Inscribed first edition of this classic of culinary Americana: part-narrative, part-cookbook memoir of the experiences of a Gullah Geechee woman, prescient in style and content.
Near fine in a very good plus jacket.
Price: $950.00
"I am a black woman. I am tired of people calling me out of my name. Okra must be sick of that mess too. So from now on we call it like it is. Okra will be referred to in this book as gombo. Corn will be called maize and Negroes will be referred to as black people."
The LA TIMES notes that VIBRATION COOKING "illuminates one Black woman's experience like no work of literature before or since." The flow between recipe and prose would not be out of place on a cooking blog of today; Mae's reflections on the origins of her ingredients and commentary on US culture give context to her traditional and global dishes. "There is no reference to black people's contribution to the culinary arts. White folks act like they invented food," she observes in the first chapter, but "food is food. Everybody eats!" Mae herself has a wide and varied career — from journalism and broadcasting to acting and activism — and was a prominent force in the Black Arts Movement. Now recognized a landmark cookbook, VIBRATION COOKING has been reprinted numerous times. However, the first edition is increasingly scarce, and decidedly so signed by Mae.
Read more: Bill Addison, "Vibration Cooking is Still Prescient at 50," LA Times.
First printing. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1970. Full title: Vibration Cooking, or, the Travel Notes of a Geechee Girl. 8.25'' x 5.5''. Original black cloth binding with silver lettering to spine. Original color pictorial dust jacket, unclipped ($4.95), designed by Sydney Butchkes. Red endpapers. 190 pages, including index. Inscribed in year of publication by Mae on front free endpaper: "May 11, 1970 / for Miss Wallace, / With special / thanks for taking / care of Kali [Mae's daighter] / Right on, / Verta Mae." Jacket spine mildly sunned. Small closed tear at rear fold. Minor rubbing and toning overall. Else clean and sound.
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