SOUL FOOD

Legacies & Lunch set meets to devour The Edible South

"Not infrequently, Southern food now unlocks the rusty gates of race and class, age and sex. On such occasions, a place at the table is like a ringside seat at the historical and ongoing drama of life in the region."

The words of the late Nashville, Tenn., author John Egerton -- found in the introduction of his 1987 book Southern Food: At Home, on the Road, in History -- were recalled by Blytheville native Marcie Cohen Ferris in her discussion of Southern foodways Aug. 5 at the Ron Robinson Theater in Little Rock. The presentation was part of Legacies & Lunch, the Butler Center's monthly lecture series, conducted in partnership with the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

Ferris is author of The Edible South: The Power of Food and the Making of an American Region, which "examines the visceral connection between Southern food and the politics of power from the Colonial period to the present." Via slide presentation, she wove a narrative that included many obvious and not so obvious shapers of the region's food landscape -- foods introduced by American Indians, European explorers and African slaves; outsiders' examinations of Southern dinners; the first known cookbook by a black author (A Domestic Cook Book by Malinda Russell, 1866); the poor Southern person's "Three-M" diet of meat, meal and molasses; the segregated Woolworth lunch counters during the civil rights movement; Fannie Lou Hamer and the "pig bank" she established to loan pigs to empower poor families in Mississippi; and author Crescent Dragonwagon and the Nouveau "Zarks" Cuisine she brought to Northwest Arkansas.

After the lecture, attendees bought copies of Ferris' book, which she signed.

High Profile on 08/16/2015

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