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"The Southern Foodways Alliance represents a new stage in the appreciation of an especially vital form of Southern culture," said Center Director Charles Reagan Wilson. "Scholars tell us that the food people eat gives clues about their environment, their social standing, their economic wherewithal, and even their values. Judging by the number of Southern cookbooks and stories about Southern food in national publications, Southerners and other Americans have a new fascination with regional foods." The SFA, which brings together a wide array of individuals, hopes to sponsor a number of outreach programs on Southern foodways, including symposia, seminars, short courses and noncredit classes, oral history projects, and a variety of information-gathering and research projects. Though the base is at the Center, the SFA sees the group's activities as a "moveable feast," with programming slated for cities across the South and even in other parts of the nation. "We have cooks, chefs, book readers and writers, news and magazine food writers and editors, academics and historians, cultural anthropologists, food stylists, advertising and public relations people, photographers, poets and artists," said John Egerton, author of the book Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History, and a founding member of the new alliance. "It is just a wonderful mix of people that cuts across all kinds of lines--gender and race, ethnicity, age--all having this affinity for food and the food folkways of the South." Along with promoting Southern foodways through events like the second Southern Foodways Symposium held October 29-31 on the Ole Miss campus, another part of the mission of the SFA will be preservation of Southern foodways history and tradition. "Many of our Southern foodways traditions will disappear if we don't go out and find those who have them in their heads and document these oral histories," said Egerton. Through the SFA's association with the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, he added, "it is now possible for those interested in conducting research and writing books to have the moral support of people experienced in how to write and ways to collect and organize cookbooks, stories, and recipes about food." Charter member enrollment in the Southern Foodways Alliance is now open at rates of $50 for individuals, $200 for nonprofit institutions, and $500 for corporations. Checks, made payable to the Southern Foodways Alliance, may be mailed in care of the Center. For details or membership and upcoming programming, call the Center at 662-915-5993 or contact us via email at cssc@olemiss.edu. Organizers anticipate recruiting 300 corporate and individual members in the first year of operations. For more information
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Ann Abadie Kaye Adams Jim Auchmutey Marilou Awiakta Ben Barker Ella Brennan Ann Brewer Karen Cathey Leah Chase Mary Ann Clayton Al Clayton Shirley Corriher Norma Jean Darden Crescent Dragonwagon Nathalie Dupree John T. Edge John Egerton Lolis Eric Elie John Folse Terry Ford Damon Lee Fowler Vertamae Grosvenor Jessica Harris Cynthia Hizer Portia James
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Martha Johnston Sally Belk King Sarah Labensky Edna Lewis Rudy Lombard Ronni Lundy Toni Tipton-Martin Louis Osteen Marlene Osteen Timothy W. Patridge
Paul Prudhomme Joe Randall
Marie Rudisill
Dori Sanders Richard Schweid Ned Shank Kathy Starr Frank Stitt Pardis Stitt Marion Sullivan Van Sykes John Martin
Taylor Jeanne Voltz Psyche Williams Charles Reagan
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The
Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA), a self-governing institute under
the wing of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, was founded
at a gathering hosted by Southern Progress Corporation in Birmingham,
Alabama, on July 22. Fifty chefs, food writers, cookbook authors,
growers, and other notable Southern food aficionados joined the
Center in the formation of the new organization, whose mission it
is to preserve and promote the traditional and developing diverse
food culture of the American South.