July_Aug_2015_FINAL_62215_bleedless REV

the Anniversary issue

Meeting Ms. Mildred: How a day with a New Orleans culinary icon changed my perspective on the word “Family”. by Michael Twitty + photo by Johnathan Lewis​

O f all the words unique to South Louisiana lingo, words like “lagniappe,” “banquette,” and “Hurricane,” one you won’t encounter in too many circles is the word “mishpocha.” Let me help you out. It’s a Yiddish word, from the Hebrew word “mishpacha,” and it means family. When Mildred Covert, the “South’s kosher Julia Child,” died, I felt as

if I had just lost mishpocha, and truly, I had. In 2012,I launched the CookingGene Project and Southern Discomfort Tour in a search for both my family’s roots in the Deep South and the presence of people of African descent in the making of the South’s cuisines during slavery. To make matters more complicated, I do Southern cooking on historic plantations

and surprise; “Guess who’s coming to Seder?” I’m Jewish. This landed me on the cover of Southern Jewish Life Magazine, and apparently, this is a big deal because once I was on that cover, every Jew in the former Confederacy seemed to know who I was and that I was coming to town. Mildred Covert didn’t do email, but she

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY JULY | AUGUST 2015