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Welcome to the Southern Foodways Alliance -- an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture with headquarters at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi. The Southern Foodways Alliance documents and celebrates the diverse food cultures of the American South. We set a common table where black and white, rich and poor -- all who gather-- may consider our history and our future in a spirit of reconciliation. |
Southern Foodways Symposium 2002: The fifth annual Southern Foodways Symposium will be held October 17-20, on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford. This year we explore the people, places, and traditions that inform our regional obsession with barbecue. As with previous symposia, this event provides opportunities for cooks, chefs, food writers, and inquisitive eaters alike to come to a better understanding of Southern cuisine and Southern culture. Lectures, held in Barnard Observatory, the restored antebellum headquarters of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, are complemented by informal lunches and dinners served in and around Oxford and on the Ole Miss campus. On Thursday prior to the official opening of the symposium, librarians from the Department of Special Collections will stage an exhibit and conduct a workshop on utilizing archival materials for foodways research. The workshop will be free of charge to the first twenty registrants. Later that afternoon, you are encouraged to tour the University Museums exhibition Two Women and Their Cookbooks: Lena Richard and Mary Land. That night, we gather for our first meal of the symposium: an Aberrant Barbecue Supper hosted by Amy Crockett of Ajax Diner and featuring barbecue shrimp, Cornish game hen, and deep-fried barbecue spare ribs. For 2002, we expand our evening programming. On Thursday night we screen the feature documentary A Day in the Life of Barbecue and the endearing short film Hush, Hoggies, Hush, while on Friday night roots rocker Kevin Gordon takes the stage at Taylor Grocery. Saturday night reaches its zenith when nonagenarian Otha Turner and the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band of Gravel Springs, Mississippi, snake their way through the crowd, playing tunes made famous at Turner’s semiannual goat barbecue. Other evening events include author readings, wine tastings, and a catfish dinner with appetizers from chefs Anne Cashion of Cashion’s Eat Place in Washington, D.C., Susan Goss of Zinfandel in Chicago, Illinois, and Ken Smith of Upperline in New Orleans, Louisiana. Featured foods include “battling barbecue sandwiches,” an intrastate rivalry with pitmasters J. C. Hardaway of Memphis and Devin Pickard of Centerville, Tennessee. On Saturday afternoon, chef Ben Barker of Magnolia Grill in Durham, North Carolina, throws down the gustatory gauntlet and serves Tender as a Mother’s Love Pork Cheeks in BBQ Jus with Brunswick Stew Salad. Saturday night, pitmasters from across the South take center stage when we feast on whole hog, pork shoulder, pork ribs, and barbecue chicken. Festivities close on Sunday with a Pie Breakfast, hosted by City Grocery chef John Currence and featuring pastry chef Karen Barker of Magnolia Grill. Self-styled hungry boy, Calvin Trillin, follows. Host for the event is the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. Contributors to our efforts include Ajax Diner, Biltmore Estate Wine Company, Bottletree Bakery, City Grocery, Glory Foods, Lynn’s Paradise Café, the National Pork Board, Shuckman’s Smoked Fish, Sunburst Trout, and the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council (with partial funding through the Mississippi Arts Commission). Primary sponsors of the Southern Foodways Symposium are The Catfish Institute, Viking Range, and White Lily.
Jim Auchmutey has been a reporter and editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 1980. He has coauthored two cookbooks, one of them about barbecue sauce. Ben Barker met his wife, Karen, on the first day of classes at the Culinary Institute of America. He is chef and co-owner of Magnolia Grill in Durham, North Carolina, and coauthor of the cookbook Not Afraid of Flavor. Karen Barker is the pastry chef and coowner of Magnolia Grill in Durham, North Carolina. A native of Brooklyn, New York, now happily ensconced in the South, she is coauthor of the cookbook Not Afraid of Flavor. Ella Brennan, of Commander’s Palace in New Orleans, is the matriarch of one of America’s most storied and respected restaurant families. Anne Cashion, a native of Jackson, Mississippi, is the owner of two Washington, D.C., restaurants: Johnny’s Half Shell and Cashion’s Eat Place. Amy Crockett of Coldwater, Mississippi, was the sous chef at City Grocery in Oxford for five years before coming on board as the chef at Ajax Diner. John Currence got his start at Bill Neal’s restaurant, Crook’s Corner, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He is the chef-owner of City Grocery in Oxford. Ardie Davis aka Remus Powers PhB is
founder and official taste master of the American Royal International
Sauce, Rub, and Baste Contest. He lives in Roeland Park, Kansas. Lynn Hewlett, a native of Taylor, Mississippi,
