“Recipes,” writes Crystal Wilkinson, “are like poems to me, meant to be aural.”
As Kentucky’s former poet laureate and recipient of national prizes for literary achievement, Wilkinson sparks a craving for her stories as much as her food. In the introduction to Wilkinson’s food memoir, “Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks” (Potter, $30), Wilkinson tells how, years ago, she realized she could feel the presence of the foremothers she calls her “kitchen ghosts” when she cooked. In poignant essays, she blends family history with “imagination and divination” to give voice to those ancestors and the other Black Appalachians within the hills of Kentucky many never knew existed.
Take Patsy Riffe’s Hoecakes — one of 40 recipes woven into Wilkinson’s lyrical narrative. Her description of the corn cakes as “the crusts of a skillet of cornbread” makes me hungry. But it’s the stories she tells beforehand, including an imagined conversation between Patsy, the daughter of Wilkinson’s fourth great-grandmother, and Wilkinson herself, that convince me to whip up a savory, satisfying batch to go with the Hearty Vegetable Soup with Hamburger that also caught my eye.
While each recipe tells a deeply personal story, together they paint a nuanced portrait of a largely overlooked region of the American South, both past and present: Garlicky White Soup Beans, Pine Lick Mutton Leg and Gravy, Sauteed Fiddleheads, Hot Milk Cake. The Dark Crystal Latte “contains all the complex notes of sorghum, “earthy, malty, tangy.” The recipe is a contemporary homage to her grandfather who harvested the crop and cooked the syrup himself.
With help from her kitchen ghosts, Wilkinson makes the case that “food is never just about the present — every dish, every slice, every crumb and kernel also tethers us to the past.”
Susan Puckett is a cookbook author and former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow her at susanpuckett.com.
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