Friday, April 7: Plating the Past
Join us at the Center for Digital Humanities this Friday, April 7, for a lunchtime discussion of Plating the Past: A Year with the NCNW Cookbook with creators Abena Boakyewa-Ansah, University of North Carolina-Asheville, and Kayleigh Whitman, PhD Candidate in History, Vanderbilt University.
Friday, April 7, 12:00 pm, 1101 19th Ave. S. Room 108
Lunch will be served.
About the project:
The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro was published in 1958 by the National Council of Negro Women. It was compiled and edited by Sue Bailey Thurman, who also served as the first editor of the organization’s magazine, The Aframerican Woman’s Journal, and founder of the NCNW’s Museum and Archives Department. According to the Council’s longtime president Dorothy Height, Bailey Thurman created the cookbook to promote awareness and appreciation of African American history….Beginning with January 1st, “New Years and Emancipation Proclamation Day,” the cookbook progresses through the year highlighting different dates that have a special significance to African Americans. Some of them are commemorative events, like the Stewed Beef for Ghana’s Independence Day on March 6th, and others recognize birthdays of important people like Cantaloupe Pie on September 23rd for Mary Church Terrell. Each of the recipes includes an explanation of who or what the celebrated subject is and why it is significant.
In Plating the Past, two historians cook their way through the recipes in the NCNW Cookbook, expanding on its discussions of Black US history in an accessible, public-facing blog format.
