Cornbread Nation 5: The Best of Southern Food Writing
The fifth volume in this popular series from the Southern Foodways Alliance spans the food cultures of the South. Cornbread Nation 5, lovingly edited by accomplished food writer Fred W. Sauceman, celebrates food and the ways in which it forges unexpected relationships between people and places. In this collection of more than seventy essays and poems, we read about the food that provides nourishment as well as a sense of community and shared history.

Essays examine Nashville’s obsession with hot chicken and the South’s passion for congealed foods. There are stories of green tomatoes frying over a campfire in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee and tea cakes baking for Easter in Louisiana. In a chapter on immigrant cooking, writers visit the Mississippi Delta where a Chinese family fries pork rinds in a wok and a Lebanese restaurant serves baklava alongside coconut cream pie. Alan Deutschman, a self-described “Jewish Yankee,” chronicles his search for the perfect country ham. Barbara Kingsolver extols on the joys of eating sustainably. Sara Roahen writes a veritable love letter to the venerable New Orleans Sazerac. Kevin Young delights with his “Ode to Chicken,” and Donna Tartt treats us to what else but bourbon. Cornbread Nation 5 is a feast for the eyes, and if you’re not hungry or thirsty when you pick up this book, you will be when you put it down.

Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. A Friends Fund Publication.

1126732012
Cornbread Nation 5: The Best of Southern Food Writing
The fifth volume in this popular series from the Southern Foodways Alliance spans the food cultures of the South. Cornbread Nation 5, lovingly edited by accomplished food writer Fred W. Sauceman, celebrates food and the ways in which it forges unexpected relationships between people and places. In this collection of more than seventy essays and poems, we read about the food that provides nourishment as well as a sense of community and shared history.

Essays examine Nashville’s obsession with hot chicken and the South’s passion for congealed foods. There are stories of green tomatoes frying over a campfire in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee and tea cakes baking for Easter in Louisiana. In a chapter on immigrant cooking, writers visit the Mississippi Delta where a Chinese family fries pork rinds in a wok and a Lebanese restaurant serves baklava alongside coconut cream pie. Alan Deutschman, a self-described “Jewish Yankee,” chronicles his search for the perfect country ham. Barbara Kingsolver extols on the joys of eating sustainably. Sara Roahen writes a veritable love letter to the venerable New Orleans Sazerac. Kevin Young delights with his “Ode to Chicken,” and Donna Tartt treats us to what else but bourbon. Cornbread Nation 5 is a feast for the eyes, and if you’re not hungry or thirsty when you pick up this book, you will be when you put it down.

Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. A Friends Fund Publication.

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Overview

The fifth volume in this popular series from the Southern Foodways Alliance spans the food cultures of the South. Cornbread Nation 5, lovingly edited by accomplished food writer Fred W. Sauceman, celebrates food and the ways in which it forges unexpected relationships between people and places. In this collection of more than seventy essays and poems, we read about the food that provides nourishment as well as a sense of community and shared history.

Essays examine Nashville’s obsession with hot chicken and the South’s passion for congealed foods. There are stories of green tomatoes frying over a campfire in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee and tea cakes baking for Easter in Louisiana. In a chapter on immigrant cooking, writers visit the Mississippi Delta where a Chinese family fries pork rinds in a wok and a Lebanese restaurant serves baklava alongside coconut cream pie. Alan Deutschman, a self-described “Jewish Yankee,” chronicles his search for the perfect country ham. Barbara Kingsolver extols on the joys of eating sustainably. Sara Roahen writes a veritable love letter to the venerable New Orleans Sazerac. Kevin Young delights with his “Ode to Chicken,” and Donna Tartt treats us to what else but bourbon. Cornbread Nation 5 is a feast for the eyes, and if you’re not hungry or thirsty when you pick up this book, you will be when you put it down.

Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. A Friends Fund Publication.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780820335070
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Publication date: 04/15/2010
Series: Cornbread Nation Series , #5
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 328
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

FRED W. SAUCEMAN is an associate professor of Appalachian studies at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of four books including the three-volume series The Place Setting, which explores Appalachian foodways. He directed and produced the documentary A Red Hot Dog Digest. Sauceman’s Food with Fred appears monthly on WJHL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee.

MARILYN KALLETT has published sixteen books, including six volumes of poetry, translations, critical essays, children’s books, pedagogy, and anthologies of women’s literature. She is a professor emerita of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

JOHN SHELTON REED is founding coeditor of the journal Southern Cultures. He is the Mark W. Clark Visiting Professor History at the Citadel, and William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is coauthor, with Dale Volberg Reed, of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the South.

RHETA GRIMSLEY JOHNSON has covered the South for over three decades as a newspaper reporter and columnist. She writes about ordinary but fascinating people, mining for universal meaning in individual stories. In past reporting for United Press International, The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and a number of other regional newspapers, Johnson has won national awards. They include the Ernie Pyle Memorial Award for human interest reporting (1983), the Headliner Award for commentary (1985), the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Distinguished Writing Award for commentary (1982). In 1986 she was inducted into the Scripps Howard Newspapers Editorial Hall of Fame. In 1991 Johnson was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Syndicated today by King Features of New York, Johnson’s column appears in about 50 papers nationwide. She is the author of several books, including America’s Faces (1987) and Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz (1989). In 2000 she wrote the text for a book of photographs entitled Georgia. A native of Colquitt, Georgia, Johnson grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, studied journalism at Auburn University and has lived and worked in the South all of her career. In December 2010, Johnson married retired Auburn University history professor Hines Hall.

ROY BLOUNT JR.'s works include the memoir Be Sweet: A Conditional Love Story, the novel First Hubby, the screenplay for Larger than Life, the edited anthology Roy Blount's Book of Southern Humor, and such collections as Now, Where Were We? and Not Exactly What I Had in Mind. He is a frequent guest on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" and a columnist for the Oxford American. He lives in New York City and western Massachusetts.

SARA CAMP MILAM is the Southern Foodways Alliance’s managing editor. She lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

BRETT ANDERSON is the restaurant critic and a features writer at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The winner of two James Beard awards for journalism, Anderson has written for such publications as Gourmet, Food & Wine, and the Washington Post.

FRED W. SAUCEMAN is an associate professor of Appalachian studies at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of four books including the three-volume series The Place Setting, which explores Appalachian foodways. He directed and produced the documentary A Red Hot Dog Digest. Sauceman’s Food with Fred appears monthly on WJHL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee.

FRED W. SAUCEMAN is an associate professor of Appalachian studies at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of four books including the three-volume series The Place Setting, which explores Appalachian foodways. He directed and produced the documentary A Red Hot Dog Digest. Sauceman’s Food with Fred appears monthly on WJHL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Table of Contents

Foreword John Egerton XI

Introduction Fred W. Sauceman 1

Setting the Table

Why Study Southern Food? Marcie Cohen Ferris 5

What Is Southern? Edna Lewis 7

The Grace before Dinner Jennifer Justus 12

Gardens, Fields, and Forests

Gratitude: May Barbara Kingsolver 19

Corn as a Way of Life Loyal Jones 26

Between the Rows with Both Hands: Bean-Picking in Northeast Tennessee Margaret Carr 30

Field Pea Philosophy Scott Peacock 33

The Season of Fried Green Tomatoes Martha Stamps 35

Onion Medicine Anthony Cavender 37

Coveted, French, and Now in Tennessee Molly O'Neill 41

Living through the Honey Daniel Wallace 45

Capturing Summer in the Ice Cream Churn Dan Huntley 48

Sweet Potato Pie Marilyn Kallet 50

Coops, Pens, and Pits

Ode to Chicken Kevin Young 53

Mulling over Mull: A North Georgia Foodways Localism Charles C. Doyle 55

Some Like It Extra Hot David Ramsey 62

Victory or Supper: The Easter Egg Fights of Peters Hollow Kara Carden 69

There's a Word for It-the Origins of "Barbecue" John Shelton Reed 71

A Jewish Yankee's Quest for the Last Great Country Hams of Western Kentucky: How a City Boy Fell Madly for Country Ham and Wound Up Eating It Raw Alan Deutschman 77

