MOFAD x Gastro Obscura Presents: Recipes for Respect

In modern American gastronomy, the foundational cultural imprint of African American identity is a largely marginalized story. Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning by Dr. Rafia Zafar interrogates the canon of black authors, across disciplines, who’ve used food and hospitality as their subject. In this newest work, Dr. Zafar manages to craft a methodical and nuanced annotated proof for the definitive legacy of black agency in the story of the American table.

Recipes for Respect offers an opportunity to look beyond the page into the historic and cultural significance of each author’s translation of their literary form. In what Dr. Zafar calls her sankofa, or reclamation of heritage, she rethinks and reframes the work of everyone from Rufus Estes and Abbey Fisher to Arturo Schomburg and Ernest Gaines to consider a more honest and respectful homage to the lives that helped build this country culinary identity.

As part of a new online programs partnership between MOFAD and Gastro Obscura, please join us for a virtual event on Sunday, May 3 at 8:00 PM E.T., where Dr. Zafar will be in conversation with Chef Therese Nelson of BlackCulinaryHistory.com. The two will discuss Dr. Zafar’s work, the craft and function of food writing as historical memoir, and the foundational legacy of Black culinary life in the American zeitgeist that emerges as the central ethos for the forthcoming MOFAD exhibit African/American: Making the Nation’s Table.

Purchase Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning by Dr. Rafia Zafar here.