Southern Cultures

The 2012 Food Issue

Our second Food Issue is available now in print, online through Project Muse, and for Kindle, for Nook, or for Sony Reader. You also can download individual eBook articles for only $1.99 for Kindle, Nook, and Sony Reader (below). Our first Food Issue is available here.

"The Deepest Reality of Life":
Southern Sociology, the WPA, and Food in the New South
by Marcie Cohen Ferris, Guest Editor
"‘I know your damned photographer's soul writhes, but to hell with it. Do you think I give a damn about a photographer's soul with Hitler at our doorstep?'"
$1.99 download for Kindle, for Nook, or for Sony Reader

Tradition, Treme, and the New Orleans Renaissance:
Lolis Eric Elie
interviewed by Sara B. Franklin
"I see the participatory nature of food in New Orleans as being in the dishes. My guess is that none of the fine chefs in town would accept the challenge of putting their gumbo against somebody's mother's gumbo."
$1.99 download for Kindle, for Nook, or for Sony Reader

"She Ought to Have Taken Those Cakes":
Southern Women and Rural Food Supplies
by Rebecca Sharpless
"In April 1930, five hundred potential customers showed up at the opening of Staunton's curb market, and in 1936, the market's most successful vendor, Nettie Shull, made more than $2,000 by selling potato chips, fried apple pies, potato salad, and dressed poultry."
$1.99 download for Kindle, for Nook, or for Sony Reader 

Theodore Peed's Turtle Party
by Bernard L. Herman
"‘There's only one piece of white meat in him and that's his neck. The rest of the meat is dark meat. If you fry it, it's still like a white piece of meat, like a chicken breast. The rest of it looks like a chicken leg."
$1.99 download for Kindle, for Nook, or for Sony Reader 

"Boomtown Rabbits":
The Rabbit Market in Chatham County, North Carolina, 1880-1920
by Will Sexton
"Although the same cottontails flourished across the region, Chatham County turned its rabbits into something like a regional brand, recognized throughout the South and along the eastern seaboard. By the end of the nineteenth century, Siler City had become the de facto rabbit capital of the southeast."
$1.99 download for Kindle or for Nook 

Vimala Cooks, Everybody Eats
photographs by Shannon Harvey
"Vimala Rajendran's dinners created a space for people to meet over a common table (or couch, or picnic blanket), make friends, support the livelihoods of others in their region, and imagine how, on any given Wednesday morning while peeling garlic, they could also positively impact global communities."
$1.99 download for Kindle, for Nook, or for Sony Reader 

The Case of the Wild Onions:
How Ramps Paved the Way for Cherokee Rights
by Courtney Lewis
"Finally, the defendant was called to testify. The air went from lighthearted post-lunch chatting to dour and intense. Judging from the sudden solemnity, one might have imagined that this trial was for drug trafficking or a violent crime. But it was about something that had much more profound implications: picking plants-specifically, wild onions."
$1.99 download for Kindle, for Nook, or for Sony Reader 

Chocolate Pie
poetry by Michael Chitwood
"The woman who made it
hadn't been to church
in years . . ."
$1.99 download for Kindle, for Nook, or for Sony Reader 

About the Guest Editor:
Marcie Cohen Ferris is an associate professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she directs the Southern Studies undergraduate curriculum. Ferris's research and teaching interests include the history of the Jewish South and the foodways and material culture of the American South. From 2006-2008, Ferris served as president of the board of directors of the Southern Foodways Alliance. She has served as editor for two special issues on food for Southern Cultures. (You can read the other Food Issue here.) Ferris's Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South (UNC Press, 2005) was nominated for a 2006 James Beard Foundation Award. Her current work, "The Edible South: Food and History in an American Region" (forthcoming, UNC Press), examines the expressive power of food in narrative and material culture from the plantation South to the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement.

The rich array of photographs and graphics, and the sincere and effective attempt at readerly appeal, go well beyond what is attempted by most… Southern Cultures is truly impressive.”
—Council of Editors of Learned Journals