Yankees writing about Southern Food

[timothycdavis]

So let me first say that I do think it's just fine for Yankees (or rather people who don't happen to be from the southeastern U.S.) to write about "Southern" food. On the other hand, as somebody who is from the southeast but doesn't happen to sound like it, I am not infrequently privy to non-southerners' discussions of all things southern as somehow inferior to the remainder of the country. We're traditionally the poorest and least educated area, and these days we get to carry around the additional label of racist. Far from arriving at their subject with "a paucity of pre-conceived notions", non-southerners not infrequently already have an impression of southern food that includes deep-fried everything, overcooked vegetables (with added meat), and the world's sweetest desserts.

These preconceptions are by no means universal, and certainly I'd expect anybody who was interested in writing about food to be able to approach the topic with an open mind. But I've also seen too many people spit out boiled peanuts and complain that their pole beans are overcooked to not be a bit wary about the possibility of southern food be interpreted out of context.

All food is about culture, and southern culture is reviled or relegated to the terminally quaint by many.

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I agree, and to which I'd add: it's also quite often (wrongly, in many cases) thought to be hopelessly authentic. I did a piece on it here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=48040&st=0

Edited to add: whoops! I see you read it already.

Spit out boiled peanuts? Blasphemy!

Edited October 6, 2005 by timothycdavis (log)

[therese]

I agree, and to which I'd add: it's also quite often (wrongly, in many cases) thought to be hopelessly authentic. I did a piece on it here:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=48040&st=0

Edited to add: whoops! I see you read it already.

Spit out boiled peanuts? Blasphemy!

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Ah, so that was you. The link in your link doesn't quite take me back to the original piece, which I recall as being enjoyable enough that I wouldn't mind re-reading it if you would be so kind as to track it down for me.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

So let me first say that I do think it's just fine for Yankees (or rather people who don't happen to be from the southeastern U.S.) to write about "Southern" food.  [snip snip]

All food is about culture, and southern culture is reviled or relegated to the terminally quaint by many.

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I often feel that way when I read about Jewish delis (not a Jew myself, nor a native Northeasterner).

I am curious about one thing, however: a food writing course? Is there some sort of a formula? Is it inherently different from any other kind of writing, say, about sports or cars or cats? Writing courses I can see, but was just wondering about the specialization aspect of it.

timothycdavis, I answered this in a PM to you. To everyone else, you betcha!

[Gifted Gourmet]

Ah, so that was you. The link in your link doesn't quite take me back to the original piece, which I recall as being enjoyable enough that I wouldn't mind re-reading it if you would be so kind as to track it down for me.

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Table Dancing: The Great Emancipator by Timothy C. Davis ... enjoy your reading, therese!

[timothycdavis]

Thanks, GG, but I think the above is the wrong link...it was called "Table Dancing: Southern by the Grits of God" if you're able to search for it or whatnot.

Off to Charleston--will report back!

TCD

[russ parsons]

personally, as an occasional texan, i don't think southerners know anything about bbq either.

[Fresser]

As a Connecticut Yankee in King Varmint's Court, it is my purview to wax whimsical on Southern cuisine.

Now put down that shotgun, Honey--grits taste mighty fine topped with sauteed broccoli. And when offered mullet, I'll certainly try the fish as long as I don't have to wear the haircut. My perspective may amuse or baffle you, but my attitude is: when I travel to a different part o' the world, I eat what they eat. And then I write about it.

Southerners can have an equally curious perspective on Yankee swill--ah, food--upon first encounter. Intrepid oenophiles Bartles & Jaymes once mused that "(B)artles & Jaymes wine coolers go well with most any foods, even these big donuts y'all like to eat here in New York [bartles then held aloft a bagel].

Personally, I always welcome novices into my kitchen and cuisine. Let them consume and expound upon my cooking at will.

[Mayhaw Man]

personally, as an occasional texan, i don't think southerners know anything about bbq either.

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Well, many people in the South consider the other white meat to be BBQ, as well. There is one little niche that even loves goat as the meat of choice (but it's pretty far up North, now that I think about it-this situation could be the result of outside influence).

And if it makes you feel any less like The Lone Ranger-I still don't get cooking a hog to perfect and then chopping it up and pouring vinegar all over it as if you were trying to innoculate it from some evil disease. I am trying to be more accepting of this though. It's a growth process, I suppose.

[rosebud]

personally, as an occasional texan, i don't think southerners know anything about bbq either.

