{"id":32802,"date":"2019-11-11T10:28:12","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T15:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=32802"},"modified":"2024-07-02T17:13:07","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:13:07","slug":"story-of-southern-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=32802","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Southern Food with Elizabeth Engelhardt and Rebecca Darwin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlike the cuisines from our country\u2019s other three corners, southern food has an identity and culture unto itself. Bound less by ingredients and recipes, and more by people and their stories, southern food embodies the lived experiences of the region\u2019s people, both past and present. <\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

We asked southern food experts to help us pin down what defines southern food today, and their responses shed light on the important role food has in the humanities.<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\n
\"Elizabeth
Elizabeth Engelhardt, Interim Senior Associate Dean for Fine Arts and Humanities (photo by Marcie Cohen Ferris)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cFood is a lens to society. It shows how power works, how structures are formed, and where change is possible,\u201d said Elizabeth Engelhardt,<\/a> Interim Senior Associate Dean for Fine Arts and Humanities in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n

Engelhardt, who is a John Shelton Reed Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies and a scholar of food studies, has an understanding of southern food that surpasses that of most others. She says that the stories people tell while cooking, eating and sharing southern food are just as important as the ingredients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all eat, so if we really listen to each other about what we eat, who grows it, who cooks, who shops, how we use food in moments both portentous and quotidian, and all the rest of the ways we invest meaning in food, then we learn about ourselves and our neighbors,\u201d said Engelhardt.<\/p>\n

By looking closely at southern food today and its origins, we gain a uniquely honest perspective of our region\u2019s history. At the foundation of many favorite southern dishes are foodways innovated during some of the South\u2019s most challenging times. Too often, celebrations of southern food have erased the names, stories, and struggles of nonwhite southerners. <\/span>To appreciate southern food today is to appreciate the culinary legacies that these peoples created.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot have southern food without Native American foodways\u2014corn, beans, squash, but more importantly, the knowledge for how to grow, prepare, and serve each. You also cannot have southern food without African foodways\u2014again, both ingredients, like okra, and practices developed by highly skilled farmers and cooks,\u201d said Engelhardt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While southern food may seem to have resurged in popularity in recent years, the cuisine most certainly has a permanent seat within our country\u2019s popular culture. Rebecca Darwin<\/a>, IAH Advisory Board Member and CEO of Garden & Gun <\/em>magazine, says that the publication focuses in large part on southern food because it\u2019s the richest source of stories with universal appeal.<\/p>\n

\"Rebecca<\/a>
Above: Rebecca Darwin, CEO of Garden & Gun Magazine. Below: \u201cThe Southern Food Issue\u201d published by Garden & Gun in October 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The magazine Darwin cofounded and created celebrates all aspects of southern culture, which she says must include the music, culture, sporting life, and of course, the food. Garden & Gun<\/em> showcases southern cuisine because that is what their readership demands. In 2018, the magazine collected its first digital slideshow of \u201cForgotten Southern Recipes,\u201d<\/a> which presented 50 history- and context-rich foods like South Carolina Chicken Bog and Kentucky Beer Cheese in one place. The slideshow has become the magazine\u2019s most engaging piece of content with more than 2.7 million unique page views. Garden & Gun<\/em> also published The<\/em> Southerner\u2019s Cookbook<\/em><\/a>, which became a New York Times bestseller in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just journalists, but also readers, who want to go much deeper on the history and context of their food. We know we love okra; now, we want to know more about why and where it comes from,\u201d said Darwin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Like Engelhardt, Darwin thinks that understanding the food we eat gives context to our identity as southerners, an identity which, today, is undergoing rapid evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more room at the table than ever for people who weren\u2019t always welcome or well-represented before,\u201d said Darwin, pointing to the multicultural roster of recipients of the prestigious James Beard Foundation Awards, which has become more recognizant of African-American influences on cooking. Darwin and the writers at Garden & Gun<\/em> have documented the growing impact of other cultures on southern food, seeing dishes like New Orleans\u2019 Vietnamese-crawfish, Korean-southern fried chicken, or the rise of French-southern fusions, welcoming a multicultural era of southern cuisine.<\/p>\n

Engelhardt believes that our fascination with southern food histories is in part because of the ever-changing nature of the cuisine, a reflection of the diversity of human experiences involved in its creation over time.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\u201cSouthern food has always contained regional flavors and practices that change over time, even as we persist in the belief that a thing called \u2018southern food\u2019 exists,\u201d said Engelhardt. \u201cThat shouldn\u2019t make us nervous; instead, the spaces make us talk more and care more and create our own southern food over and over.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Post by Sophia Ramos, Institute for the Arts & Humanities<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Engelhardt and Rebecca Darwin discuss what defines southern food today and the important role food has in the humanities. 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