Detailed Sources
Cook, Eat, Write, Read - A selection of books on Southern food and foodways, with recipes:
Biscuits, Spoonbread, and Sweet Potato Pie
Bill Neal
New York: Knopf, 1990
(1st edition - several have been printed since, including a paperback)
334 pages, illustrations, index, bibliographic references
ISBN 039455941X
LC Subjects:
Baking
Confectionary
Cookery, American -- Southern style
LC Class TX763; Dewey Class 641.7/1
Neal addresses Southern baking with a twist. He offers recipes from many of
the South’s cultural traditions, notes their differences from culture
to culture, and attempts to explain the historical reasons behind the differences.
Cornbread Nation 1: the best of Southern food writing
John Egerton, editor, and the Southern Foodways Alliance
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002
260 pages, illustrations, bibliographic references.
ISBN 0807854190
An essential anthology of previously published essays on Southern food, traditions,
people, and places. The first of what has become an annual series. Read available
reviews at
Amazon.com.
Cornbread Nation 2: the United States of barbecue
Lolis Eric Elie, editor, and the Southern Foodways Alliance
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004
283 pages, illustrations.
ISBN 0807855561
The second in this series of anthologies focuses on barbecue. Barbecue in the
South is as intensely local and contentious as football, and the reviews of
this collection give it high marks for addressing both the localism and the
many different styles of barbecue in the South. Read available reviews at
Amazon.com.
Cornbread Nation 3: foods of the mountain South
Ronni Lundy, editor, and the Southern Foodways Alliance
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005
266 pages.
ISBN 0807856568
This volume turns the series' lens on mountain food, primarily from the Appalachians and the Ozarks. Ms. Lundy is a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and, according to Roy Blount, Jr.'s review, "...sets a great table." See detailed descriptions and more reviews at
Amazon.com.
Eating, Drinking, and Visiting in the South: an informal history
Joe Gray Taylor, illustrated by Charles Shaw
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982
184 pages, illustrations, index, bibliographic citations.
ISBN 0807108952; 0807110132 (paperback)
LC Subjects:
Food habits -- Southern States -- History
Drinking customs -- Southern States -- History
Dinners and dining -- Southern States -- History
Southern States -- Social life and customs -- History
This book is commonly held in many library collections; even though it is
old, it should be relatively easy to find. However, one review cited below
is critical of the author’s methods in compiling this “history”,
while another praises the abundant detail on Southern foodways. Researchers
are advised to not rely only on Taylor’s version of the South’s
culinary history, but to always cross-reference any topic with multiple sources.
Reviews of Eating, Drinking, and Visiting in the South:
Journal of American History, V.70 (June 1983), pp.107-108. Reviewed
by Warren Belasco.
Journal of Southern History, V.49 (May 1983), pp.288-289. Reviewed by Dickson
D. Bruce, Jr.
The full text of both reviews is available from JSTOR at http://www.jstor.org
(subscription required for full access).
The Gift of Southern Cooking: recipes and revelations from two great
Southern cooks
Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003
332 pages, illustrations, index.
ISBN 0375400354
LC Subjects:
Cookery, American -- Southern style
LC Class: TX715.2.S68; Dewey Class 641.5973
This book is highly praised as an effective collaboration between two great
Southern cooks and as a collection of wonderful recipes for both traditional
and modern Southern food. Lewis and Peacock educate the reader on the whys
of their recipes and the traditions they serve, not just the hows. Read available
reviews at Amazon.com.
A Gracious Plenty: recipes and recollections from the American South
John T. Edge for the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University
of Mississippi
New York: Putnam, 1999
365 pages, illustrations.
ISBN 1557883882
LC Subjects:
Cookery, American -- Southern style
Food habits -- Southern states
Southern states -- Social life and customs
Edge combines recipes from community cookbooks with stories gathered by the
1935-1942 WPA Federal Writers’ Project. His aim is to offer a view of
Southern food and recent history from the people and communities who cooked
and lived there. Read available reviews at
Amazon.com.
Side Orders: small helpings of Southern cookery & culture
John Egerton, illustrated by Jacelen Deinema Pete
Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers, 1990
209 pages, illustrations, index.
ISBN 1561450057
LC Subjects:
Cookery, American -- Southern style
This is a collection of Egerton’s articles from various newspapers and
magazines. He explores relevant food topics and offers 60 recipes. Read the
Library Journal review at
Amazon.com.
Southern Belly: the ultimate food lover’s companion to the South
John T. Edge; illustrated by Blair Hobbs
Athens, Georgia: Hill Street Press, 2000
270 pages, illustrations, index
ISBN 1892514656
LC Subjects:
Food habits -- Southern states
Southern states -- Social life and customs
Edge seeks out great food in each of the Southern states, but the book is
not just a dining guide. He relates the history and cultural significance
of the foods he writes about, and describes the people who keep alive disappearing
traditions. Explore the book at Amazon.com.
Food as Lens and Mirror - A selection of scholarly works that examine Southern history, literature, and race relations through foodways:
Clabber, Corn Pone, and Cured Hog.
Julie Locher and Donna L. Cox
Alabama Heritage, V.74 (2004), pp.6-13
ISSN 0887-493X
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"Traces the economic, cultural, and culinary history of three staples
of antebellum cooking in Alabama that constitute the core ingredients of modern
Southern cuisine: milk, corn, and pork."
