Folkcrafts, Art, and Thoughts

“Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.” ― Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals

I’ve wanted to write a cookbook for over ten years now.

I technically did write one for a family reunion some years ago. The goal was to create a codex of familial recipes and reproductions of recipes from ancestors long deceased to honor their memory and bring the family closer together. It was a small piece with less than twenty recipes, photos, and illustrations. The book was received well, and we even distributed the extras to friends and co-workers.

After the reunion, I thought to write a longer cookbook. It would be an amazing document to gift to the family tree so that we may always commune and enjoy each others’ company with food being the great connector.

However, familial strife got in the way, and nearly three years of questioning who I was put me into a position where the cookbook really needed to take a back seat. I didn’t have the same respect for my family anymore, and even after years of healing, the respect has matured into love with a modest amount of distance and the realization that sometimes those you love will be cherished and immortalized in greatness; others you will love and accept their unyielding faults―yet you’ve learned to never open your true self to them ever again.

Harsh, but it is the cost for keeping the peace.

The past has been poisoned, but now that we’re in the Year of The Lord 2025, I am revisiting the idea of writing a cookbook again because I believe I have a clearer grasp on my heritage, and I want to share more than just my family’s past traumas. I want to refocus that energy into a form of folk art: art that connects us to everyday life, storytelling, and communal values. The recipes would have a practical and cultural purpose over one that markets for aesthetics and trends.

Why write a cookbook in 2025 while the internet is oversaturated with food blogs (I’m guilty of this), AI recipes, and Tik Tok tutorials? Honestly, for me it is about documenting for future generations and leaving behind proof of identity. As an individual descended from enslaved Africans, I have not had the privilege of owning collections of family artifacts―for centuries, the priority was putting food on the table. The most vivid story I remember was my Great Aunt telling my Grandma that the family used to overfeed their pigs with garbage just so that the family could eventually eat the pigs.

During the Great Migration in the 1920s and 1930s, our family leveraged military, manufacturing, law enforcement, and medical professions to pull themselves out of the extreme poverty that sharecropping was destined to keep them in. We made it out with stories of family recipes being passed down as oral tradition rather than as recipe cards in a pretty recipe card box. Some children learned the recipes, most recipes died with the inventors.

On the flipside, I also want to throw the table over and start over by making this a cookbook about learning to appreciate nature and the changing seasons. I am heavily inspired by the revolving seasons and cycles, and my recent attempts to disconnect from social media have only empowered my resolve. This doesn’t sound nearly as interesting, but perhaps there is a way to connect the two.

I’ll eventually figure it out, but one thing is certain: I want the final cookbook to be Art.