From Southern Waters

Ode to a Catfish House Katherine Whitworth 87

Soft-Shell Science Carroll Leggett 89

Humble Paddlefish Fulfills Southerners' Caviar Dreams Jeffrey Gettleman 93

Bayou Coquille Garland Strother 97

Lamentations

USDA Approved: The Mark of Discrimination in Twentieth-Century Farm Policy Pete Daniel 101

So Long, White Lily Jack Neely 107

What Happened to Poor Man's Pâté? Chuck Shuford 110

Friends and Fancy Food Rheta Grimsley Johnson 114

Eating My Heart Out: The Good and Bad of the Meal of a Lifetime Beth Ann Fennelly 116

Funeral Food Kathleen Purvis 121

Sad Streaks and Weepy Meringues Sarah Anne Loudin Thomas 126

Malabsorption Syndrome Marianne Worthington 127

African American Foodways: Food, Fear, Race, Art, and the Future Ari Weinzweig 129

Celebrations

Juneteenth Jamboree Robb Walsh 137

The Sacred Feast Kathryn Eastburn 143

Open City Jessica B. Harris 150

Red Velvet Revisited Neely Barnwell Dykshorn 155

The Food and Music Pantheon Roy Blount Jr. 158

Recollections

A Fine Virginian Lucretia Bingham 165

Chapel Hill Eats and a Chef Remembers Ben Barker 169

Purdue John Martin Taylor 174

Platters and Permanence Walk and Talk A-Plenty at Spartanburg's Beacon Susan Shelton 177

The Restaurant That Time Forgot Lee Walburn 181

Miss Congealiality Julia Reed 185

Opinion Stew Salley Shannon 188

This Recipe Is Remembrance Michelle Healy 192

Knowing Sylvia Woods 195

Accents

Muffulettas and Meringue Pies: The Immigrant Experience in the South Amy C. Evans 199

Your Dekalb Farmers Market: Food and Ethnicity in Atlanta Tore C Olsson 217

Descendants of Greek Immigrants Aren't Pining for Pita John T. Edge 228

From Barbecue to Baklava: The Delta's Culinary Crossroads Amy C. Evans 232

The Delta Hot Tamale: Save Those Coffee Cans Martha Hall Foose 235

In the Doe's Kitchen with Aunt Florence Anne Martin 237

Home Cooking: East Meets South at a Delta Table Joan Nathan 240

Virginia Is for Wontons Mei Chin 244

Bozo's George Motz 247

Currying Flavor Brett Anderson 249

Cooking for a Sunday Day Corby Kummer 253

Welcome to Cuban Sandwich City Andrew Huse 257

Global Cornbreads: The Whole World in a Pan Crescent Dragonwagon 260

Demystifying Grits for the Northern Palate John S. Forrester 262

The Invasion of the Whores de Orvrays Robert St. John 265

Tasty Tradition Rolls On Bill Archer 269

Good Humor Devon Brenner 271

The Liquid South

Early Times in Mississippi Donna Tartt 275

Sazeracs: I Take My Liquor Brown Sara Ronhen 278

The Michelada: Getting to the Bottom of a Mysterious Texas Concoction Francine Maroukian 287

Dr. Enuf: A New Age Nutraceutical with a Patent Medicine Pedigree Fred W. Sauceman 289

Have a Fried Coke-and a Frown? John Kessler 294

Taste of Tradition: Iced Tea Fred Thompson 295

Praise Wine John Simpkins 297

A Benediction

Butter Elizabeth Alexander 301

Contributors 303

Acknowledgments 307

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