Groaning Tables and “Spit in the Kettles”: food and race in the
nineteenth century South
Mary Titus
Southern Quarterly, V.30, No.2/3 (1992), pp.13-21
ISSN 0038-4496
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"Discusses conflicting representations of antebellum plantation life
from the perspectives of the dining room and the kitchen. Idealized plantation
narratives like Susan Dabney Smedes's Memorials of a Southern Planter
(1887) and Letitia M. Burwell's A Girl's Life in Virginia before the
War (1895) emphasized the "groaning board" of the lavish
formal dinners that confirmed the white family's position in the hierarchical
order of the plantation. Abolitionist writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe focused
on the filthy nature of the kitchens. Slave narratives like Harriet Jacobs's
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl assign bestial qualities
to white slaveowners like Mrs. Flint, who would spit in the kettles to prevent
the slaves from sharing the remains of the meals."
Harriet Jacobs’s Modest Proposals: revising Southern hospitality
Anne Bradford Warner
Southern Quarterly, V.30, No.2/3 (1992), pp.22-28
ISSN 0038-4496
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written
by Herself subverts the traditional perception of Southern hospitality
and recontextualizes the Southern ritual surrounding food within the community
of the African-American slave. The slave is deprived of food and is also fed
upon, sexually by the slave owner and actually by vermin. In the slave community,
on the other hand, the rituals of cooking, serving, and eating become emblems
of health."
Hog Meat and Cornpone: food habits in the ante-bellum South
Sam Hilliard
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, V.113, No.1 (1969), pp.1-13
ISSN 0003-049X
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"Describes in detail the dietary habits in the South from about 1830
to 1860. Pork was the primary meat, although beef, poultry, fish, venison,
and mutton were also used in varying degrees. Corn was another mainstay in
the diet and was employed in several ways: as various cornbreads, roasting
ears, cream style, mush, griddle cakes, and waffles. The most commonly used
other grains were wheat and rice. Vegetable favorites in the Deep South included
sweet potatoes, turnips, and peas. Fruits and melons were also popular both
in season and preserved for winter. Coffee, tea, milk, wine, and whiskey were
the most popular beverages. In addition, there were some luxury foods available,
including ice cream as early as the 1840's in a few areas. The author notes
the persistence of these food preferences in the South both after other sections
were changing their habits and beyond the Civil War into the 20th century.
Based on published sources and secondary materials, as well as a few manuscript
collections; 96 notes."
“Intellectual Repasts”: the changing role of food in Southern literature
Mary Ann Wimsatt
Southern Quarterly, V.30, No.2/3 (1992), pp.63-68
ISSN 0038-4496
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"Traces the way antebellum to postmodern Southern authors have used food
to suggest a broad range of thematic concerns. William Gilmore Simms in The
Golden Christmas employed food to delineate the strict boundaries of class.
Agrarian authors like Andrew Lyttle in the collection I'll Take My Stand
used food to suggest the valued regional traditions like provincialism and
family unity. Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Gail Godwin's A
Mother and Two Daughters connect social liberation, food, and feminism."
The Modernization of Southern Foodways: rural immigration to the urban South
during World War II
Scott Holzer
Food and Foodways [Netherlands], V.6, No.2 (1996), pp.93-107
ISSN 0740-9710
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"The example of Pascagoula, Mississippi, illustrates how defense-related
urbanization in the South during the early 1940's led first to food shortages
and then to the adoption and feminization of supermarket shopping, an increase
in restaurant dining, and some dietary improvement among formerly rural white
Southerners."
“Or Else this were a Savage Spectacle”: eating and troping Southern
culture
Robley Evans
Southern Quarterly, V.30, No.2/3 (1992), pp.141-149
ISSN 0038-4496
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"Southern literary writers like Tennessee Williams as well as cookbook
writers like Ernest Mickler, in his White Trash cookbooks, have
used the trope of eating, with its corollaries of cooking and dining, to undermine
conceptions of identity and value. In Williams's work, the development of
identity through the alignment of eating and sexuality remains figural. With
Mickler, working in a marginal and comedic genre, the creation of community
through tropes goes a step further, breaking down the traditional divisions
between high and low cultures."
Proust’s Mother: food and contemporary Southern women’s fiction
Virginia A. Smith
Southern Quarterly, V.30, No.2/3 (1992), pp.41-53
ISSN 0038-4496
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"In the famous tea and madeleines scene in Swann's Way,
the role of Proust's mother and other women in the preparation and serving
of food is largely ignored. In the works of contemporary Southern writers
like Gail Godwin, Josephine Humphreys, Ellen Gilchrist, and Lee Smith, the
representation of women's complex cultural and regional relation to cooking,
eating, and food is prominent. Seen in images of gorging, purging, and obsessive
serving, women's relation to food is troubling, but a subtext of female value
and power can also be found."
The Utility of Leisure: game as a source of food in the old South
Royce Gordon Shingleton
Mississippi Quarterly, V.25, No.4 (1972), pp.429-445
ISSN 0026-637X
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"Utilizes sporting literature, travel accounts, and other sources to
argue that pork consumption in the antebellum South was not as great as generally
understood; rather, venison and wild fowl contributed much to the southern
diet."
The Very Food We Eat: a speculation on the nature of Southern culture
Margaret Jones Bolsterli
Southern Humanities Review, V.16, No.2 (1982), pp.119-127
ISSN 0038-4186
Abstract from ABC-CLIO:
"Comments on the influence of the black heritage upon Southern culture
as exemplified by the Southern diet."
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Copyright © 2005-2007 Jamene Brooks-Kieffer. Email jbkieffer@gmail.com
Created December 4, 2005. Last updated January 21, 2007.