I think it's fair to say that any foodie author who describes the spicing of a dish as 'ineffable' does not really have her head in the game, so while Jessica B. Harris' High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America is a decent basic history of African American life, with a slight culinary bent, it's not a very strong history of African American foodways. Since I really wanted to read the latter, and don't have much interest in the former, I had a bit of a disappointing time with this book.
Each of Harris' chronologically-organized chapters is bookended by a personal, somewhat food-related anecdote to start, and a quick glance at a historical, usually food-related fun fact at the finish. The middle bits are the general history parts, often enriched with biographical details of African American cooks of that era. This is not to say that there aren't some interesting stories tucked in here and there, as well as some foodie details that entertain, but even the recipes at the back of the book seemed lackluster. I wanted more specificity, more focus, and way more food.
I think that it's probably a very difficult task to tease out from any food tradition what parts are regional, what parts are economical, and what parts are a taste preference. Researching African American foodways also involves negotiating colonization and displacement, ruptured traditions and syncretism. Harris opts for a much easier, but ultimately much less satisfying book by going wide rather than deep, ineffable rather than precise.
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