Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking

James Beard Award–winner Tipton-Martin (The Jemima Code) collects and crafts recipes that cross generations and cultures in this fascinating cookbook. She frequently pairs a contemporary dish with historical antecedents: meatballs in barbecue sauce appear along with a sidebar for a “forced meat” (ground steak) recipe from an 1866 cookbook; and a Southern sweet potato cake incorporates mango in a nod to Senegalese tradition. The author exhibits sly humor, as when she recalls the uproar in 2014 when Whole Foods deemed collard greens “the new kale.” This volume is as useful as it is informative: for example, a beverage chapter kicks off with a discussion of how “drinks soothed the horrors of enslavement and oppression while lubricating spirits during religious acts,” and includes biographical sketches of historical figures (the owner of Fraunces Tavern in Revolutionary War–era New York City was Samuel Fraunces, from the West Indies and nicknamed “Black Sam”). There are gumbos and a peanut soup to start, as well as mains including beef stew, Caribbean roast pork, and fried chicken (one of four recipes is from a 1970 cookbook and uses a pressure cooker). Tipton-Martin enjoys unparalleled skill at building bridges between the past and the present, making this volume inspirational on many levels. (Nov.)