German Soul

Potato salad, mac and cheese, crunchy coleslaw paired with pork barbecue—is Southern food mostly German food? Justin Robinson, a Grammy Award-winning musician and intensely curious Black ethnobotanist takes audiences on a journey through conflicting ideas of history, health, and the violent legacies of this comfort cuisine.

Robinson’s quest takes him from his grandparents’ kitchen table in South Carolina to West Africa and Europe seeking the true genealogy of his family recipes. The history of food becomes a history of his people, severed by slavery from their ancestors, who over time adopted the culinary traditions of others as a means of survival. Robinson looks to chefs and historians who have wrestled with this complicated heritage and seeks reconnection with his ancestors and body through a new understanding of the food he grew up with.