The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South, as “a blend of culinary history, personal memoir, and social commentary sprinkled with a few recipes.” He chose this approach for a simple reason. “I wanted my whole being represented,” he explains. “I’m an African-American, I’m gay, I’m Jewish, I’m of Southern heritage, I’m a bear, I’m all of these things crossing paths.
And I wanted to write a book that responded to that history and those stories in a precise and personal way.”The Cooking Gene follows Twitty’s heritage and Southern cooking back through the lives of enslaved Black people (and white plantation owners), back through the Great Passage, back to Mother Africa.