46 / 60
44
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
JULY | AUGUST 2015
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
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
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
the
Anniversary
issue