Table Of ContentThe Larder
THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS 2013
SOUTHERN FOODWAYS ALLIANCE
STUDIES IN CULTURE, PEOPLE, AND PLACE
Th e series explores key themes and tensions in food studies—
including race, class, gender, power, and the environment—
on a macroscale and also through the microstories of men
and women who grow, prepare, and serve food. It presents
a variety of voices, from scholars to journalists to writers of
creative nonfi ction.
series editor
John T. Edge
series advisory board
Brett Anderson | Nieman Fellow, Harvard University;
New Orleans Times-Picayune
Elizabeth Engelhardt | University of Texas at Austin
Psyche Williams-Forson | University of Maryland at College Park
The Larder
Food Studies Methods
from the American South
EDITED BY JOHN T. EDGE, ELIZABETH S. D. ENGELHARDT, AND TED OWNBY
The University of Georgia Press Athens & London
Chapter 3 was fi rst published in Gastronomica 10, no. 4 (2010). Chapter 7 was
fi rst published in Southern Cultures 14, no. 4 (2008). Chapter 5 includes a
modifi ed version of “Food for Th ought: Race, Region, Identity, and Foodways
in the American South,” by Beth A. Latshaw, Southern Cultures 15, no. 4
(Winter 2009): 106–28. Chapter 9 was fi rst published as “Mechanized Southern
Comfort: Touring the Technological South at Krispy Kreme,” in Anthony J.
Stanonis, ed., Dixie Emporium: Tourism, Foodways, and Consumer Culture
in the American South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008). Parts of
chapter 13 are adapted from chapter 2, “‘Who Dat Say Chicken in Dis Crowd’:
Black Men, Visual Imagery, and the Ideology of Fear,” in Building Houses Out
of Chicken Legs: Black Women, Food, and Power by Psyche A. Williams- Forson
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).
© 2013 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
www.ugapress.org
All rights reserved
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Set in Minion Pro by Graphic Composition, Inc., Bogart, GA
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Th e larder : food studies methods from the American South / [edited by]
John T. Edge, Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, Ted Ownby. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Southern foodways alliance studies in culture, people,
and place)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-8203-4554-3 (hardback)
isbn-13: 978-0-8203-4555-0 (paperback)
1. Food habits—Southern States. 2. Food preferences—Southern States.
3. Food—Southern States—Psychological aspects.
4. Southern States—Social life and customs.
I. Edge, John T. II. Engelhardt, Elizabeth Sanders Delwiche, 1969–
III. Ownby, Ted.
gt2853.u5l37 2013
394.1'20975—dc23 2013015150
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data available
ISBNfordigitaledition:978-0-8203-4652-6
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
introduction Redrawing the Grocery: Practices and Methods
for Studying Southern Food Elizabeth Engelhardt 1
PART 1 ▶ COOKBOOKS AND INGREDIENTS 7
chapter 1 “Everybody Seemed Willing to Help”: The Picayune
Creole Cook Book as Battleground, 1900–2008 Rien T. Fertel 10
chapter 2 The Women of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Were
Worried: Transforming Domestic Skills into Saleable Commodities
in Texas Rebecca Sharpless 32
chapter 3 Prospecting for Oil David S. Shields 57
chapter 4 Bodies of the Dead: The Wild in Southern Foodways
Wiley C. Prewitt Jr. 76
PART 2 ▶ PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES 95
chapter 5 The Soul of the South: Race, Food, and Identity in the
American South Beth A. Latshaw 99
chapter 6 Italian New Orleans and the Business of Food in the
Immigrant City: There’s More to the Muff uletta than Meets the Eye
Justin A. Nystrom 128
vi Contents
chapter 7 Mother Corn and the Dixie Pig: Native Food in the
Native South Rayna Green 155
chapter 8 A Salad Bowl City: The Food Geography of Charlotte,
North Carolina Tom Hanchett 166
PART 3 ▶ SPACES AND TECHNOLOGIES 185
chapter 9 Eating Technology at Krispy Kreme
Carolyn de la Peña 188
chapter 10 “America’s Place for Inclusion”: Stories of Food,
Labor, and Equality at the Waffl e House Katie Rawson 216
chapter 11 “The Customer Is Always White”: Food, Race, and
Contested Eating Space in the South Angela Jill Cooley 240
PART 4 ▶ MATERIAL CULTURES 273
chapter 12 The “Stuff ” of Southern Food: Food and Material
Culture in the American South Marcie Cohen Ferris 276
chapter 13 The Dance of Culinary Patriotism: Material
Culture and the Performance of Race with Southern Food
Psyche Williams- Forson 312
chapter 14 “I’m Talkin’ ’Bout the Food I Sells”: African American
Street Vendors and the Sound of Food from Noise to Nostalgia
Jessica B. Harris 333
PART 5 ▶ ON AUTHENTICITY 343
chapter 15 Edgeland Terroir: Authenticity and Invention in
New Southern Foodways Strategy Andrew Warnes 345
chapter 16 Conclusion: Go Forth with Method
Ted Ownby 363
Contributors 371
Index 375
Acknowledgments
This collection emerged from the desire to bring together work in the
emerging academic fi eld of southern foodways. Our fi rst thanks are thus
to the numerous scholars, teachers, and students who have helped that fi eld
develop to a point that it can support and, we hope, benefi t from its fi rst
collection of scholarly essays. For their interest, creativity, research, and pa-
tience, we thank the scholars whose essays are included here. We fi rst imag-
ined that this would be a collection of previously published essays, so we are
grateful both to the authors of the four published essays (and the publica-
tions where they appeared) and to the authors of the essays fi rst published
here. We thank our friends at the University of Georgia Press, beginning
with Erika Stevens, who was the fi rst to show interest in the project, and
also Laura Sutton, Regan Huff , Pat Allen, and John Joerschke. Thanks also
to Lori Rider for her careful and thoughtful copyediting and Valerie Jones
for her help with the index. We thank our colleagues in the Department of
American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and in the Center for
the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Finally, we
thank the people who helped produce the volume itself: Southern Studies
graduate student Madelyn Duff ey, Center for the Study of Southern Culture
staff er LaTonya Pittman, Southern Foodways Alliance assistant director Me-
lissa Hall, and Southern Foodways Alliance editor and project- fi nisher Sara
Camp Arnold.
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The Larder
