Southern Foodways Alliance — View From Ventress

UM Officials Work to Develop Community as Arts Mecca

May 7, 2013 by tbarger

New Chancellor’s Fund for the Arts will help bring artists to campus to teach and perform

Chancellor Dan Jones and a passionate group of supporters are advancing the reputation of the University of Mississippi as a cultural arts hub with consultation from one of the nation’s leading figures in contemporary music.

Through a series of salons and special events, the university is raising private support for the new Chancellor’s Fund for the Arts. To spearhead the effort, acclaimed pianist Bruce Levingston has been appointed special adviser on the arts to Jones.

Alumni and friends have responded with $50,000 in initial gifts to build an endowment for an artist-in-residence program, much like the existing John and Renée Grisham Writers-in-Residence program. Just as prominent writers like Tom Franklin, Jack Pendarvis and National Book Award-winner Jesmyn Ward have enriched the Ole Miss-Oxford community with their presence, mentored promising students and elevated the national profile of the creative writing program, stewards of the Chancellor’s Fund for the Arts envision visiting artists and musicians achieving notoriety for all UM arts.

Levingston, a native of Cleveland, Miss., is directing his energies to the initiative.

“In addition to establishing artists-in-residence, the goal is to reach out in a truly interdisciplinary way,” he said. “We want to establish a pattern of bringing interesting and relevant artists and thinkers to Ole Miss, but also to send a little bit of Ole Miss and Oxford back with them – to share with the rest of the world what’s happening here, cultivated by Oxford’s enterprising arts community.”

The effort comes a year after the Mississippi Development Authority and the Mississippi Arts Commission released a joint study on the economic impact of artists and creative enterprises. The report attributes more than 60,000 Mississippi jobs to the creative economy and concludes that the arts increase productivity, stimulate innovation and growth, improve learning and generate wealth across sectors.

“You can look around our campus and Oxford and visibly see the impact that our decades-long cadre of writers have had on education and our economy,” Jones said. “We are known throughout the world for William Faulkner, Willie Morris, Ellen Douglas, Barry Hannah and Larry Brown. Scholars come to Ole Miss from Japan, Germany and elsewhere to study our writers – we can make that true of all our artistic disciplines, and benefit our students magnificently in the process.”

Levingston brings a wealth of experience to his role at UM. As founding chair and artistic director of the nonprofit foundation Premiere Commission Inc., he commissions and premieres new works by young artists and composers, helping to promote burgeoning talent to the national stage. Many of the world’s most important composers have written works for him, and his Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center performances have won notable critical praise.

Levingston is helping the university prepare, raise money and heighten awareness of its artists. Thus far, he has coordinated several events, such as a lecture by Robert Storr, renowned art historian and dean of the Yale School of Art, as well as a performance by the popular string quartet Brooklyn Rider. He also facilitated the Honors College and the Department of History’s recent hosting of Ron Chernow, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and commentator on American politics, business and finance, to interact with students and community members.

“It means a great deal to me to be here,” Chernow said while visiting campus. “I have found this not only an extremely enlightening visit but also very moving. History is the oxygen that’s in the air here – how could any historian not be stimulated?”

Philip Jackson, an acclaimed contemporary realist painter and a UM assistant professor of art, emphasized the impact of private support.

“If not for an Ole Miss alumnus’ generous lending of his private collection, we would not be bringing renowned American realist painter Bo Bartlett to campus,” Jackson said. Bartlett’s upcoming exhibition, curated by Jackson, will be at the University Museum through July 13, and Bartlett will lecture at 3 p.m. April 25 and lead a panel discussion at noon April 26, both at the museum.

Jackson is inspired by the new energy the initiative brings.

“Our visual arts tradition – artists like Glennray Tutor, Jere Allen and others – is not yet as strongly received as our literary tradition,” he said. “We have also recruited highly celebrated artists to our faculty: Matt Long is a potter known all over the country, Durant Thompson’s sculptures have been commissioned by several famous Americans, photographer Brooke White recently returned from a Fulbright Fellowship to India, I could keep going. When people make these connections, the reverence and support will be there.”

