Posted by Ed Levine, July 19, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Or, 'I Believe They're Sinking Down'
Catfish farming, which was one of the few bright spots in the Mississippi Delta economy, is grinding to a halt at an alarming pace, according to the New York Times. It is a victim of the rapid rise in feed costs; corn and soybean prices have tripled in the last two years. Catfish farmers simply cannot afford to buy food for their fish and are draining their ponds.
“It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil.
As for his 55 employees? "Those jobs are gone."
An industry that at one point provided 10,000 jobs in the hard-luck Delta region is now reduced to minnow status.
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Posted by Melissa Hall, March 7, 2008 at 4:45 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!
It's cold today and snowing (or about to snow) here in Mississippi. We don't get snow that often. In fact, if this forecast becomes reality it will be the first real snow Oxford has seen in five or six years. Truth be told, I'd enjoy a little snow, sort of.
The Ole Miss students are heading out of town for spring break. March Madness is upon us. My yard is full of daffodils. The tulip trees have bloomed and the rest of the trees aren't far behind. And, just yesterday I bought my first seed packet. So forgive me if I can't get completely happy about the snow. I'm ready for spring. I'm ready for a garden.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 10, 2007 at 9:38 AM
Though I've had more than my fair share of oysters Mosca and chicken grande at Mosca's, the justifiably famous Creole Italian restaurant just outside New Orleans, I'd never really thought of the American South as having much in the way of an Italian restaurant tradition. But in the last two days I've eaten two terrific and totally different Italian meals in Mississippi that were each in their own way absolutely true to themselves and the towns they are situated in.
L&M's Kitchen and Salumeria is the brainchild of Dan Latham, a native Mississippian and Ole Miss and French Culinary Institute grad who cooked and made salumi at Otto, Babbo, and Pó, Mario Batali's restaurants in New York City's Greenwich Village.
Latham opened L&M in a simple, pretty space on Oxford's historic town square in 2004. The namesake salumi are extraordinary, every bit as good if not better than the fine salumi still being made at Otto or Salumi, Armandino Batali's postage stamp-sized sandwich shop in Seattle. The hot and sweet salamis and the guanciale, cured pork jowl, were all perfectly seasoned, marvelously porky, and had a lovely meat-to-fat ratio. They're all made from local Tamworth pigs raised by a farmer named Stan. The grilled flank steak with charred local chilies and chile oil was very tasty but could have used a better sear and crust. Lafayette County tomatoes served with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and basil pesto were sweet and juicy. For dessert, we ordered the herbed homemade ricotta cheese brushed with local honey spread on toasted bread, an appropriate and truly southern Italian end to a fine meal in the South.
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Posted by Ed Levine, April 16, 2007 at 2:15 PM
This month's Esquire has a willfully ignorant piece by Iraq war veteran, blogger, and writer Colby Buzzell about the Mississippi Delta Tamale Trail.
All the piece does is reinforce the worst kind of racial, regional, and cultural stereotyping that occasionally still goes on when "serious" writers deign to write about things like barbecue and tamales and fried chicken.
Southern Foodways Alliance oral historian Amy Evans of Southern Foodways's Tamale Project had this to say in response to Buzzell's piece:
While it's impossible for this guy to have missed our project online—or anywhere—and unprofessional and unwise to not make the slightest mention of us and our Tamale Trail, the thing that gets me the most is his portrayal of the Delta. This guy obviously did not spend enough time there. The openness, generosity, and warmth that my friends along the Tamale Trail have shown us, our project, and the people who eat their tamales cannot be ignored. What's more, these people are dedicated to making handcrafted food from recipes that are generations old. And they're out there making an honest living. And their tamales are incredible! The tamales, the Delta, and the people are far more complicated—and interesting and smart and wonderful—than this article gives credit.
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