In studying food, you embrace everything. Food exposes the long, complex history of the South - slavery, Jim Crow segregation, class struggle, extreme hunger, sexism, and disenfranchisement. These issues are revealed through food encounters, and they contrast this with the pleasure and the inventiveness of Southern cuisine. Food is always at the heart of daily life in the South.
Marcie Cohen FerrisSouthern food that appears in contemporary popular culture is so exaggerated that it's hardly recognizable to most Southerners. This enriching of Southern food - fatter, richer, more over the top - is what we typically see on TV, in Hollywood films, and in Southern-style or country-themed chains like Cracker Barrel. Southern food becomes a caricature, like characters and props in a reality TV show.
Marcie Cohen FerrisThe study of foodways - the intersection of food and culture - addresses a central issue in the humanities: how we connect the great dramas of history with the lives of ordinary people.
Marcie Cohen FerrisIf there was ever a food that had politics behind it, it is soul food. Soul food became a symbol of the black power movement in the late 1960s. Chef Marcus Samuelsson, with his soul food restaurant Red Rooster in Harlem, is very clear about what soul food represents. It is a food of memory, a food of labor.
Marcie Cohen FerrisThe working poor in the South are often blamed for their reliance on "traditional" Southern food, while in reality, most are eating the same heavily processed, cheap, convenience foods that the majority of working people eat across the United States.
Marcie Cohen FerrisWhen I'm asked to define "Southern food," I usually turn that question back to my audience and ask them what they think. I hear responses like fried chicken, catfish, barbecue, collard greens, and sweet potatoes. These are excellent examples, because they are historically grounded. You can trace each dish back to the people who brought these food traditions to the South. Today, these foods are central to the core culinary grammar of the American South.
Marcie Cohen Ferris