Inaugural events to undergird the Chancellor’s Fund for the Arts have been held, with additional events and salons slated for Oxford, Jackson, New York, Houston and Boston. A recent event at the home of Ambassador John Palmer in Jackson featured Levingston showcasing selections from Chopin, Rachmaninoff and Schubert. Guests enjoyed dinner prepared by James Beard-nominated chef and Ole Miss alumnus Taylor Bowen-Ricketts of the Delta Bistro in Greenwood.

Palmer was inspired to support arts education, and especially to support Levingston and his new program at Ole Miss.

“Over the years, I have developed friends who are alumni of Princeton and other top schools,” Palmer said. “Their knowledge of works by great composers and artists always impressed me – and they learned it during their general undergraduate studies, not as arts majors. A vibrant arts community is a must for good quality of life. This is especially true for our students who will have this as part of their foundation.”

Donors and university leaders believe the initiative will help showcase talented UM students and highlight the cultural activities of the Ole Miss community.

“We always come to Oxford for the annual Pride of the South Benefit Concert at the Ford Center and bring friends,” said one of the fund’s donors, who wished to remain anonymous. “I want my friends across Mississippi to know about the musical and artistic talent our young students have. They work hard to cultivate their talents, and I want to encourage them and establish more opportunities for learning and apprenticeship. This effort has a lot of potential if we all support it.”

Levingston has other collaborations in the works with UM faculty and departments: a film project with screenwriter Chris Offutt, a commissioned work on civil rights with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and a partnership with the schools of Law and Business Administration.

“These interdisciplinary collaborations will raise arts and humanities awareness not only in the university community but also around the state and the nation,” Levingston said.

The Chancellor’s Fund for the Arts is open for contributions from individuals and organizations. Contributions can be made by mailing a check with the fund noted in the memo line to the University of Mississippi Foundation, P.O. Box 249, University, Miss. 38677-0249; visiting online at www.umfoundation.com/makeagift/; or contacting Sarah Hollis, associate director of university development, at 662-915-1584 or shollis@olemiss.edu.

Filed Under: Center for The Study of Southern Culture, English, Latest News, Southern Foodways Alliance

Author to Discuss Her Investigation into the Nation’s Food Industry

February 25, 2013 by tbarger

Tracie McMillian slated for public lecture Monday at Ford Center

Tracie McMillan

The University of Mississippi’s Center for Writing and Rhetoric and the Southern Foodways Alliance have teamed up to co-host a lecture next week by award-winning journalist Tracie McMillan on the realities of our country’s food industry.

The lecture, at 7 p.m. Monday (Feb. 25) in the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts, is free and open to the public.

McMillan is the author of the New York Times bestselling book “The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table” (Scribner, 2012), which explores vital issues of food access and distribution in the United States.

To research the book, McMillan worked as a vegetable picker in California, a produce stocker at Wal-Mart in Detroit and an expediter at Applebee’s in New York City. Along the way, as she attempted to live off the meager wages she earned, McMillan explored the question, “What would it take for all of us to eat well?”

“This topic is front of mind for a new generation of students now studying the political resonances of food in America,” said John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. “In a region where agricultural labor issues have long been fraught, we’re especially excited to hear McMillan’s read on modern agricultural labor and how those insights apply to issues of race and class the South.

McMillan’s undercover reporting for “The American Way of Eating” has won critical acclaim and resonated with tens of thousands of readers. In the New York Times, reviewer Dwight Garner wrote, “The book Ms. McMillan’s most resembles is Barbara Ehrenreich’s bestseller ‘Nickel and Dimed.’ Like Ms. Ehrenreich, Ms. McMillan goes undercover amid this country’s working poor. … This is a voice the food world needs.”

Before her lecture, McMillan is scheduled to visit Writing and Rhetoric composition classes, for which her book serves as a text. She will talk to students and answer their questions on the journalistic process.

“Student writers enjoy the opportunity to think critically about food; looking at how a resource, which is often taken for granted, moves from farm to table allows us to see a larger impact of collective choices,” said Robert Cummings, director of the center. “And Tracie McMillan’s project stands as an example of how students can find a passion in pursuing a question,”

“The American Way of Eating” was among six finalists for the university’s Common Reading Experience for the 2013-14 academic year.

For more information on McMillan and her work, go to http://www.traciemcmillan.com/.

