Bound to the Fire: How Virginia's Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine

"Kelley Fanto Deetz understands the pleasures and pains of cooking well for large numbers, and she knows that creativity within slave labor camps is especially remarkable. As an archaeologist, she is just the person to revisit Virginia's Big House hearths. Bound to the Fire brings life and dignity to the talented black artisans — many of them gifted chefs — who presided in these steamy kitchens. Despite their skills, such lifetime prisoners received few compliments from their diners, no wages from their owners, and only patronizing nods from generations of white writers and historians. Deetz uses letters and wills, utensils and cooking pots, even recipes and menus, in composing a suggestive salute to all those once obliged to put delicious food on the tables of the Tidewater elite." — Peter H. Wood, coauthor of Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States

" Bound to the Fire is the from-the-ground-up study we've been looking for. Deetz investigates the material culture of the enslaved through the lens of the cooks who forged in flame classic Southern foodways, and she has given us a powerful analysis of the lives of those ancestors whose hands stirred the pots in sorrow's kitchen." — Michael W. Twitty, author of The Cooking Gene: A Journey through African American Culinary History in the Old South

"This sweeping work draws on methods from archaeology to intellectual history to take a 360-degree look at the lives and work of enslaved cooks. The cooks were revered as well as feared; they held positions of authority, but labored under extra scrutiny, and they had some autonomy, yet they worked under the watchful eyes of the plantation elite. Through analysis of kitchens, labor, and handwritten recipes, Deetz relates a story that spans from the late seventeenth century to the Civil War in Virginia, rendering a full understanding of the men and women who cooked for the big house. Deetz exemplifies how enslaved people shaped their own destiny and how they were subject to extraordinary brutality, too. And then there are the recipes sprinkled throughout the book, which invite readers to taste the craft of these cooks. Bound to the Fire redefines much of what we thought we knew about the history and heritage of American cuisine." — Alfred L. Brophy, author of University, Court, and Slave: Proslavery Thought in Southern Colleges and Courts and the Coming of Civil War

"This sweeping work draws on methods from archaeology to intellectual history to take a 360-degree look at the lives and work of enslaved cooks. The cooks were revered as well as feared; they held positions of authority, but labored under extra scrutiny, and they had some autonomy, yet they worked under the watchful eyes of the plantation elite. Through analysis of kitchens, labor, and handwritten recipes, Deetz relates a story that spans from the late seventeenth century to the Civil War in Virginia, rendering a full understanding of the men and women who cooked for the big house. Deetz exemplifies how enslaved people shaped their own destiny and how they were subject to extraordinary brutality, too. And then there are the recipes sprinkled throughout the book, which invite readers to taste the craft of these cooks. Bound to the Fire redefines much of what we thought we knew about the history and heritage of American cuisine."

"Kelley Fanto Deetz understands the pleasures and pains of cooking well for large numbers, and she knows that creativity within slave labor camps is especially remarkable. As an archaeologist, she is just the person to revisit Virginia's Big House hearths. Bound to the Fire brings life and dignity to the talented black artisans—many of them gifted chefs—who presided in these steamy kitchens. Despite their skills, such lifetime prisoners received few compliments from their diners, no wages from their owners, and only patronizing nods from generations of white writers and historians. Deetz uses letters and wills, utensils and cooking pots, even recipes and menus, in composing a suggestive salute to all those once obliged to put delicious food on the tables of the Tidewater elite."

"Bound to the Fire is the from-the-ground-up study we've been looking for. Deetz investigates the material culture of the enslaved through the lens of the cooks who forged in flame classic Southern foodways, and she has given us a powerful analysis of the lives of those ancestors whose hands stirred the pots in sorrow's kitchen."