American · b. 1977
Michael W. Twitty is an American culinary historian, food writer and educator. He is best known for Afroculinaria, a blog he began in 2011 that documents African American foodways and their roots in Africa and the Americas. He leads public programs and cooks historical meals at plantation sites, museums and living-history venues, presenting Southern cuisine as a product of enslaved Black cooks and farmers. His first book, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South (2017), traces his own ancestry through food, genealogy and DNA testing. It won the James Beard Award for Book of the Year and for Best Writing in 2018. He followed it with Koshersoul (2022), which looks at the food of Black Jewish communities and his own life as a Black, gay Jewish man. Twitty has taught and lectured widely, and his work has changed how many readers and cooks think about who created Southern food.