Cajun, Creole, and Caribbean dishes all have their roots in the cooking of West and Central Africa; the peanuts, sweet potatoes, rice, cassava, plantains, and chile pepper that star in the cuisines of New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and Brazil are as important in the Old World as they are in the New World. In Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons, esteemed culinary historian and cookbook author Jessica Harris returns to the source to trace the ways in which...