Cornbread Nation 5: The Best of Southern Food Writing

ISBN 10: 082033507X / ISBN 13: 9780820335070

Published by University of Georgia Press, 2010

About this Item

pp. xii + 314 Illus.

Seller Inventory # 7960326

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cornbread Nation 5: The Best of Southern Food Writing
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 082033507X
• ISBN 13: 9780820335070
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The fifth volume in this popular series from the Southern Foodways Alliance spans the food cultures of the South. Cornbread Nation 5, lovingly edited by accomplished food writer Fred W. Sauceman, celebrates food and the ways in which it forges unexpected relationships between people and places. In this collection of more than seventy essays and poems, we read about the food that provides nourishment as well as a sense of community and shared history. Essays examine Nashville’s obsession with hot chicken and the South’s passion for congealed foods. There are stories of green tomatoes frying over a campfire in the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee and tea cakes baking for Easter in Louisiana. In a chapter on immigrant cooking, writers visit the Mississippi Delta where a Chinese family fries pork rinds in a wok and a Lebanese restaurant serves baklava alongside coconut cream pie. Alan Deutschman, a self-described “Jewish Yankee,” chronicles his search for the perfect country ham. Barbara Kingsolver extols on the joys of eating sustainably. Sara Roahen writes a veritable love letter to the venerable New Orleans Sazerac. Kevin Young delights with his “Ode to Chicken,” and Donna Tartt treats us to what else but bourbon. Cornbread Nation 5 is a feast for the eyes, and if you’re not hungry or thirsty when you pick up this book, you will be when you put it down. Published in association with the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. A Friends Fund Publication.

About the Authors

FRED W. SAUCEMAN is an associate professor of Appalachian studies at East Tennessee State University. He is the author of four books including the three-volume series The Place Setting, which explores Appalachian foodways. He directed and produced the documentary A Red Hot Dog Digest. Sauceman’s Food with Fred appears monthly on WJHL-TV, the CBS affiliate in Johnson City, Tennessee.

MARILYN KALLETT has published sixteen books, including six volumes of poetry, translations, critical essays, children’s books, pedagogy, and anthologies of women’s literature. She is a professor emerita of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

JOHN SHELTON REED is founding coeditor of the journal Southern Cultures. He is the Mark W. Clark Visiting Professor History at the Citadel, and William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is coauthor, with Dale Volberg Reed, of 1001 Things Everyone Should Know about the South.

RHETA GRIMSLEY JOHNSON has covered the South for over three decades as a newspaper reporter and columnist. She writes about ordinary but fascinating people, mining for universal meaning in individual stories. In past reporting for United Press International, The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and a number of other regional newspapers, Johnson has won national awards. They include the Ernie Pyle Memorial Award for human interest reporting (1983), the Headliner Award for commentary (1985), the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Distinguished Writing Award for commentary (1982). In 1986 she was inducted into the Scripps Howard Newspapers Editorial Hall of Fame. In 1991 Johnson was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Syndicated today by King Features of New York, Johnson’s column appears in about 50 papers nationwide. She is the author of several books, including America’s Faces (1987) and Good Grief: The Story of Charles M. Schulz (1989). In 2000 she wrote the text for a book of photographs entitled Georgia. A native of Colquitt, Georgia, Johnson grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, studied journalism at Auburn University and has lived and worked in the South all of her career. In December 2010, Johnson married retired Auburn University history professor Hines Hall.

ROY BLOUNT JR.'s works include the memoir Be Sweet: A Conditional Love Story, the novel First Hubby, the screenplay for Larger than Life, the edited anthology Roy Blount's Book of Southern Humor, and such collections as Now, Where Were We? and Not Exactly What I Had in Mind. He is a frequent guest on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" and a columnist for the Oxford American. He lives in New York City and western Massachusetts.