foods of the African Diaspora, including The Africa Cookbook and The Welcome Table, and has written and lectured widely about the culture of Africa in the Americas. A professor at Queens College, CUNY, she also consults at Dillard University in New Orleans, where she founded the Institute for the Study of Culinary Cultures. She was recently inducted into the James Beard Foundation's Who's Who of Food and Beverage in America.