The early members of this Booker family lived in the parishes of Petsworth, Kingston, and Abingdon, Gloucester Co., Virginia. The earliest proven ancestor, James Booker (ca. 1723-1794, son of James and Amy Lewis Booker, married around 1745 Elizabeth Howlett (1726-1760); (2) Ann Camm (1723-1774/75), daughter of John and Mary Bullock Camm, ca. 1764; and (3) Elizabeth, widow of Ambrose Wright (her second husband). She was first married to Ambrose Bohannon. James Booker had six children by his first wife, Amy Lewis Booker. Family members and descendants live in Virginia, North Dakota, Illinois, Texas, Ohio, Georgia and elsewhere. Includes autobiography of the author, James Motley Booker (b. 1914).
2018 James Beard Foundation Book of the Year | 2018 James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner inWriting | Nominee for the 2018 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction | #75 on The Root100 2018 A renowned culinary historian offers a fresh perspective on our most divisive cultural issue, race, in this illuminating memoir of Southern cuisine and food culture that traces his ancestry—both black and white—through food, from Africa to America and slavery to freedom. Southern food is integral to the American culinary tradition, yet the question of who "owns" it is one of the most provocative touch points in our ongoing struggles over race. In this unique memoir, culinary historian Michael W. Twitty takes readers to the white-hot center of this fight, tracing the roots of his own family and the charged politics surrounding the origins of soul food, barbecue, and all Southern cuisine. From the tobacco and rice farms of colonial times to plantation kitchens and backbreaking cotton fields, Twitty tells his family story through the foods that enabled his ancestors’ survival across three centuries. He sifts through stories, recipes, genetic tests, and historical documents, and travels from Civil War battlefields in Virginia to synagogues in Alabama to Black-owned organic farms in Georgia. As he takes us through his ancestral culinary history, Twitty suggests that healing may come from embracing the discomfort of the Southern past. Along the way, he reveals a truth that is more than skin deep—the power that food has to bring the kin of the enslaved and their former slaveholders to the table, where they can discover the real America together. Illustrations by Stephen Crotts
Contents.--pt. 1. Titles of books in the Virginia State Library which relate to Virginia and Virginians, the titles of those books written by Virginians, and of those printed in Virginia, but not including ... published official documents.--pt. 2. Titles of the printed official documents of the Commonwealth, 1776-1916.--pt. 3. The Acts and Journals of the General Assembly of the Colony, 1619-1776.--pt. 4. Three series of sessional documents of the House of Delegates: ... January 7-April 4, 1861 ... September 15-October 6, 1862; and .. January 7-March 31, 1863.--pt. 5. Titles of the printed documents of the Commonwealth, 1916-1925.
After an illuminating account of the history of Patrick and Henry counties, which occupies the first third of the book, the authors turn their attention to genealogy, providing authoritative histories of no fewer than 110 families. The genealogies generally begin with the first settler in either Patrick or Henry County and proceed to enumerate descendants in several generations, providing incidental detail according to the materials available. In addition to the remarkable collection of genealogies, the book also contains transcriptions of important genealogical source materials, such as the Patrick and Henry land grants and patents registered in the old Land Office in Richmond.
“Twitty makes the case that Blackness and Judaism coexist in beautiful harmony, and this is manifested in the foods and traditions from both cultures that Black Jews incorporate into their daily lives…Twitty wishes to start a conversation where people celebrate their differences and embrace commonalities. By drawing on personal narratives, his own and others’, and exploring different cultures, Twitty’s book offers important insight into the journeys of Black Jews.”—Library Journal “A fascinating, cross-cultural smorgasbord grounded in the deep emotional role food plays in two influential American communities.”—Booklist The James Beard award-winning author of the acclaimed The Cooking Gene explores the cultural crossroads of Jewish and African diaspora cuisine and issues of memory, identity, and food. In Koshersoul, Michael W. Twitty considers the marriage of two of the most distinctive culinary cultures in the world today: the foods and traditions of the African Atlantic and the global Jewish diaspora. To Twitty, the creation of African-Jewish cooking is a conversation of migrations and a dialogue of diasporas offering a rich background for inventive recipes and the people who create them. The question that most intrigues him is not just who makes the food, but how the food makes the people. Jews of Color are not outliers, Twitty contends, but significant and meaningful cultural creators in both Black and Jewish civilizations. Koshersoul also explores how food has shaped the journeys of numerous cooks, including Twitty’s own passage to and within Judaism. As intimate, thought-provoking, and profound as The Cooking Gene, this remarkable book teases the senses as it offers sustenance for the soul. Koshersoul includes 48-50 recipes.
