Toni Tipton-Martin

Toni Tipton-Martin is the reason we can say, with evidence, that Black Americans have been authoring their own cookbooks for more than two centuries. Her work The Jemima Code, a curated archive of 150+ Black-authored cookbooks going back to 1827, permanently refuted the idea that the Black Southern kitchen was illiterate or anonymous.

As the founding editor-in-chief of Cook's Country magazine (2020–2024), she carried that archival rigor into mainstream food media. Her work is the foundation any honest framework has to stand on.