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Southern Foodways: The State of Southern Food

Posted by Melissa Hall, November 2, 2007 at 2:30 PM

Southern Foodways appears on Fridays as part of our collaboration with the Southern Foodways Alliance, an organization based in Oxford, Mississippi, that "documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South." Dig in!

There was no talk of Southern food on these pages last week Friday. Mostly because we were all hunkered down here in Oxford, Mississippi, ruminating on the state of Southern food at the tenth annual Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium.

We pondered where we’ve been and where we are going. We thought critically about the SFA’s role in documenting and celebrating the diverse food cultures of the American South. We paid homage to the subjects of our oral history initiative. Some of whom you’ve met on these pages. We repaid debts of pleasure earned over generations.

And, in this, the Year of the Pig, we saluted all things swine. Whole-hog barbecue, boudin, gratons, bacon, pig ears, pig cheeks, pig pâté.... Get the pig-ture? Well, we did. We rounded out our crazy pork obsession with a little sugar—peanut cotton candy, peanut marshmallows, sweet potato crème caramel, and coconut cake. We washed all that down with sweet tea and charcoal-filtered spirits.

But, the symposium isn’t just about filling a plate. It’s also about filling your mind. So food writers and food scholars offered up a full buffet of topics to satiate the intellectually curious. From savage barbecue to the stamp of the USDA, no topic was left unexplored. If you’d like to learn more about the SFA and hear lectures from the symposium, subscribe to our SFA Symposium podcast feed.

1 Comment | Tags: podcasts, SFA column, Southern Foodways Alliance, Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium