Culinary Survivance: Maya Angelou’s Gastrographic Writing

Year 2021, Issue: 55, 121 - 143, 01.05.2021

Ezgi İlimen

Abstract

This article examines Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings (1969), Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime
of Memories with Recipes (2004) and Great Food, All Day Long:
Cook Splendidly, Eat Smart (2010) by juxtaposing soul food recipes
and memory in the context of black cultural survival, community
building and historical circumstances. In her gastrographic writing,
cooking, storing and sharing food within African American culinary
and literary traditions (recipe books, cookbooks and food memoirs)
signify a struggle for black survivance (survival and resistance) against
white supremacy, discrimination and stereotypical grand narratives
of slavery and Jim Crow years. In this regard, her soul food recipes
and cookbooks reflect race, gender and class politics and empower
black people with the linguistic power of communicating with their
comrades/readers and writing their experiences from the nourishing
and safe sphere of kitchens and dinner tables.

Keywords

Maya Angelou, food writing, memory, survival, community

References

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