Filed Under: Center for Writing and Rhetoric, Southern Foodways Alliance

Yazoo City’s Simmons Catfish Becomes Corporate Donor for Southern Foodways Alliance, UM Institute

February 5, 2013 by tbarger

Harry Simmons Jr. and Katy Simmons Prosser announce Simmons Catfish’s support of UM’s Southern Foodways Alliance.

Simmons Farm Raised Catfish of Yazoo City, Miss., has joined the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) as the organization’s newest corporate donor.

The mission of the SFA, an institute of the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture (CSSC), is to document, study and celebrate the diverse food cultures of the changing American South.

Harry Simmons Jr. is the founder and president of Simmons Catfish. A graduate of Mississippi State University, he began to farm catfish in 1976 following a period of service in the National Guard. In 1982, he founded Simmons Farm Raised Catfish, integrating an on-site processing facility into his existing farming operation.

Of the company’s gift to the SFA, Simmons said, “With catfish being fundamental to Southern cooking and the core of my family’s business, I am pleased to support the SFA in its work. SFA uniquely promotes Southern culture and traditional foods, making our relationship a perfect fit.”

Simmons’ daughter Katy Simmons Prosser is the director of marketing for the company and a 2004 Ole Miss alumna. “I always admired the SFA’s work while I was attending the University of Mississippi, and I continue to be inspired by their efforts. Simmons Catfish is honored to support the SFA and excited to be involved in its mission. Catfish and its place in Southern culture is something we are very passionate about here at Simmons,” she said.

Simmons joins the Viking Range Corp. as the SFA’s second Mississippi-based corporate donor. Of the Mississippi connection, SFA director John T. Edge said, “Over the last decade, the SFA has built a nationwide following for our documentary work. But we’re still, at our core, a Mississippi organization. The support of Simmons Catfish, a company whose work we admire, is a great vote of confidence.”

The SFA – a member-supported institute based at the CSSC since its 1999 founding – directs an annual Southern Foodways Symposium, as well as numerous lecture series, film screenings and other events. The SFA’s oral history program, widely recognized as the most innovative in its field, has collected almost 800 interviews, while the SFA film initiative has produced more than 30 films.

In recent years, the SFA has expanded its work into UM classrooms on the Oxford campus. For the second year, the organization is hosting a postdoctoral fellow to teach food studies classes and has partnered with the College of Liberal Arts to endow a foodways professorship beginning in 2014.

Individuals and organizations can make gifts to support the Southern Foodways Alliance by mailing a check with the alliance noted in the memo line to the University of Mississippi Foundation, P.O. Box 249, University, MS 38677; visiting www.umfoundation.com/makeagift; or contacting Nikki Neely, development officer, at 662-915-6678 or nlneely@olemiss.edu.

The Center for the Study of Southern Culture at UM investigates, documents, interprets and teaches about the American South. CSSC emphasizes academic programming as the foundation of its work, offering both undergraduate and graduate programs in Southern studies through more than 60 courses taught by faculty in 10 departments. CSSC houses two institutes, the Southern Foodways Alliance and the Media and Documentary Projects Center. For more information, visit www.olemiss.edu/depts/south or www.facebook.com/SouthernStudies. For more information about the Southern Foodways Alliance, visit www.southernfoodways.org.

Filed Under: Featured Content, Southern Foodways Alliance

New Food Professorship Gets Support From Atlanta Couple

October 29, 2012 by tbarger

Donation will help endow professorship in expanding academic area.

Kristie and Charles Abney of Atlanta have made a major gift to the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the University of Mississippi’s Center for the Study of Southern Culture, to help meet the goal of endowing a professorship in the growing academic study of foodways.

“We made the gift because we are passionate believers in the mission of the Southern Foodways Alliance,” said Kristie Abney, senior vice president for the commercial real estate firm Transwestern. “The work that the SFA does to document, study and celebrate the foodways of the South is of tremendous value not only to the university but also to all Southerners.

