Foodways

 edited by John T. Edge

 

“The fact that southern food, real southern food, is thriving in an age of homogenization, globalization, and desensitization is due in no small part to the efforts of John T. Edge and the Southern Foodways Alliance. This volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture is their testament. Anyone even mildly curious about what it is to be southern will find nothing here but the truth. Amen, and pass the okra.”
                                          —Alton Brown

 

“I’m as pleased to have this book as little Bobby Willis is to have all that food on page five.”                                                                          —Roy Blount Jr.

When the original Encyclopedia of Southern Culture was published in 1989, the topic of foodways was relatively new as a field of scholarly inquiry. Food has always been central to southern culture, but the past twenty years have brought an explosion in interest in foodways, particularly in the South. This volume marks the first encyclopedia of the food culture of the American South, surveying the vast diversity of foodways within the region and the collective qualities that make them distinctively southern, comprehensively surveying the ways in which the South has made food and food has made the South.

Articles in this volume explore the full diversity and richness of southern foodways, examining not only what southerners eat but also why they eat it. This book offers a primer on America’s foremost regional cuisine, a catalog of cookery that encompasses learned disquisitions on MoonPies and moonshine, biographies of restaurateurs and food writers, and essays exploring how ethnicity, race, and religion both each simultaneously affect and reflect our region’s foodways.

The volume contains 149 articles, almost all of them new to this edition of the Encyclopedia. Longer essays address the historical development of southern cuisine and ethnic contributions to the region’s foodways. Topical essays explore the food cultures of subregions and individual cities, iconic foodstuffs and dishes, and prominent restaurants and figures in the South’s food culture. Topical essays explore iconic foodstuffs and dishes, prominent southern restaurants and figures, and the food cultures of subregions and individual cities. The volume is destined to earn a spot on kitchen shelves as well as in libraries.

John T. Edge is director of the Southern Foodways Alliance and author of several books, including Fried Chicken: An American Story and serves as general editor of the book series Cornbread Nation: The Best of Southern Food Writing.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • African American Foodways
  • Appalachian Foodways
  • Barbecue
  • Beef
  • Beverages
  • Cajun Foodways
  • Caribbean Foodways
  • Civil War
  • Cookbooks
  • Cookbooks, Community
  • Ethnicity and Food
  • Farming
  • Funeral Food and Cemetery Cleaning
  • Game Cookery
  • Gender and Food
  • Gulf Coast Foodways
  • Hispanic American Foodways
  • Jewish Foodways
  • Literature, Food in
  • Lowcountry Foodways
  • Lunch Counters (Civil Rights Era)
  • Meals
  • Music and Food
  • New Orleans Foodways
  • Pork
  • Poultry
  • Religion and Food
  • Reunions and Picnics
  • Roadside Restaurants
  • Social Class and Food
  • Soul Food
    ____________________________
  • Aunt Jemima
  • Barbecue, Carolinas
  • Barbecue, Memphis and Tennessee
  • Barbecue, Texas
  • Beans
  • Beaufort Stew
  • Benne
  • Biscuits
  • Black-eyed Peas
  • Bourbon Whiskey
  • Brennan, Ella
  • Brown, Marion Lea
  • Brunswick Stew
  • Burgoo
  • Cakes
  • Catfish
  • Chase, Leah Lange
  • Chess Pie
  • Chicken, Fried
  • Chitterlings
  • Claiborne, Craig
  • Coca-Cola
  • Coons and Possums
  • Corn
  • Cornbread
  • Country Captain
  • Country Ham
  • Crawfish
  • Deviled Eggs
  • Dull, Henrietta Stanley
  • Fast Food
  • Fish Camps
  • Fish, Rough
  • Goo Goo Clusters
  • Gravy
  • Greens
  • Greens, Collard
  • Greens, Turnip
  • Grits
  • Gumbo
  • Hash, South Carolina
  • Hearn, Lafcadio
  • Hill, Annabella Powell
  • Hines, Duncan
  • Hot Tamales
  • Hushpuppies
  • Jack Daniel Distillery
  • Jambalaya
  • Jefferson, Thomas
  • King Cakes
  • Krispy Kreme
  • Legasse, Emeril
  • Lewis, Edna
  • Maque Choux
  • Mint Julep
  • MoonPies
  • Moonshine and Moonshining
  • Muddle
  • Mullet
  • Neal, Bill
  • Okra
  • Onions, Vidalia
  • Oranges
  • Oysters
  • Oysters Rockefeller
  • Panfish
  • Peaches
  • Peanuts
  • Pecans
  • Pepper Vinegar
  • Peppers, Hot
  • Persimmons
  • Pickling
  • Pies
  • Pimento Cheese
  • Po’ Boy
  • Poke Sallet
  • Pots and Skillets
  • Pralines
  • Preserves and Jellies
  • Prudhomme, Paul
  • Puddings
  • Quail
  • Ramos Gin Fizz
  • Ramps
  • Randolph, Mary
  • Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan
  • Red Beans and Rice
  • Restaurants, Atlanta
  • Restaurants, Charleston
  • Restaurants, Nashville
  • Restaurants, New Orleans
  • Rice
  • Rice, Red
  • Roux
  • Rum
  • Sanders, Colonel Harland
  • Sandwiches, Various
  • Saunders, Clarence
  • Sazerac
  • Sorghum
  • Spoon Bread
  • Squash
  • Stack Cake
  • Sugar and Sugarcane
  • Sweet Potato
  • Tabasco
  • Tasso
  • Tea Rooms
  • Tomatoes
  • Uncle Ben’s
  • Waffle House
  • Walter, Eugene Ferdinand
  • Washington, George
  • Watermelon
  • Wilson, Justin
  • Wine