How Jessica B. Harris Redefined American Food

The Sporkful

SiriusXM Podcasts

Arts

4.6 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 June 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

Over more than fifty years and 16 books, Dr. Jessica B. Harris has uncovered the ways that West African food, and African American people, have fundamentally shaped American cuisine. Her seminal 2011 book, High on the Hog, brought the connection between African and American food into the culinary conversation, and led to the 2021 Netflix series of the same name. This week we talk with her about her own journey in making these connections, and she offers advice to the new generation of Black scholars and writers exploring these links: “Look ahead. What do you see ahead?”

Transcript

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0:00.0	So I know your first trip to West Africa was in 1972.
0:06.0	Or your impressions of the food on that trip?
0:09.0	The food was fascinating because it was at the same time familiar and unfamiliar.
0:17.0	This is Dr. Jessica B. Harris.
0:19.0	She's the author of many cookbooks that focus on African-American food.
0:22.8	I fell in love with the markets of West Africa. It's a love that I hold dearly.
0:28.9	Senegal certainly at that time was only a decade out of independence. It was a country that was sort of proud of itself and
0:40.4	straightening its back and doing all sorts of things. I think some of it showed up in the
0:45.1	markets, some of it showed up in the people, and some of it showed up in the food. There are
0:51.1	all kinds of things that come to memory. I think the most important one is my first taste of chicken yasa.
0:59.0	Chicken yasa is a chicken that is marinated in lemon juice with onion and then grilled.
1:09.0	I think my stomach is just growling as I'm talking about chicken yasa.
1:13.6	That tells you something.
1:14.6	So, in other words, the passion is still there.
1:17.6	The stomach is going, yes, we need some right about now.
1:22.6	Oops, sorry about that.
1:24.6	You know, so anyhow, the chicken, yes. Don't do that again.
1:29.6	It's the safe space for anyone who's hungry, Dr. Harris.
1:32.3	Okay, yeah, well, nothing like a Mike threat, yeah.
1:41.5	This is the Sporkful.
1:43.3	It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
1:50.0	Since her first trip to Senegal and her first taste of chicken yasa, Dr. Jessica B. Harris has written 16 books, most about African and African American food.
	...

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