I come from a family of stellar cooks. Generations of them. But not bakers (from scratch). At least not in the more recent generations. So don’t judge me when i confess that my benchmark chocolate cake, the very first one i fell in love with was actually a packet of Tasteykake chocolate CUPcakes 😆. “A true Philadelphia phenomenon for over 100 years”, TasteyKakes originally were available only in the Philadelphia metro region (including South Jersey where i was born). When my parents first relocated to Southern California in the mid 1980’s, my Mom would look forward to having packages of them shipped to us by east coast relatives. Now they’re available all over the country incl. California

But having learned as an adult that my body doesn’t process refined pastry flour very well (or at all actually — see also my Jan 8th post) I had to cut those types of “treats” out of my diet years ago. And after my mother’s gestational diabetes turned “type 2” some decades ago, they’re not a core part of her diet anymore either. Memories… Pretty sure the corporate recipe changed a LOT over the decades anyway. So even if we were still indulging we’d probably be longing for earlier versions of the products , from the more delicious days …

ABOVE pic. A late night study treat turned “early morn breakfast of champions” at a 24 hr Bklyn diner. Crash prepping to moderate a talk at The Schomburg Ctr with Adrian Miller when his book “The President’s Kitchen Cabinet” came out in the twenty teens. The Schomburg ask came with very short notice and the 300 page book arrived a day or so before the talk. Coffee wasn’t enough. And nope that cake ain’t gluten free….

While i may not have personally come from a lineage of bakers, in the bigger picture, Black women everywhere (especially throughout the South but also in the North, Mid Atlantic, Middle America, out West …. ) have historically been the longest running rock star bakers of the nation particularly of cakes, pies, biscuits, corn breads…

Over time their skills, techniques and recipes came to define a uniquely American style of baking (pies, cakes, biscuits, etc.) over the centuries in private homes as well as small and big businesses. Northerners were often eating the same kinds of food as Southerners, as the migration north (particularly of skilled Negro cooks) was happening continuously as early as 1799…

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