“Charles and I are lifelong, many generations back, Southerners. The people and stories the SFA shines light on reflect our heritage and make us proud of our region. A full-time foodways professor at the University of Mississippi will ensure that generations of students are immersed in our incredibly rich and valuable Southern food story. This is something about which Charles and I are truly passionate.”Charles Abney is a portfolio manager and director with ZWJ Investment Counsel. Among other civic commitments, he serves on the board of Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, and Kristie Abney chairs the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau’s annual fundraising event, which supports the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

The mission of the SFA – based at UM since its 1999 founding – is to document, study and celebrate the diverse food cultures of the changing American South. The membership-supported institute directs an annual Southern Foodways Symposium, as well as numerous lecture series, film screenings and other events. The SFA’s oral history program, widely recognized as the most innovative in its field, has collected almost 700 interviews, while the SFA film initiative has produced more than 30 films. SFA is expanding its work into UM classrooms.

The Abneys’ gift boosts the SFA to within $140,000 of its $500,000 goal for the professorship. Once that mark is achieved, a matching commitment from the College of Liberal Arts will fund the professorship going forward.

“Having a foodways professorship will build on the center’s longstanding commitment to the highest standards of scholarship and the Southern Foodways Alliance’s vision for training the next generation of foodways scholars,” said Glenn Hopkins, UM dean of liberal arts. “The college, the center and the SFA are committed to working together to establish a foodways professorship at the University of Mississippi, and we are deeply grateful for the Abneys’ generous support of this position.”

Ted Ownby, director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and a professor of history and Southern studies, expressed appreciation for the gift.

“We appreciate the confidence that the Abneys have shown that the SFA and Southern studies will use their gift in a smart and productive way,” Ownby said. “It’s exciting to think about what a difference a gift like this can make. Thanks to the Abneys’ generosity, we are that much closer to filling this position with a full-time appointment for the fall of 2014.”

Ownby noted that academic interest in food studies has expanded in recent years and will continue to grow.

“We can already see how foodways teaching can both fit into Southern studies and go beyond what we have done before. In the fall of 2011, 20 students took the first Southern Studies 555 class (Foodways and Southern Culture) with postdoctoral fellow Angela Jill Cooley,” the director said. “Some of them are continuing topics from that class as part of their M.A. theses and other independent work.

“We imagine more students, whether in Southern studies or other fields, coming to the university because of their interests in food and culture. We also expect a lot of students will develop interest in the field once they get here. This is developing at the perfect moment, since so many of today’s students understand food as part of their own politics, raising all sorts of issues that are likely to keep changing in the future.”

Individuals and organizations can make gifts to support the Foodways Professor Endowment by mailing a check with the fund noted to the University of Mississippi Foundation, P.O. Box 249, University, MS 38677; visiting http://www.umfoundation.com/makeagift; or contacting Nikki Neely, development officer, at 662-915-6678 or nlneely@olemiss.edu.

The Center for the Study of Southern Culture at UM investigates, documents, interprets and teaches about the American South. CSSC emphasizes academic programming as the foundation of its work, offering both undergraduate and graduate programs in Southern studies through more than 60 courses taught by faculty in 10 departments. CSSC houses two institutes, the Southern Foodways Alliance and the Media and Documentary Projects Center. By teaching classes in foodways, the CSSC seeks to expand on the academic and educational strengths developed since its founding in 1977. For more information, visit http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/south or http://www.facebook.com/SouthernStudies. For more information about the Southern Foodways Alliance, visit http://www.southernfoodways.org. By Sarah Camp Arnold, Center for the Study of Southern Culture

Filed Under: Center for The Study of Southern Culture, Southern Foodways Alliance

Joe York Says Barbecue Boils Down to Hard Work

October 25, 2012 by tbarger

When he attended graduate school at the University of Mississippi, Joe York, 35, had no idea he was about to become a documentarian of living anthropology. He probably didn’t even know there was such a thing. Come to think of it, I don’t know if there is such a thing. I just like the term. It seems to capture the essence of what York does with his movie camera as he travels throughout the South.

The Alabama native had worked on digs as an archaeologist in the South. “I was always interested in understanding our past and our culture,” says York, who majored in anthropology and archaeology as an undergraduate at Auburn.

But while working on unearthing the past, he discovered he was more interested in the living than the dead. “We were trying to piece together these lives from people buried beneath the dirt,” he says. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if we could know these people?’”

