Elizabeth Pérez - Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions

North American Religions

Series Editors: Tracy Fessenden (Religious Studies, Arizona State University), Laura Levitt (Religious Studies, Temple University), and David Harrington Watt (History, Temple University)

In recent years a cadre of industrious, imaginative, and theoretically sophisticated scholars of religion have focused their attention on North America. As a result, the field is far more subtle, expansive, and interdisciplinary than it was just two decades ago. The North American Religions series builds on this transformative momentum. Books in the series move among the discourses of ethnography, cultural analysis, and historical study to shed new light on a wide range of religious experiences, practices, and institutions. They explore topics such as lived religion, popular religious movements, religion and social power, religion and cultural reproduction, and the relationship between secular and religious institutions and practices. The series focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on religion in the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Books in the Series:

Ava Chamberlain, The Notorious Elizabeth Tuttle: Marriage, Murder, and Madness in the Family of Jonathan Edwards

Terry Rey and Alex Stepick, Crossing the Water and Keeping the Faith: Haitian Religion in Miami

Jodi Eichler-Levine, Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Childrens Literature

Isaac Weiner, Religion Out Loud: Religious Sound, Public Space, and American Pluralism

Hillary Kaell, Walking Where Jesus Walked: American Christian Holy Land Pilgrimage

Brett Hendrickson, Border Medicine: A Transcultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo

Annie Blazer, Playing for God: Sports Ministry, Gender, and Embodied Worship in Evangelical America

Elizabeth Prez, Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions

Elizabeth Prez

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York and London

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York and London

www.nyupress.org

2016 by New York University

All rights reserved

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

ISBN: 978-1-4798-6161-3

ISBN: 978-1-4798-3955-1

For Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data, please contact the Library of Congress.

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For my parents, Bernardo (19392006) and Ivonne Prez

por lo mucho que siempre se dedicaron

The illustrations appear as a group following page 140.

1. Ashabi and Tunde Mosley

2. Altar for Billal Hendersons Eleggus

3. Violinist playing classical music during Ochn party

4. Placing sweets on an altar for Ochn

5. Shang throne for the anniversary of a priests initiation

6. Combined Shang and Ochn altars

7. Yemay altar

8. A godchild waiting to serve the priests

9. Image from Menndez, Libreta de Santera de Jess Torregosa

10. Sample house plan

None of this would have been possible without the hospitality and generous collaboration of many. Foremost among them, Ashabi Mosley deserves acknowledgment for her kindness, grace, and forbearance. I have been blessed with the assistance of Fadesiye, Mr. Mosley, Alimayu Harris, Arlene Stevens, Omisade, Miguel Willie Ramos, and Yom Yom. My love and gratitude also go out to Abirola; Damon Baggs; Mike Banish; Pedro Bonetti; Mike Cassidy; Glenda Kposivi Clark; Lucy Diaz; Kysha Egungbemi; Shukrani Gray; Mobosade and Shashu Harris; Markeya Howard; Il Afolabi; Kalimah Johnson; Salim Kenyatta; Chinaka Kizart; James Kubie; Gwen Luster; Marianne; Mayodumi; Alexandra Moffett-Bateau; Oba, Nosa, and Oyeyei; Okandinije; Olubi; Oshunleye, Nailah, and Jaylen; Keisha Price; Maddy Ramos; Toya, Maria, Jalyn, and Will Sevier; Jeanette and Poppy Shorter; Deidra Somerville and the boys; Cory Stephenson; Shanita Tyler; Kylah Williams; and Vicky Zuiga-Winkler. Mara-Pimpa Junqueira and Alina Barranco, Ibae. Those left unnamed are not forgotten.

I am indebted to Bruce Lincoln and Stephan Palmi at the University of Chicago for their mentorship and critical insight. The late Martin Riesebrodt contributed analytical rigor and organizational acuity; I remain most appreciative for his patience. I enjoyed the administrative support of Teresa Hord Owens and Sandy Norbeck, as well as Wendy Donigers constant encouragement. Andrew Apter, Robin Derby, and Dwight N. Hopkins inspired me to keep moving forward. Stuart Michaels, Deborah Nelson, and Gina Olson were instrumental in ensuring that my time at the Center for Gender Studies (now the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality) was intellectually rewarding.

I am humbled to recall the thoughtfulness of Alan Hodder at Hampshire College; Roger R. Jackson, Michael McNally, Louis Newman, Anne Patrick, Lori Pearson, Asuka Sango, and Shana Sippy at Carleton College; and Loc Wacquant at the University of California, Berkeley. At Dartmouth College, I have benefited from the guidance of Susan Ackerman, Ehud Benor, Rebecca Biron, Randall Balmer, Nancy Frankenberry, and Adrian Randolph, and from the collegiality of Christopher MacEvitt, Ronald Green, Susannah Heschel, Reiko Ohnuma, Catharine Randall, and A. Kevin Reinhart. I am honored to have had Stefania Capone, Yvonne Daniel, Robert M. Baum, Reena N. Goldthree, Deborah K. King, and Gil Raz read an earlier version of the manuscript in its entirety as part of a Leslie Center for the Humanities Manuscript Review. Their invaluable suggestions for revision, along with those of Colleen Glenney Boggs, transformed this book. The help of Meredyth Morley and Marcia Welsh was indispensable.

Without Jennifer Hammers persistent herculean efforts to bring this volume to press, the manuscript would still be in search of a hope and a home. She and Janna R. White gave it much-needed direction and editorial aid. I am also grateful to Constance Grady, Dorothea S. Halliday, Rosalie Morales Kearns, and the editors of the North American Religions series, Tracy Fessenden, Laura Levitt, and David Harrington Watt. My anonymous reviewers improved the book immeasurably with their detailed reports, and the exceptional staff of New York University Press shepherded it through the publication process. Any errors are mine alone.

An extraordinary group of confidants lent me their shoulders, ears, and books: Sandra Abdelmalak, Monica Coleman, Rosana Cruz, Laura Desmond, Yasser Elhariry, Martn Espada, Holly Fogleboch, Stephanie Frank, Alysia Garrison, Rory Johnson, Marta Nelson, Bernardo Prez, Julie Pttgen, Andy Rotman, Cristal and Eli Sabbagh, Gregory Spinner, Jon Varese, Natalie Washington-Weik, John Thabiti Willis, and my fellow travelers in the History of Religions.

I would like to recognize the members of institutional bodies whose faith in this project took it through data collection and write-up. Funding was provided by the University of Chicago Martin Marty Center and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture; the Ford Foundation; the University of Chicago Office of Multicultural Student Affairs; the University of Chicago Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality; the University of California Presidents Postdoctoral Fellowship Program; and Walter and Constance Burke Research Initiation Awards for Junior Faculty at Dartmouth College.