Meet Chef Michael Twitty

Michael Twitty Bio

Michael W. Twitty is a noted culinary and cultural historian who interprets the experiences of enslaved African Americans through food and its preparation. He created Afroculinaria.com, the first blog devoted to African American historic foodways and their legacy, and was honored by FirstWeFeast.com as one of twenty greatest food bloggers of all time. He has appeared on Bizarre Foods America with Andrew Zimmern, Many Rivers to Cross with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, and has lectured to more than 250 groups, including Yale, Oxford and Carnegie Mellon Universities, Colonial Williamsburg, and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Twitty has been invited to speak around the world – his work has been featured in publications including Ebony, The Guardian, Eater.com and NPR’s Codeswitch blog.  He has appeared on frequently on NPR and has being interviewed on the acclaimed food program, The Splendid Table. 

Twitty has served as a judge for the James Beard Awards, is a Smith fellow with the Southern Foodways Alliance and a TED fellow and speaker.  He has been named one of “Fifty People Changing the South” by Southern Living and one of the “Five Cheftavists to Watch” by TakePart.Com. HarperCollins released his first major book in 2017: The Cooking Gene, which won the 2018 James Beard Award for best writing and book of the year. His piece on visiting Ghana for the first time, published in 2018 in Bon Appetit earned him a second James Beard nomination.