Southern food

The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South by John T. Edge.

Race, Class And Paying Down Southern Food's Great 'Debt Of Pleasure'

12:48pm June 11, 2017

In his book, The Potlikker Papers, John T. Edge tells the story of modern Southern history through food — which means "explicitly digging into issues of race, class, gender, ethnicity," he says.

A Lost Rice Variety — And The Story Of The Freed 'Merikins' Who Kept It Alive

4:00pm May 10, 2017

by Jill Neimark

The rice traveled from Africa to the Southeast, where it was a link to home for enslaved Africans. Then it nearly vanished — and with it, a heritage tying African, Southern and West Indian foodways.

Vishwesh Bhatt is the executive chef of Snackbar, a restaurant in Oxford, Miss. And he's winning acclaim as one of the region's best chefs for Indian-inflected Southern fare that reflects a changing South.

Mississippi Masala: How A Native Of India Became A Southern Cooking Star

12:39pm January 28, 2017

by Maria Godoy

Food has always been a big part of Southern identity. These days, one of the region's best chefs is Vish Bhatt, a man born 9,000 miles away. And his Indian-inflected cuisine reflects a changing South.

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African runner peanuts were once a defining flavor of the South, memorialized in songs, peanut fritters, peanut soup and in Charleston's signature candy, the peanut-and-molasses groundnut cake. But by the 1930s the nuts had all but disappeared.

The Lost Ancestral Peanut Of The South Is Revived

3:59pm December 29, 2016

by Jill Neimark

Brought to America by enslaved West Africans, the Carolina African runner was a defining taste of the antebellum South. Now, from just 40 remaining seeds, it's come back from the brink of extinction.

Duck, Andouille and Crawfish Gumbo, with Carolina rice and green onion, which is served in the Creole Coast section of the cafe.

African-American Museum Cafe Serves Up Black History With Every Forkful

8:48am October 16, 2016

by Wilma Consul

The restaurant inside the new National Museum of African American History and Culture offers a menu designed to showcase the breadth of black contributions to our nation's cuisine.

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Phila Hach (standing, center) and her husband, Adolf Hach, are seen here with Minnie Pearl (right) of Grand Ole Opry fame, and an unidentified woman. "What the Grand Ole Opry did for country music, she has done for Southern food," one food writer wrote ab

Phila Hach, Who Spread The Gospel Of Southern Cuisine, Dies At 89

7:44pm December 04, 2015

by Debbie Elliott

"What the Grand Ole Opry did for country music, she has done for Southern food," one writer says of Hach, host of the South's first TV cooking show and a cookbook author and caterer for world leaders.

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Waiter carriers pass food to passengers on a train stopping in Gordonsville, Va., in this undated photo. After the Civil War, local African-American women found a route to financial freedom by selling their famous fried chicken and other home-made goods

Arts

'The Fried Chicken Capital': Where Racial Progress Began Along The Rails

12:01pm July 13, 2015

by Maria Godoy

Fried chicken is a racially fraught food. But for African-American women in Gordonsville, Va., the dish became a route to financial independence after the Civil War.

Arts

Slavery, Famine And The Politics Of Pie: What Civil War Recipes Reveal

7:02am June 03, 2015

by Nina Martyris

From recipes for apple pie without apples to advice on how to treat servants, the era's cookbooks hint at the turbulence outside the kitchen window. Indeed, food helped decide the war's outcome.

The salty suspects: Some 70 percent of the cheeses, soups, cold cuts and pizzas we buy at the grocery store exceed the Food and Drug Administration's "healthy" labeling standards for salt. Since we eat so much bread, it is — perhaps surprisingly — the

Sodium Sleuths: Do Southerners Eat More Salt Than The Rest Of Us?

5:02pm April 02, 2015

by Allison Aubrey

Hypertension, which is tied to sodium intake, is more prevalent in the South. Researchers had a hunch that Southerners eat more salty, packaged foods, so they went gumshoeing.

Eat, Drink And Be Scholarly: The Southern Food and Beverage Museum's new, permanent home in New Orleans is designed to help answer many questions — including "How does it taste?"

A New Museum To Celebrate Southern Food (And You Can Eat The Exhibits)

6:59pm October 08, 2014

by Eve Troeh

The Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans is re-imagining what a museum can be. There's plenty of scholarship, but also taste-testing — and a mission to help budding food entrepreneurs.