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And if it makes you feel any less like The Lone Ranger-I still don't get cooking a hog to perfect and then chopping it up and pouring vinegar all over it as if you were trying to innoculate it from some evil disease.

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Brooks, I always knew you were a man after my own heart.

[Varmint]

I still don't get cooking a hog to perfect and then chopping it up and pouring vinegar all over it as if you were trying to innoculate it from some evil disease. I am trying to be more accepting of this though. It's a growth process, I suppose.

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If the barbecue ends up tasting like the sauce, whether it's viscous and tomato-based or if it's a thin, pepper-laced vinegar, then I don't get it, either. The sauce should NEVER be the dominant flavor. It should complement the flavor of the meat and smokiness. The vinegar in properly prepared NC barbecue helps cut the richness of all that fat that is cut in during the chopping phase.

[debbiemoose]

As a Southerner and writer, I agree that it's a matter of the writer being willing to be open, absorb and try to understand the food and culture. I've read things about Southern food by Southerners that were cliched and superficial because they didn't dig deep enough. I believe you can have an advantage by being invested in a particular place - living there for a long time, having roots there, knowing some history - but it takes more than that alone.

What makes me cringe is when writers from anywhere don't do the work and just skim the surface, or come in with preconceptions and just look for ways to have those preconceptions reinforced. On my first job at a small NC paper, a guy from Los Angeles showed up to work as a reporter (how he ended up there is a mystery) with a copy of Cash's "Mind of the South" and was convinced he knew everything there was to know about us ignorant yahoos. I'm not sure he learned anything in the short time he was there because he didn't want to.

That having been said, when you start talking about ethnic/cultural matters, the history of conflict and mistrust between minorities and majorities comes into play. Language differences, too.

Can we hear more about this food writing class? I'm doing a talk in a couple of weeks for a J-school assembly about food writing and maybe I could get some info.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Can we hear more about this food writing class? I'm doing a talk in a couple of weeks for a J-school assembly about food writing and maybe I could get some info.

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This has links to the food writing class and the Q & A which followed, Debbie: click here

[FabulousFoodBabe]

Can we hear more about this food writing class? I'm doing a talk in a couple of weeks for a J-school assembly about food writing and maybe I could get some info.

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I replied to Debbiemoose via PM; the class I'm taking is not an eG class. Anyone else want to know about it, I'm happy to share.

[bbq chef]

personally, as an occasional texan, i don't think southerners know anything about bbq either.

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As a Northerner who does BBQ for a living, I think that If we care enough to do it right, we will succeed. Give a little respect for those who respect your culture.

[highchef]

Short answer to the original question....yes, they can write about it.

Long answer. Only if they have some history on what they are eating.

My new nephew, who is jewish, married in St. Gabriel Parish last year to my neice. The New Yorkers were not crazy about the food, catered by Folse, inc. and fueled by a ton of abita beer. all local stuff..

But they wern't carried away by the crawfish boil the day before either...

Point. You have to want to walk the walk. talk the talk. eat what they eat and live a llittle like they do to figure out why they eat the way they do. Otherwise, it's your original taste buds doing the talking, and they don't know what they're talking about. They only have one reference point. you must give them more. You can write about other places, foods etc. when you have that reference point.

[debbiemoose]

Short answer to the original question....yes, they can write about it.

Long answer. Only if they have some history on what they are eating.

My new nephew, who is jewish, married in St. Gabriel Parish last year to my neice. The New Yorkers were not crazy about the food, catered by Folse, inc. and fueled by a ton of abita beer. all local stuff..

But they wern't carried away by the crawfish boil the day before either...

Point. You have to want to walk the walk. talk the talk. eat what they eat and live a llittle like they do to figure out why they eat the way they do. Otherwise, it's your original taste buds doing the talking, and they don't know what they're talking about. They only have one reference point.  you must give them more. You can write about other places, foods etc. when you have that reference point.

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True, true.

Just wondering...are crawfish kosher?

[takomabaker]

I think that Southern food is as regional as the rest of the food in US so it's hard to say who can be an authority on "Southern" cuisine. I am a 7th generation Floridian who had never had real BBQ until I went off to college in Virginia where I gorged myself silly on it for the next four years and then the gorging continued into my first post-graduation habitat in Richmond where I continued to live with my college roommate from North Carolina for whom BBQ was a religion. I know that most people who live in the Richmond area will freak out when I say this because I know that it isn't considered haute BBQ, but I will drive 90 miles on a Tuesday night down I-95 in a damn snow storm for a family pack of Bill's BBQ and a lemon chess pie. GEEZ, it's GOOD, and I'm not going to be ashamed over my love affair with Bill's BBQ!!!

