The Global South, SFA Symposium/ by Shelley Lance, Blog Editor
“The SFA’s mission is to document, study, and celebrate the diverse food culture of the changing American South…grounded in the notion that food is a lens through which a region and culture… can be embraced and understood.” (From the SFA blog)
When Sean and I decided to attend the 13th Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, and learned that this year’s theme was “The Global South,” we didn’t know what to expect. In fact, we worried that we had missed all the really good topics, and now the SFA was casting about for oddball themes. But this was not the case. The Global South, which one speaker (Valerie Erwin of Geechee Girl Rice Cafe) summed up by saying: “The South is more than a location,” turned out to be a fascinatingly rich and surprisingly deep exploration of the “influences of places and people on Southern culinary culture,” including:
Cuba through a Southern Lens- Little Havana in Miami
Chinese grocers in the Mississippi and Arkansas Deltas
The fate of Vietnamese shrimp fishermen on the Gulf after the spill
The spread of VIet-Cajun restaurants in California
Tamales as poetry, history, and lunch
Cajun, Croatian, and Vietnamese shipping communities in Biloxi
Speakers included food world luminaries like Francis Lam, a senior editor and writer for Saveur and a senior writer for Salon, who speaks as skillfully, entertainingly and lucidly as he writes, and serious academics like James Peacock, professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina who completely pulled us in with his abstract sounding topic of Grounded Globalism. (Many SFA presentations took place in the Lyric Theater, photo top.)
Food writer, cookbook author, and director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, John T. Edge (always called John T, never just John), is the beloved ringmaster of the Symposium.
The SFA Symposium is a unique combination of academics, socializing, dining, and partying. The presentations ranged from scholarly dissertations to poetry readings, music, and art installations. Over three hundred people attended this year, most of them from Southern states, and many of them repeat the experience year after year. Yet, surprisingly, there seems to be no clique-ishness, no insider-outsider. This is possibly the most welcoming group I have ever encountered. Food world luminaries in attendance this year included Paul Kahan of Blackbird, Avec, and Publican, Ted Lee of the Lee Brothers Southern Cookbook, and Ari Weinzweig of Zingerman’s. Also attending, our food writer friends, Leslie Kelly, who seems to know everything about Memphis BBQ, and Brad Parsons, who seems to know everything and everybody in the food world.
The menu for the tamale lunch (small photo above left) we enjoyed on Friday, October 22, which was prepared by Eddie Hernandez, Jon Sanchez, and Yewande Komolafe:
Confit of quail tamales with sweet potato salad
Collard green tamales with cracklins and refried black-eyed peas
Butternut squash bread pudding
(Photo middle right: t-shirts for sale at the SFA: “Make Cornbread Not War” and “Gravy” baseball hats)
RSS Subscribe