Jessica B. Harris

Dr. Jessica B. Harris is the preeminent scholar of the African diaspora's foodways. Her twelve books, most famously High on the Hog, trace the line from West African kitchens through the Atlantic and into every corner of the Americas.

She is, in the most literal sense, the person who gave this field its narrative arc. Any account of Black American food written after 2011 is indebted to her whether it cites her or not.