is a champion barbecue Jack Hitt, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, is a frequent contributor to GQ, Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, and the radio show, This American Life. Elizabeth Karmel, a native of North Carolina now living in Chicago, Illinois, is proprietor of Karmel Culinary Consultants and host of girlsatthegrill.com. Leigh McWhite is a Library Specialist at the University of Mississippi’s J. D. Williams Library Ray Oldenburg, professor emeritus at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, is author of The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. Rick Osswald, a veteran of 20 years with Ford Motor Company, is the Jackson, Mississippi, franchisee for Red, Hot, and Blue, a 40-unit barbecue restaurant chain based in Arlington, Virginia. John Shelton Reed is professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has composed or edited more than a dozen books, including 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the South, written with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed. Ken Smith, a native of Natchitoches, Louisiana, is the executive chef at Upperline in New Orleans where he has won wide praise for dishes like duck and andouille etoufée with corn cakes and pepper jelly. Vince Staten is the author of, among other books, Real Barbecue (coauthored with Vince Staten). He is coowner of Vince Staten’s Old Time Barbecue in Prospect, Kentucky. Calvin Trillin, a native of Kansas City, has contributed reportage to the New Yorker for nearly forty years. His three books on eating American Fried, Alice, Let’s Eat, and Third Helpings were compiled in 1994 as The Tummy Trilogy. His latest work is a novel, Tepper Isn’t Going Out. Otha Turner of Gravel Springs, Mississippi, is a nonagenarian musician, famous for his stewardship of the fife and drum sound of the Mississippi Hill Country. Among his credits are the recordings Everybody Hollerin’ Goat and From Senegal to Senatobia. Frank Vernon, proprietor of the Bar-B-Que Shop in Memphis, Tennessee, carries on the legacy of the late Brady Vinson, pitmaster of the much-lamented Brady and Lil’s. Robb Walsh is the restaurant critic of the Houston Press and author of, among other books, the Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses. Carolyn Wells, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, is executive director of the Kansas City Barbeque Society. The society now claims more than 2,500 members in the United States and nine other countries. James Willis of Memphis, Tennessee, has been tending the pits at Leonard’s Barbecue the purported originator of the Memphis style sandwich since 1938. You can still catch him in the pits on Thursday mornings. Charles Reagan Wilson is director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture. His most recent book is Judgment and Grace in Dixie: Southern Faiths from Faulkner to Elvis. Jake Adam York, a native of Alabama, is
director of creative writing at the University of Colorado-Denver. His
poems have appeared in the Southern Review, and he is a THURSDAY Foodways Research Workshop Two Women and Their Cookbooks:
Lena Richard and Mary Land Thacker Mountain Radio Show Aberrant Barbecue Supper Film Fest FRIDAY Welcome and Introduction of Glory Foods’ Bill
Williams Scholarship Winners Barbecue Benediction Barbecue Geography: A Taste of Place Dueling Sandwiches in The Grove North Carolina Barbecue: Flavored
by Time Cotton Pickers in the Meat Market:
The Origins of the Texas Barbecue Business “We Didn’t Know From Fatback:”
A Southern Jewish Perspective on Barbecue Lifetime Achievement Award presentation
Cornbread Nation Debut Party
The Catfish Institute Dinner Down to the Well SATURDAY Barbecue Benediction Barbecue Sociology: The Meat of the Matter The Politics of Barbecue (Or
Why Newt Gingrich Dug Up His Front Yard) A Confederacy of Sauces: Race
Relations and the Bessinger Brothers of South Carolina Viking Range Luncheon Barbecue in a New Context: A Panel Discussion Can Barbecue Save America? Keeper of the Flame Award Presentation
Barbecue Showdown Everybody Hollerin’ Goat SUNDAY White Lily Pie Breakfast at City Grocery Reflections of a Hungry Boy
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Jimmy Hagood of Charleston, South Carolina, is proprietor of BlackJack Barbecue. He won the grand prize at the 2002 South Carolina State Barbecue Championship. J. C. Hardaway, who was awarded the 2000 SFA Keeper of the Flame Award, has been working the pits for more than 50 years. He now crafts his sandwiches at the Big S Grill in Memphis, Tennessee. Don McLemore of Big Bob Gibson’s Barbecue in Decatur,
Alabama, is past grand-champion of the Memphis in May World Championship
Barbecue Contest. He is the reigning patriarch of a Ed Mitchell tends a sand-banked pit in Wilson, North Carolina. At Mitchell’s Barbecue, he and his extended family cook whole hogs over hickory coals. Devin Pickard of Papa KayJoe’s in Centerville, Tennessee, cooks pork butts over hickory and serves his sandwiches on lard-fried hoecakes. Raymond Robinson, Jr. reigning master of the smoked Cornish game hen carries on the work of his father, the late Raymond Robinson, founder of Cozy Corner in Memphis, Tennessee. Bart Wood of Little Dooey’s in Columbus, Mississippi, has won regional acclaim for his deep-fried riffs on traditional barbecue. |
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