And "Yankee" is subjective as well. For years, after I moved to Richmond, my grandfather greeted me when I visited my hometown with, "So, you still living with those Yankees?" The fact that Richmond was the seat of the Confederacy didn't matter much in my grandfather's geography, where I think anything north of Charleston was classified as "Yankee". He took the "North" in North Carolina literally. I will not repeat what he said when I moved to DC in polite company.

The other day, I got into a conversation with an African American co-worker who was telling me about her experience at Gladys Knight's new soul food restaurant a DC suburb about the difference between soul food and Southern food. We never really figured it out. My co-worker is from Mississippi, so for her it's all one big bowl of collards -- the difference is a non-issue. And considering the fact that much of what we consider Southern cuisine was introduced to our great-great-great grandparents by African immigrants anyway makes me wonder who can really lay claim to it.

So, does it really matter who writes it if it's a good book? I hate to say it, but most Southerners (myself included for most of my life) take the food on which they were weaned for granted. When I was first out on my own and bought my first set of Revereware (yes, that was what I bought when I was 22), the LAST thing I wanted to cook was the stuff I grew up on. How plebeian! How uninteresting! How unsophisticated! I was 22, had a galley kitchen with a new set of cookware and a Silver Palate cookbook. No way was I eating anything chicken fried and smothered in gravy. I didn't gain an appreciation for the foods of my youth until I was in my mid-thirties! Maybe it took some Yankee "discovering" it to garner some appreciation for it.

Geez, I feel a trip to Richmond coming on...

[therese]

Just wondering...are crawfish kosher?

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No, to the intense disappointment of a friend of mine who grew up in bayou Louisiana but converted to Judaism as an adult, in deference to her husband's family (as, truth be told, I don't think he really cared so much). Anyway, they are now what her husband calls "cajun kosher": they don't eat pork, but shrimp and crawfish are okay.

It would be pretty difficult to be Jewish and even remotely observant of dietary laws and still enjoy cajun fare.

[Fresser]

It would be pretty difficult to be Jewish and even remotely observant of dietary laws and still enjoy cajun fare.

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This is true, as shellfish are trayf, or non-kosher.

For a fish to be kosher, it has to have fins and scales. Or, in my vernacular, it has to LOOK like a fish.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

Okay, here's what I'm hearing. It's not a "southern thing, you wouldn't understand." It's a "don't be a condescending jerk, do your research, and don't stereotype!" Pretty much what I expected, but I've loved this thread.

Gee, Southerners aren't all that special, are they?* I'll have to tell Mr. Foodbabe, who still gets crazy over his biscuits. (Says he's never had a bad one in the South, and only a few good ones up here!)

(* Yes, they absolutely ARE! Some of my favorite people and places, etc. etc.)

[BryanZ]

Just read through this whole thread. How fascinating. I agree with FFB's ultimate conclusion that it's not about being necessarily "Southern" or "Yankee" but is actually about respecting one's food culture and traditions.

As a proud northerner and aspiring food writer going to school in the South, this thread hit especially close to home.

[kpurvis]

I have no objections to Southern food writing by the regionally challenged (they get flustered when we call them "the Y word"), as long as it contains no variation on the phrase "in the land of chicken-fried steak and macaroni as a vegetable, who would except to find (fill in the blank with something sophisticated or ethnic)."

Here in MY land of chicken fried steak, etc., I find you can find whatever you expect to find -- and a good deal you don't expect if you'd just open your eyes.

Much as I love my boiled peanuts, I'll lob a bucket of them the next time I read another article about the South in a mainstream food publication that uses that approach.

And I'd make it two buckets for Colman, Jane/Michael and Ruth.

[ludja]

De Tocqueville made quite a name for himself writing about another culture...

Sometimes a sense of distance and a discerning eye from another perspective and set of experiences can be very illuminating, in addition to, but not instead of, voices from within.

[Holly Moore]

I have no objections to Southern food writing by the regionally challenged (they get flustered when we call them "the Y word"), as long as it contains no variation on the phrase "in the land of chicken-fried steak and macaroni as a vegetable, who would except to find (fill in the blank with something sophisticated or ethnic)."

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I agree. I much prefer the alliteration of "the land of grits and gravy."

[cakewalk]

So, does it really matter who writes it if it's a good book?

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There ya go. Perfect.

Will we ever stop fighting the Civil War?