Southern Baking Traditions - Home

INTERVIEWS

Matthew Fuller
Annelle Lindsey
Sandy Pollard
Eula & Alton Stitcher
James & Evelyn Tamplin

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The Center for Public History
Online Baking Exhibit

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*NOTE: A complete set of interviews from the Southern Baking Traditions project is archived in the Southern Foodways Alliance’s oral history collection at the University of Mississippi.

Southern Baking Traditions

Portions of an oral history project conducted by the Center for Public History at the University of West Georgia, with support from the Southern Foodways Alliance

Southern baking is not only a way of survival: it is an expression of love, empathy, and celebration. Food brings families together at mealtime, celebrates the gathering of communities at traditional "dinner on the grounds," consoles friends when a loved one dies, and offers topic for conversation at holidays. It represents the resourcefulness and ties that bind southern families and communities together.

Almost every family boasts its own special baking traditions, from the daily fare of biscuits and cornbread to favorite baked goods made for holidays or other special occasions. Even today, southerners bake cherished recipes and use the prized baking pans that we remember from our childhood. The nourishment of these traditional baked goods, passed down from generation to generation, represents a nourishment of the soul.

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In 2003 the Center for Public History engaged in an oral history project documenting our regional foodways. The Southern Foodways Alliance, in Oxford, Mississippi, approached us with some funding from Crisco and asked if we would like to partner with them to begin an oral history project exploring Southern baking traditions. Dr. Ann McCleary, Director of the Center for Public History, eagerly obliged, and since that time, several graduate and undergraduate students and university faculty in history, anthropology, and gerontology have participated in the project. We have conducted over thirty interviews, created a traveling exhibit, and conducted a number of public programs at our exhibit locations, finely tuned for the special audiences in our community.

— The Center for Public History, University of West Georgia

View the on-line exhibit here.

Use the seach function below to browse the Southern Foodways site for oral history topics, people or places we've featured, or general information about your favorite foods and foodways.

WWW www.southernfoodways.com