“And on these digs, I started interviewing people — I have all these tapes,” he continues. “And I realized that’s what I like doing. I like taking these ephemeral stories and putting them in a place that they’re not ephemeral anymore.”

He enrolled in the master’s program at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, set down the shovel and picked up a camera. He then began filming ordinary people doing extraordinary things. His first movie, in 2002, was called “Saving Seeds,” about a Kentucky man, Bill Best, who preserves heirloom seeds. “The Johnny Appleseed of Appalachia,” York calls Best.

Since then, York estimates he has made some three dozen short movies about people who preserve and further the idea of Southern food, whether a catfish joint in Mississippi or a family of peanut farmers in Georgia. He recently completed a one-hour feature on Southern food, “Pride and Joy,” which is a tapestry of his previous work.

At the Southern Foodways Alliance annual symposium last weekend in Oxford, Miss., York showed a barbecue short about an African-American pitmaster named Helen Turner, who works long days shoveling embers beneath meats at her barbecue joint in rural Tennessee. The film, along with its star, who attended the showing, received a standing ovation.

This year’s SFA conference was on barbecue. (I will write about it in my November column.) York has made several films about barbecue. They include examinations of sausage-making at a joint called Southside Market in Elgin, Texas, and whole hog cookery by tradition-bound pitmasters Rodney Scott in Hemingway, S.C., and Sam Jones in Ayden, N.C. Each film tells a larger story, whether about German immigration to Texas or cultural perseverance along the East Coast.

“It is the visual realization of the SFA to document and celebrate the culture of the South through the food,” York says. “Not the food itself. We’re talking about gender issues and race. Food just makes those issues easier to digest, to use a bad pun.”

York says that his barbecue travels have taught him that secrecy is suspect. “If you talk to the people who really cook barbecue and use wood and do it for 12, 18 hours, they tell you the secret is just work,” he says. “Anybody who tells you they have a secret, be suspicious of them. Because everyone who is really good at this has told me the same thing: ‘There is no secret to what I do, I just work my [rear] off.’”

“All the sauces and everything is about where you’re from, the region,” he continues. “But the thing that threads through all of it is honesty and hard work.”

York is still an anthropologist. These days, though, he searches among the daily lives of Southerners for clues about identity, heritage and, of course, the passion of food.

“How cool is it that I can study us,” he says.

From Washington Post by Jim Shahin

Send your tips, advice and news to me at jimshahin@aol.com. Follow me on Twitter @jimshahin.

Filed Under: Center for The Study of Southern Culture, Southern Foodways Alliance

The Southern Foodways Symposium Kicks Off Friday, October 19

October 19, 2012 by tbarger

The Southern Foodways Symposium kicks off

Editor’s note: The Southern Foodways Alliance delves deep in the history, tradition, heroes and plain old deliciousness of barbecue across the United States. We’ll be sharing dispatches live from their 15th annual Symposium “Barbecue: An Exploration of Pitmaster, Places, Smoke, and Sauce” in Oxford, Mississippi, over the nest few days. Dig in.

The 15th Southern Foodways Symposium officially kicks off Friday at noon. But we got things started a little early with a well-balanced combination of photography, fashion, cocktails, music, literature, film and hot dogs. You know, the usual SFA ingredients. Herewith, an instruction manual on how to spend a pre-symposium Thursday evening, in case you ever find yourself in this position. 1. Head to the Powerhouse, at the corner of University and South 14th Streets, a few blocks off the Oxford Square. It’s the headquarters of the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council (get it?) and plays host to a variety of community art events. There, mastermind Wayne Andrews will have created a chandelier out of larger-than-life, black-and-white photos of a splayed pig destined to become barbecue. On the walls hang more black-and-white barbecue shots, from pitmaster (and -mistress) portraits to close-ups of the tools of the trade: a shovel of coals and a heat-resistant glove. Interspersed with the photos are dresses of intricately embroidered and beaded cotton jersey. They hang on rusty mattress springs, the kind that might be used in a pinch for a homemade rural barbecue pit.

2. Okay, you’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s a little out there. Luckily, the artists are in the room to talk you through their work. Really, go ask them! Photographer Landon Nordeman won a James Beard Award for this barbecue portfolio, which he shot in iconic barbecue joints from the Carolinas to Arkansas. “Do you think you could blow those shots up a little, Landon?” we asked. And blow them up he did.

