A grain of rice can represent the main ingredient in a batch of West African Jollof rice steaming in Reisner Dining Hall — or it can symbolize one chef’s culture and quest for culinary justice.

Rising celebrity and historical chef, Michael Twitty kicked off Black History Month at Shippensburg University on Feb. 2 with the presentation of an African-inspired meal in Reisner and a speech at Memorial Auditorium.

From 4-6:30 p.m., SU students in Reisner lined up to sample Twitty’s food. In addition to the rice, Twitty’s recipes included fried white sweet potatoes, black-eyed pea fritters, spicy collard greens, and seemingly the most popular — Carolina mustard BBQ chicken, served next to an extra pot of yellow BBQ sauce.

About 15 students from Multicultural Student Affairs helped Twitty cook the food featured in Reisner’s kitchen. One of the students, sophomore Vernon Hadley, came running up to Twitty in Reisner, yelling, “The sauce! It blew my mind,” Hadley said, calling it “decadent.”

“If I had any more adjectives in my vocabulary, I would give them to you,” Hadley said to Twitty.

Twitty’s visit was sponsored by: SU Black Heritage Committee, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Commission on Human Understanding, the departments of English, history/philosophy and sociology/anthropology and the offices of ethnic studies and multicultural student affairs.

The foods Twitty chose to cook for SU were selected to tell a story of the African diaspora, and to give students’ palates a new experience, Twitty said. Wherever he goes, he tries to teach people about the history behind the food.

“For me, it’s about heritage,” Twitty said. He cooks a myriad of foods but enjoys creating his own unique blend of African and Jewish dishes.

During his presentation at Memorial Auditorium, Twitty explained how he has tracked his diverse heritage from the southern U.S. to West Africa. Twitty’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, who was enslaved, was bought as a child in Virginia and made to walk to Alabama. He even tried to run, but was caught. Twitty’s great-great-great-grandfather witnessed the surrender of Robert Lee to Ulysses Grant during the Civil War.

Between these connections to the past and more, Twitty has many reasons to cook the way he does — it’s personal.

Twitty trained some of the staff at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia in the techniques of historical cooking. He is a self-taught chef, and has been cooking professionally for about 10 years, though his affinity for creation of cuisine started at a young age.

The need to discover his family history through food propelled Twitty to tour the southern United States, in what he calls the “Southern Discomfort” tour. He uses ingredients, cooking processes, genetics and pure facts to learn about his own identity, and in turn, that of all southerners.

“Our food is our flag. Our food is a great signifier of where we came from,” Twitty said.

In his presentation at Memorial Auditorium, Twitty spoke of the enslaved cooks owned by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Hercules and James Hemings. Good cooks were considered to be very valuable during American slavery, second only to blacksmiths, according to Twitty.

Hercules eventually ran away from Washington. Hemings traveled to France, mastered French cooking and then bought his freedom by bringing his culinary knowledge back to Jefferson.

“These chefs took control of their lives,” Twitty said. Many of the foods Americans love are present in North America because of Hemings, though credit is often given to his former master, Twitty said. If you love steak and fries, mac n’ cheese and vanilla ice cream — thank James Hemings.

When Twitty is not speaking at universities, he travels to learn more about his roots, teaches his craft to others, participates in historical reenactments, and recently, speaks with Washington Post reporters. The Post is going to publish a focus story on Twitty, he said. And in less than a week, Twitty will be doing his very first “TED Talk” in Vancouver, Canada.

More and more attention surrounds Twitty as he works to discover his roots and what he calls, “culinary justice.” To explain this term, Twitty told a story to SU students about African-American children who cannot afford to buy Carolina Gold Rice to eat, yet their ancestors are part of the reason that this rice exists in the U.S.

Twitty made it clear that he does not care about who cooks African-based food. Whether you are black or of another race, what matters to Twitty is that you respect the food and its origin. For him, food is a link to history that can educate people about their heritage, and ultimately, how people are all connected.

“It’s not Black History Month, it’s an American history year, [type of] conversation,” Twitty said. “There’s one race — the human race.”

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