SOUTHERN
LEGENDS
FOOD
BY JOHN T. EDGE PHOTOGRAPHS BY ROBBIE CAPONETTO
SOUTHERNLIVING.COM / JULY 20 19
64
ver two decades of work,
my colleagues at the Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) and I have learned
many lessons about this region we call home. The 20 people profiled here,
among hundreds of others, have been our teachers. We have documented
their lives in short films, recorded and archived their oral history interviews,
drawn inspiration from their writing, and followed their leads on social and
environmental justice. We have listened to their voices and heard their calls.
SFA is a storytelling organization based at the University of Mississippi. Estab-
lished in 1999 at a meeting of 50 founders on the Southern Living campus in
Birmingham, we document, study, and explore the diverse food cultures of the
changing American South. From the beginning, SFA has focused on farmers, cooks,
waiters, and other working folk who’d previously received too little recognition for
their knowledge and labor and vision. We have prioritized sharing the contributions
of people of color, who were long denied their legacy.
We tell new stories from an old place. We frame the South as a dynamic
region. We regard farmers and cooks as agitators for progress and cultivators of
change who spur the region to own up to its promise. Collectively, these stories
of lives in service to the region show and tell how everyday folk have bridged
divides of race and class and gender, rejiggered definitions of Southern culture,
and charted a path forward for us all.