Last year, Natalie Chanin of the Alabama Chanin fashion label costumed the performers for our world-premiere collard opera, “Leaves of Greens” by Price Walden. After the symposium, we raised the stakes. We asked Natalie if she would create clothing inspired by barbecue. And she took us at our word: she literally smoked the dresses at Jim ‘N Nick’s in Birmingham with the help of Drew Robinson. The results look – and smell – like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

3. At this point, it’s cocktail hour. Time to belly up to the bar. Meet Greg Best of Holeman & Finch in Atlanta, our bartender for the weekend. We’ve heard that Greg can take the contents of a near-empty pantry or refrigerator – balsamic vinegar, ketchup, bottom-shelf whiskey – and create a cocktail you’ll be talking about for years. This afternoon, he’s whipped up an Ash Wagon Punch with Cathead vodka, vermouth, bitters, fresh lime juice and perhaps some other magical Greg Best ingredients. We’re not sure. We just know that the first one went down real easy.

But the symposium is a marathon, not a sprint. Best to start out slowly. It hasn’t even officially begun yet.

4. Head up the hill to the Lyric Theater for Thacker Mountain Radio.

This week, Thacker celebrated its 15th birthday. And instead of getting its learner’s permit, it blew out its candles with the SFA. Congratulations to Thacker for fifteen years on the air!

As usual, Thacker’s house band, the Yalobushwhackers, were on fire, playing to open and close the show. They sang plenty of food-themed songs, ending with Hank Williams’s “Hey, Good Lookin’.”

Three SFA symposium presenters gave readings this evening during the show. Randall Kenan read a short story about a megachurch barbecue, John Dufresne read poems about eating in and dining out, and Monique Truong talked about the roles that food and hunger played in her novel “Bitter in the Mouth.”

Now, here’s where we get to brag that our symposium unofficially began with a bang and a whistle (not a whimper). Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band performed the North Mississippi Hill Country music that 23-year-old Sharde learned from her grandfather, the late, great, Otha Turner. Stay tuned for more of Sharde and her band later this weekend.

When Thacker was over, it was time for a brief intermission. And as everybody knows, nothing says “intermission” like barbecue bologna dogs with mustard and slaw. These beauties were dreamed up by Kirk Lovejoy, the charcutier (and bolognier) for the City Grocery restaurants.

Fortified by our snacks, the crowd was ready for the world premiere of Joe York’s newest film, “Pride & Joy.”

Joe has made over 30 short films for the SFA. In “Pride & Joy,” some of the people and places from those films return, alongside new faces, dishes and locales from Richmond, Virginia, to Snook, Texas. If Joe’s earlier films were short stories, he’s just finished his first novel. The threads that hold it together are sense of place; love of labor; and connection with family, friends and strangers through the common bond of food.

We can’t wait for you to see “Pride & Joy.” Stay tuned for details about winter screenings in New York, Atlanta and Charleston, followed by a television premiere on South Carolina ETV in spring 2013.

And Joe, you’ve done us proud!

When the movie ended and the lights came up, Sharde Thomas and her band processed out of the Lyric, leading the crowd onto the Square, just as her grandfather did at our first barbecue symposium a decade ago.

Today’s installment comes courtesy of Sara Camp Arnold, the editor of SFA’s quarterly publication, “Gravy.”

Filed Under: Southern Foodways Alliance

Southern Foodways Alliance is on the Road in Arkansas: Pork and Pies

July 26, 2012 by tbarger

Halfway between Little Rock and Memphis, perched at the western edge of the Arkansas Delta, is the town of De Valls Bluff. It’s a one-stoplight kind of place, with a population of some seven hundred residents, but it packs a big culinary punch. Stop at 15 W. Walnut St. for Craig’s Bar-B-Q, and then head directly across the road (look both ways!) for one of the pies that Mary Thomas serves from the side door of her home kitchen.

