Ntozake Shange

New edition available. Search ISBN 9780807021446. Acclaimed artist Ntozake Shange offers this delightfully eclectic tribute to black cuisine as a food of life that reflects the spirit and history of a people. With recipes such as "Cousin Eddie's Shark with Breadfruit" and "Collard Greens to Bring You Money," Shange instructs us in the nuances of a cuisine born on the slave ships of the Middle Passage, spiced by the jazz of Duke Ellington, and shared by all members of the African Diaspora. Rich with personal memories and historical insight, If I Can Cook/You Know God Can is a vivid story of the migration of a people, and the cuisine that marks their living legacy and celebration of taste.

African American Food Memories, Meditations, and Recipes

If I Can Cook/You Know God Can

The recipe instructions are so beautiful. 

Sabrina D. 

…stir gently with a wood spoon until the mixture has a whirring sound like a woman's many skirts. 

On missing and reconnecting to the African diaspora. 

We are blessed, since we can find our ovens and stoves and make up for some of what we long for.

For North Americans, a pot with burnt rice on the bottom is a scary concept. But all over the Caribbean, it's a different story entirely. In order to avoid making asopao—a rice moist and heavy with the sofrito or tomato-achiote mixture, almost like a thick soup where the rice becomes one mass instead of standing, each grain on its own—it is necessary to let the rice at the bottom of the pot get a crustlike bottom, assuring that all moisture has evaporated. 

If I Can Cook/You Know God Can quotes

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