Culinary historian Michael Twitty to speak at Purdue Feb. 25-26

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Culinary historian and living history interpreter Michael Twitty will speak about the foodways of enslaved Africans and African Americans at 7 p.m. Feb. 26 in Purdue University's Stewart Center, Room 206.

Free and open to the public, the event is sponsored the Purdue University Black Cultural Center as part of its observation of Black History Month.

Twitty also will speak at a special soul food dinner from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Feb. 25 in the John Purdue Room at Marriott Hall. The week of Feb. 24-28 has been designated "Exploring African American Culinary Traditions" in the John Purdue Room, which is a fine-dining restaurant run by the Purdue University School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Price of a three-course meal is $19. For more about the dinner or to make a reservation, call the John Purdue Room at 765-494-6845.

Twitty describes himself as a "historic interpreter interested in African, African American, African Diaspora, Southern, and Jewish foodways." He also is a food blogger who runs Afroculinaria. The blog "addresses food's critical role in the development and definition of African American civilization and the politics of consumption and cultural ownership that surround it," the blog's website states.

"Mr. Twitty is an expert in not only colonial and antebellum cooking but also in knowledge of relevant heritage breed livestock, and wild flora and fauna used by enslaved Africans and their descendants," Crider said. 

Writer: Greg McClure, 765-496-9711, gmcclure@purdue.edu