Craig’s is not exactly a secret—it’s been lauded by plenty of traveling food writers over the years—but it’s just far enough off I-40 that you wouldn’t stumble upon it if you were pulling off the Interstate for gas. Craig’s signature dish is a sliced-pork sandwich, topped with green-apple-studded coleslaw and sauced generously according to your spice preference: mild, medium, or hot. Current owners/pitmasters Robert and L.T. Craig are first cousins carrying on a tradition that Lawrence, Leslie, and Wes Craig began in 1947, when they opened the Craig Brothers Cafe. Most restaurants in the area were segregated at the time, as they were throughout the South. But Robert Craig insists that his father’s plan for the African American-owned Craig Brothers Cafe was different from the beginning: “My dad was of the mindset, ‘Let everybody come together,’ regardless of color they were, what they had on, how much money they had in their pocket or the bank or what have you—he was all about helping people.”

Craig’s barbecue doesn’t fit neatly into any sub-regional categorization. Robert smokes hams over hickory wood for six to eight hours, and the sliced meat is piled atop sandwich buns and doused with a brown-orange sauce whose recipe remains a family secret. Neither the sauce, nor the slaw—which is tart and crisp with nary a hint of mayonnaise—is quite like any barbecue you’ve had before. Which is why you’ll have to make the pilgrimage to De Valls Bluff and try it for yourself.

Filed Under: Southern Foodways Alliance

‘Cornbread Nation 6′ Reveals Evolution of Southern Food

June 13, 2012 by tbarger

It is possible to live in the South – to even be born and bred in the South – and to have no idea how to define Southern food.

Southern cuisine is a moving target, unwilling to lie still for even the discriminating palates of Southern food writers. But thankfully, those folks are still out there, cheering, challenging and chewing on everything that Southern food has come to represent.

Their stories come together in “Cornbread Nation 6: The Best of Southern Food Writing,” edited by Brett Anderson with Sara Camp Arnold (University of Georgia Press, $20).

The sixth volume of the series, which was launched in 2002, features several Atlanta-based writers, including Kim Severson, Atlanta bureau chief for The New York Times; Bill Addison, Atlanta magazine’s food editor and restaurant critic; Besha Rodell, former food and drink editor of Creative Loafing; and Atlanta Journal-Constitution food writer John Kessler.

Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Culture at the University of Mississippi, “Cornbread Nation 6″ offers six chapters rich with food lore, including a perennial barbecue debate (is it a lost art or found science?), a disturbing journey through the food supply of slaves and a look at the global South, featuring, for example, the relationship between ravioli and country music.

Severson contributes a semi-autobiographical profile of Edna Lewis, the Virginia-born preservationist of Southern food who lived her final years in Atlanta with chef Scott Peacock.

Meanwhile, Rodell writes an open letter to Severson, suggesting she temper the Twitter tantrums in which Severson calls out the sorry state of food in Atlanta.

Kessler reveals the dearth of black chefs through an intimate look at African-American chef Darryl Evans of Columbus, Ga. – creator of Atlanta’s now shuttered Spice Restaurant – and two of his proteges who hope to launch their ideal restaurant.

Addison ponders the question, “How do you describe Southern Food?” in his story about the commingling of foods and flavors in the capable hands of Hugh Acheson, chef-owner of Empire State South.

Addison suggests that Acheson’s pork belly over creamed kimchee with smoked peanuts is as worthy of a place in the pantheon of Southern food as fried chicken, shad-stuffed roe and buttered corn bread.

“Cornbread Nation 6″ may not resolve the conundrum of Southern cuisine, but it does gives a revealing and insightful look at its evolution.

By NEDRA RHONE — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Filed Under: Center for The Study of Southern Culture, Latest News, Southern Foodways Alliance

New Course Offers Multidisciplinary Look at Social Inequality in Mississippi

May 15, 2012 by tbarger

This summer, University of Mississippi students can examine how government policies have shaped the American diet, particularly in north Mississippi.

The new summer session course, “Bringing Food to the People: Food Policy and Social Inequities in Mississippi,” was developed jointly by the Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, and the university’s Department of Public Policy Leadership.

The university is a leader in the development of foodways studies as a scholarly discipline, and the public policy leadership program is well-known for producing effective communicators well-versed in policy-making from the local to the global, said John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, or SFA. “With teachers from two complementary departments and a compelling syllabus, the class will, we think, prove a great primer on the interdisciplinary approaches that can be applied to the field,” Edge said.

Postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor Jill Cooley

The course will be led by Jill Cooley, postdoctoral fellow and visiting assistant professor at SFA, and Jody Holland, visiting assistant professor of public policy leadership.

Cooley notes that interdisciplinary, team-taught courses provide a unique opportunity for students.

“From these different perspectives of history and policy, we will consider how the nation’s food policy developed historically and how public policy continues to influence American diets,” she said.

The course will include seminar and practicum components. Cooley and Holland have posed the question of how government policies have shaped the socio-economic and political realities of north Mississippi. Studies of the intersection of race, class and gender in 20th century Southern history will provide context for understanding historic and contemporary federal policy efforts to ease hunger and poverty.

For the practicum component of the course, students will examine area farmers markets to gauge the effectiveness of current efforts to revitalize the area by making local, fresh, healthy foods accessible to economically-disadvantaged populations.

“The U. S. Department of Agriculture estimates between 30,000 and 50,000 farmers currently sell at farmers markets,” Holland said. “This number represents a growth spurt in farmers markets, which emphasize small and mid-scale farming operations. This course will explore the impacts and policy due to emerging local food economy.”

The course listing is at the graduate level, SST/PPL 598, but advanced undergraduates are encouraged to enroll. UM will offer the course during the first summer term, starting June 1 and ending June 27. Thanks to funding from the Chisolm Foundation, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture and SFA plan to offer more foodways classes in this fall and in the spring of 2013. To enroll in SST/PPL 598, students should visit http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/registrar/csinfo.html

In fall 2011, the SFA received funding from the Chisholm Foundation to fund the post-doctoral position until 2014, guaranteeing more new class options for students.

For more information on the SFA, go to http://southernfoodways.org/.

Filed Under: Center for The Study of Southern Culture, Latest News, Public Policy Leadership, Southern Foodways Alliance

June Course to Bridge Foodways Scholarship and Public Policy, Examining Social Inequality in Mississippi

April 28, 2012 by tbarger

The Southern Foodways Alliance will collaborate with the University of Mississippi Department of Public Policy Leadership (PPL) to offer a June 2012 course entitled “Bringing Food to the People: Food Policy and Social Inequities in Mississippi.” The course will be led by Dr. Jill Cooley, Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor at the SFA, and and Dr. Jody Holland, Visiting Assistant Professor of PPL.

The University of Mississippi is a leader in the development of foodways studies as a scholarly discipline, and the UM Public Policy Leadership program is well-known for producing highly-effective communicators well-versed in policy-making from the local to the global. “With teachers from two complementary departments and a compelling syllabus, the class will, we think, prove a great primer on the interdisciplinary approaches that can be applied to the field,” says John T. Edge, Director of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

Dr. Cooley notes that interdisciplinary, team-taught courses provide a unique opportunity for students—“from these different perspectives of history and policy, we will consider how the nation’s food policy developed historically and how public policy continues to influence American diets.”

The course will include seminar and practicum components. Cooley and Holland have posed the question of how government policies have shaped the socio-economic and political realities of North Mississippi. Studies of the intersection of race, class, and gender in twentieth-century southern history will provide context for understanding historic and contemporary federal policy efforts to ameliorate hunger and poverty.

For the practicum component of the course, students will examine area farmers’ markets to gauge the effectiveness of current efforts to revitalize the area by making local, fresh, healthy foods accessible to economically-disadvantaged populations. Holland notes that “The U. S. Department of Agriculture estimates between 30,000 and 50,000 farmers currently sell at farmers’ markets. This number represents a growth spurt in farmers’ markets, which emphasize small and mid-scale farming operations. This course will explore the impacts and policy due to emerging local food economy.”

The course listing is at the graduate level, SST/PPL 598, but advanced undergraduates are encouraged to enroll. UM will offer the course during the First Summer Term, starting June 1 and ending June 27, with final exams following on June 28-29. Thanks to funding from the Chisolm Foundation, the CSSC and the SFA will offer additional foodways classes in the fall of 2012 and the spring of 2013. To enroll in SST/PPL 598, students should visit the website of the Office of the Registrar for more information.

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