Braided Heritage

About Braided Heritage

The sweeping origin story of American food and how Indigenous, European, and African traditions intertwined to form an entirely new cuisine, with over 100 recipes for the modern home cook—from the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Famer and star of the Netflix docuseries High on the Hog.

Through essays, interviews, and more than 100 recipes, Dr. Harris presents American cuisine as a complex braid—an interwoven whole composed of ingredients and dishes from the Indigenous, European, and African people who influenced the food and traditions of the New World. By beginning with a recipe and tracing its origins, we come to understand the heritage of some of America’s most treasured dishes. Take coleslaw, that must-have for every Fourth of July barbecue, which was originally served by the Dutch as koolsla; jambalaya, which Dr. Harris traces to West Africa and Spain; or the Cherokee treatment of succotash that has become a popular Thanksgiving dish.

Accompanying the recipes are stories from a diverse collection of families that help illuminate our understanding of contemporary American cooking and examine how dishes such as clam chowder (which is connected to Indigenous stews but got its name from the French name for the cooking pot, chaudière) and Louisiana gumbo (in which sassafras is used as a condiment thanks to the Choctaw people) became American classics. With recipes ranging from the festive to the everyday, Braided Heritage offers a new look at American culinary history.