The Southern Food Community
Southern food is described as “central to the region’s image, its personality, and its character” by writer John Egerton (Latshaw 107). Southern foodways have been resistant to change and are shared across divisions of age, race, and class. Food takes the center stage at meeting places as a beckoning call for all to come out and converse over home cooked culinary delights. Where there is a feast there will be people to eat it, ideas being exchanged, and growing connections with others sharing in the feast. The result is a sense of commonality and community.
Research on Food Habits
Historically, social events have been racially divided in the south and this leads to the question of whether an identity founded solely upon a food preference can overreach these divides and create a shared, larger, southern community that has a fondness for such things as beans and cornbread. This question was answered as a resounding “yes” supported on research conducted by the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science and the Center for the Study of the American South (CSAS). Based on ten years of research, people who live in the south are far more analogous than not in preference, attached values to food items, and actual eating habits. It is also interesting that the more time one spends in the south the more likely one is to prescribe to these familiar southern food habits. This would seem that the identity is innate to the region. However, the studies offer data that suggests the group identity may be attached to the foodways, not the geographic region, and those who no longer live in the south but still prepare southern foods are more likely than not to still identify themselves as “southern” (Latshaw 107-126).
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Faith is a reason to gather and rejoice. “Southern food has had a dominant presence at southern church picnics and gatherings… it tends to be linked to Protestantism more often than to other groups and religious minorities” (Latshaw 114-115). The local church can serve as the community center and “a repository for a community’s history and people”(Willard 150-151). The church also offers an opportunity to raise money for community projects. Food seems to surround every aspect of church life from the traditional Sunday family dinner, Potlucks (that are very common in Baptist churches before bible study), foot washings, to religious revivals (Willard 148- 179) (Kurlansky 129)
Sunday Family Dinner
It became customary, especially amongst southern African-American congregations, to show appreciation toward the preacher by inviting him to join your family for Sunday Dinner. The expected dish to be served was fried chicken and this association became so entrenched that fried chicken can also be referred to as “the preachers bird” or “gospel chicken” (Inness 182)(Parham 105). In his song “Church”, Lyle Lovett uses humor to exemplify the tradition of Sunday dinner following the church service. He entices the choir to help him sing the praises of food in an attempt to manipulate the preacher into ending his sermon. The preacher does not heed to the hunger pangs of his congregation, but instead, eats a bird to satiate himself so he can keep preaching.
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A Revival Menu
recoded by T.S. Ferree, North Carolina Office
The main dish were freshly killed and cleaned chickens that were prepared by dredging the pieces in a flour mixture that had been seasoned with salt and pepper. The chiken pieces were then fried in lard until golden brown.
Sweet potato biscuits made from mashing boiled and peeled sweet potatoes with flour and shortening cut in. Buttermilk was added before a final mixing and the biscuits were dropped by the spoonfull onto a baking sheet and cooked until golden brown.
The desert was a coconut pie which is simply the basic pie filling of butter, sugar, corn starch, and eggs mixed with coconut and baked in a pie shell.
Relishes of all kinds were also served: Pears, beets, cucumbers, and even peach relish. (Willard 170)
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Footwashings
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