John T. Edge of the Southern Foodways Alliance came to Savannah to talk about his new book that chronicles food and the modern South over the last 60 years. The book is called ‘The Potlikker Papers‘. In case you don’t know, potlikker or pot liquor is the liquid left behind after cooking greens. Anyway, I love learning about Southern food. It has a rich history. I took copious notes on my iPod of the things John talked about during his talk at SCAD’s Alexander Hall. If any of the following interests you, then you should buy the book.
- Edna Lewis
- Black woman Political reckoning
- Boiled peanuts in potlikker
- Joe Randall
- Clinton GA
- 1955 – 2015 covered in the book
- Georgia Gilmore Montgomery Bus Boycotts
- Carpooling
- Jackson, MS
- Restaurants were battlegrounds, lunch counters
- Jack Geiger
- Wholesome Way
- Food is power
- Food is capital
- Fannie Lou Hamer started a food cooperative and a pig bank (meat share)
- Stephen Gaskin hippie
- Monday night class Summertown, Tennessee
- Sorghum and soybean
- Active Southerners
- Russell Sugarman, Mahalia Jackson
- Grits and Fritz
- Edna Lewis Honed the black pastoral
- Clayborne Food editor of the New York Times during the 1970s
- Elizabeth Terry, chef
- Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham
- Nathalie Dupree established a cooking school in the basement of Rich’s department store.
- Glenn Roberts lead the grain movement. Started with corn, then Carolina rice. Heirloom corn from Moonshiners.
- Sean Brock
- Rodney Scott Barbecue in Hemingway, SC.
- Barbecue is American folk food
- Danny Meyer’s opening of Blue Smoke in the early aughts.
- Barbecue, a democratizing answer to white tablecloth restaurants
- Chingo Bling, Houston musician now comedian
