Yaw Agyeman Sings the Ebony Cookbook

On Thursday, February 23, at 5pm, join us for a special program at Retreat where interdisciplinary performing artist and Mellon Archives Innovation Fellow Yaw Agyeman will sing recipes published in the Ebony Cookbook - a seminal object in the Johnson Publishing Company's magnum opus.

Embedded in the Johnson Publishing Library, the Ebony Cookbook is an important cultural artifact that enshrined a collection of recipes in the collective conscious of Black modern life in the 50s and 60s. The cookbook provides us intimate encounters with the culinary traditions of African American cuisine, which continue to - in many iterations informed by our own families' traditions - grace so many of our dinner tables today. The cookbook was first published in 1948 by the editors of Johnson Publishing’s Ebony Magazine, one of the most widely read and influential publications for Black Americans during the mid-twentieth century.

At a time when many African…