More than a recipe: Toni Tipton-Martin on preserving stories in Black kitchens

Does sugar belong in cornbread?

For food journalist and author Toni Tipton-Martin, that familiar debate once made her feel like she did not belong. Sitting in a room full of scholars about 20 years ago, she listened to people insist that sugar did not belong in cornbread. But sweet cornbread was familiar to her. Hearing it treated as wrong left her questioning her place in the conversation. “I sat in the back of the room feeling very alienated,” she told Our Times.

Her research, however, offered a broader picture. Black cookbook authors had documented different kinds of cornbread, including versions with and without sugar. There was room for more than one tradition. That experience reflects a recurring question in her work: Whose knowledge gets recognized, and whose story gets left out?

Ahead of her Thursday appearance in Evansville, Tipton-Martin spoke with Our Times about uncovering Black culinary expertise, challenging harmful stereotypes and preserving the knowledge held in family kitchens.

For families wondering where to begin, her advice starts at home: Cook with someone whose food you love. Pay attention to the measurements. Record the stories behind the dish.

A career that began with the Black press

Tipton-Martin imagined a different future for herself. She was fluent in French, passionate about French culture and wanted to live abroad. While studying journalism at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, her college professor encouraged her to get a job to gain work experience. Though many cite the start of her career at the Los Angeles Times, it began at a Black newspaper near her home.  “I courageously walked into the newsroom and asked to be interviewed by the editor there,” she recalled.  Impressed by Tipton-Martin’s boldness, she was interviewed, hired part-time, and assigned to monitor the food and recipes section.

What began as a job became an opportunity. Hoping to eventually work at the Los Angeles Times, which she later did, Tipton-Martin set out to deepen her knowledge of food and cooking. She studied French culinary literature and classic technique to better understand the field she was covering.

During that same period, she encountered the Ebony Cookbook and Cleora’s Kitchens, which opened another avenue of discovery. “Those two books helped me start to see that the Black food story existed beyond the narrow confines of the soul story that history had provided,” she said.

She began to recognize a legacy of Black and African culinary knowledge that she could uncover as a journalist.

Finding the expertise others overlooked

Tipton-Martin has documented Black culinary expertise and challenged stereotypes through award winning books she authored such as The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks, Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking. She also helped lead When Southern Women Cook: History, Lore, and 300 Recipes with Contributions from 70 Women Writers for America’s Test Kitchen.

To find evidence of Black cooks’ expertise required extensive research of books, diaries, letters, memoirs, plantation records, and interviews. With a cookbook collection that contains about 500 books, Tipton-Martin continues to return to those sources that reveal more information every time that she reads them.

Some accounts praised a cook’s abilities while also making racist judgements about the person doing the work. Tipton-Martin paid close attention to the practical knowledge that was revealed.  She described reading interviews with formerly enslaved people and considering the decisions cooks had to make without standardized ingredients or written instructions. Eggs were not necessarily uniform in size. An ingredient might be spoiled. Substitutions required judgment.

Those decisions challenged portrayals of Black cooks as people who simply followed instructions without understanding their craft. “Our ancestors participated in an intelligent way,” she said.

Recognizing that intelligence matters, she explained, both to people outside the Black community and to Black people whose understanding of their own heritage may have been shaped by the same stereotypes.

Finding common ground

Tipton-Martin describes part of her work as reconciliation: challenging the narrative of Black inferiority while helping people recognize shared experiences. Her approach is deliberate. With The Jemima Code, she wanted to establish a foundation of evidence from which people could begin a conversation. “I fight with my words,” she said.

Food can create an opening. Drawing on the cornbread experience, she developed a social activity in which participants assemble bags of the ingredients they would use in their own versions. The conversation begins with what each person put in the bag. Differences become something to explore together. Her approach also requires thinking about the purpose of a difficult conversation.  “Do you want to be heard or do you want to win?” she asked.

A record for the next generation

The internet helped Tipton-Martin reach people when publishers were not interested in her work. She sees opportunity in the ways young creators now share Black history and attract audiences. But she worries about what happens when repeating existing information takes the place of doing research and leaving evidence for others.

“If there is no written record, and if no one is doing the research, they’re just repeating the same information to create clicks, then the history will eventually die,” she said.

Her concern is about preserving the foundation on which future work depends. Her own research was possible because someone recorded what they witnessed or knew.

Families can contribute to that record without waiting to launch a major project. Reunions, holidays, picnics and other gatherings already bring people together around food. Tipton-Martin encourages making those occasions more intentional, including collecting recipes and the stories that belong with them. Begin with a favorite dish and the relative who makes it. Spend time cooking together. Write down the ingredients and instructions, along with the story behind the recipe.

She advises against interrupting the process for exact measurements. If a cook measures butter by comparing it to a walnut or an egg, photograph the amount, then measure it afterward. Young relatives can help document that knowledge while learning the dish themselves.

Building a healthier community

Tipton-Martin also wants people to see the possibilities for wellness within their culinary heritage. Reading Edna Lewis and other country cooks, she said, can introduce people to food traditions beyond fast food and manufactured packages, offering inspiration to prepare simple meals and eat healthier.

She also sees opportunities for economic well-being through careers connected to food beyond operating a restaurant or working as a server. Young people might consider designing restaurants, providing legal services or supporting workers’ mental health. Tipton-Martin pointed to her involvement with a group raising money to expand restaurant workers’ access to mental health care.

Those possibilities reflect her broader vision of community well-being: people who are economically thriving, mentally strong and physically healthy. “I’m using culture and cuisine to build community,” she said.

For families in Evansville, that work can begin at the next meal. Invite a younger relative into the kitchen, prepare a favorite dish and share the stories behind it. Cooking and eating together creates opportunities to pass down knowledge and build connections.

“Just feed some people,” Tipton-Martin said. “And once you’re feeding them, conversations flow.”

Hear Toni Tipton-Martin in Evansville

Toni Tipton-Martin will speak Thursday, Oct. 22, at 7 p.m. at Trinity United Methodist Church as part of Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library’s SPEAK series. The presentation is free and open to the public, made possible by the EVPL Foundation and its donors. Visit EVPL’s SPEAK page for details.