The Southern Foodways Alliance is pleased to announce the creation of their first traveling photography exhibition, Meet the Folks Behind the Food: The SFA Oral History Initiative at Year Three. Featuring portraits of 50 individuals chronicled by the Southern Foodways Alliance Oral History Initiative, the exhibition celebrates the unsung and uncelebrated men and
women whose work has helped keep Southern foodways alive.
Curated by SFA oral historian Amy Evans, the photographs offer visual introductions to the people behind the food who have shared their stories through oral history interviews. In the last five years, the Southern Foodways Alliance has collected and archived over 300 of these interviews, from oystermen in Florida’s Apalachicola Bay to pit masters in west central Tennessee; from bartenders in New Orleans to tamale makers in the Mississippi Delta. This traveling collection is a showcase for that work, as well as a tool for educational enrichment and an inspiration for community dialog.
The exhibition premiered at the Center’s Gammill Gallery in October 2007 and has since traveled to Old Town Alabama in Montgomery, GAS Studios in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The exhibition is accepting booking requests beginning in fall 2008. Museums, libraries, community centers, and other groups interested in hosting the exhibit are encouraged to e-mail sfamail@olemiss.edu or call 662-915-5993 for more information.
BOOK NOTES
Bon Appétit, Y’all: Recipes and Stories from Three Generations of Southern Cooking.
By Virginia Willis. Ten Speed Press, 2008.
Virginia Willis has a delightful way of weaving together three generations of Southern cooking in Bon Appétit, Y’all. She begins by introducing her family—her maternal grandmother “Meme,” her grandfather “Dede,” and her mother, all of whom grew up in rural Georgia. Her grandmother’s fond memories of farm life—milking cows, curing hams, and making butter and cheese—inspire her and naturally evolve when her family moved to Louisiana and expanded their culinary repertoire. She watched Julia Child’s show religiously, which led to her work with Southern cooking icon Nathalie Dupree, and then study at both L’Academie de Cuisine in Maryland and La Varenne in Burgundy, France.
No doubt, the old South comes through in recipes like Pimento Cheese, Meme’s Fried Chicken and Gravy, Old-Fashioned Pot Roast, Country Captain Chicken, Mama’s Fried Fatback, Gulf Coast Oyster Po’Boys, and Mama’s Seafood Gumbo. Some Southern dishes are adapted to contemporary tastes, such as Chicken Saltimbocca with Country Ham, Fried Catfish Fingers with Country Rémoulade, and Shrimp with Parmigiano-Reggiano Grits and Tomatoes. There are also counterparts with a French accent, such as Fingerling Potato Salad, Boeuf Bourguignon, Provençal Lamb Chops, and Roasted Beet Salad with Walnuts and Walnut Oil.
It’s the techniques that give the book a common thread—the braising, stewing, frying, and baking. Ms. Willis admits trying to update certain dishes without success, like Aunt Julia’s Chocolate Pie, finally admitting, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.” There are also many sections with culinary instructions and photos, to help with cutting up chicken, making soufflés, choosing fish and fish substitutions, and so on. Who knew that Meme’s Fried Okra, Funeral Grits, and Buttermilk Angel Biscuits would find a comfortable place next to Yukon Gold and Edamame Mash, Coq au Vin, and Chocolate Pots de Crème? Virginia Willis sets a table where it all comes together and still feels supremely Southern and wonderful.
KAREN CATHEY
The Savannah Cookbook.
By Damon Lee Fowler.
Gibbs Smith, 2008.
The latest in Damon Lee Fowler’s meticulously researched, beautifully written books about Southern cooking looks at the food of his hometown Savannah. It’s traditionally a homebased cuisine, blessed by an abundance of seafood and rice and enlivened by the contributions of the many cultures that passed through this port city. Chief among these is the cooking of the enslaved peoples who provided the labor for the rice and cotton economy.
The cooking of Savannah has much in common with that of the rest of the South, but Fowler concentrates on the dishes that are unique to this community: Savannah Black Turtle Bean Soup, Daufuskie Crab Fried Rice, Creamed Chicken Madeira on Rice Waffles, Crab and Grits. Of particular interest, given the subject of the 2008 SFA Symposium, is the section on Savannah beverages. Madeira is, of course, identified with Savannah, but you’ll also find recipes for Chatham Artillery Punch—the original is said to have been mixed in horse-watering tubs; Sherry Cobbler; and a lethal milk rum punch called Milk of a Wild Cow. The book is sumptuously illustrated with photographs by John Robert Carrington III.
TOM HEAD
