Winter ‘09
Southern Cultures volume 15, number 4: FOOD
(with a free DVD)
[Order it in print. UPDATE: SOLD OUT]
Front Porch
by Harry L. Watson
"We parted in warm, brotherly agreement about the ambrosial qualities of great down-home cooking, and I drove off shaking my head over people who could share so much around the table yet struggle so bitterly over other things."
The Edible South
by Marcie Cohen Ferris
"Even as southern populations (and landscapes) have evolved, food and place remain indelibly linked in the southern imagination."
Essays
"Peace and a Smile to the Lips": Favorite Southern Food Dishes
by some of our favorite southern food writers, with an introduction by Kathleen Purvis
"What you have in your hands isn't just a list of memories and tastes. It's an act of bravery akin to holding a lit stick of TNT."
Drum Head Stew: The Power and Poetry of Terroir
by Bernard L. Herman
"Oh Violet, keep the head on the fish, because I want my eyeballs."
Wormsloe's Belly: Understanding the History of a Southern Plantation through Food
by Drew A. Swanson
"The plantation's residents were such voracious drinkers that the remains of wine bottles were the most reliable way to date colonial discoveries during excavation of the old fort site."
Chance Meetings and Back Roads: Making Connections through Food
photographs by Amy C. Evans
"He was forced into retirement after Hurricane Katrina, but The Professor, as he's known, is still a walking encyclopedia of New Orleans cocktail history."
Canning Tomatoes, Growing "Better and More Perfect Women": The Girls' Tomato Club Movement
by Elizabeth Engelhardt
"If somebody were to tell you that a group of little country girls who never have been near a big city have built up a business so large and important that papers all over the country are telling about it, you would think it was a new kind of fairy tale."
Eat It to Save It: April McGreger in Conversation with Tradition
by Whitney E. Brown
"There is a deep, pulsing current of heritage and emotion when your hands are in the dirt, and that's a feeling worth recapturing in the age of the iPhone."
Features
Supper in the Stacks Reading the Lupton African American Cookbook Collection
by John T. Edge
"'My cooking is referred to as yo-yo cooking, because the recipes found in this book will make your drawers drop down to your knees and pop back up to your neck.'"
South Polls Food for Thought: Race, Region, Identity, and Foodways in the American South
by Beth A. Latshaw
"I've eaten it all my life, and I'm not dead yet."
Mason-Dixon Lines "Gravy"
poetry by Michael McFee
". . . where fat becomes faith, where juice conveys grace . . ."
Beyond Grits and Gravy Thanksgiving Ghosts
by Mary Ann Sternberg
"Your cookbook," she related with obvious pride, "was published in 1897."
Not Forgotten Red Gravy
by Elizabeth M. Williams
"All self-respecting Sicilians disdained red gravy."
About the Contributors
And then there’s PUT IT ON THE SKILLET, the FREE DVD. In collaboration with the Southern Foodways Alliance Film Initiative, we have amassed the best collection of short food films anywhere. Buttermilk, barbeque, tortillas, and much more are on the menu in this tasty 78-minute mix. Order it in print here before it’s too late.
“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
