Historically, women's voices were central to food narratives, yet they were marginalized, and what happened at the table, the kitchen, the garden, and the fields was silenced. I'm very interested in how food appears in the historical record and animates our understanding of the South. It provides texture both to the past and to our contemporary experience. My work is not about discovering new voices, but rather it encourages voices that have been silenced to come forward and speak a little louder.
Marcie Cohen FerrisSouthern food derives its strength from many cultures. It's a melding of food cultures from Native Americans, enslaved African-Americans, and Europeans.
Marcie Cohen FerrisThe core cuisine of Southern food is established in the plantation South, within the world of slavery. To understand the plantation table, we must understand the relationship of enslaved people to Africa, to historical trauma, and their central role in food production. Their voice is the most poignant, expressive voice in Southern cuisine.
Marcie Cohen FerrisFood is an important lens onto the civil rights movement. One of the central issues of the movement was the right to eat in places that served the public. This battle led to the lunch counter sit-ins, which became embattled, contested places.
Marcie Cohen FerrisMost Southerners recognize when a story about their own experience feels off-kilter or offensive. But Southerners are also fascinated by the way their region is presented in popular culture. It is exciting to see how filmmakers take great care to present worlds in which race, region, and food are deeply intertwined.
Marcie Cohen FerrisTerroir - the taste of place - was important from the early South of the first Indian, African, and Europeans to the nineteenth-century South. During that time, Southerners ate far more locally and seasonally, from the ground they knew and grew up on. That idea connects back to today. You are a place. And as a Southerner, the food you place in your body speaks of your personal history, and of the broader Southern history.
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