“While I felt very much a Southerner as a child, being Jewish gave me an outsider's perspective. People look at region in a variety of ways, and I always paid attention to food. Food rises above other things for me. From a young age, I saw food as a barometer of cultural identity, and I was fascinated by how people defined themselves through their food traditions.” PeopleChildrenAgeAttentionIdentityPerspectiveTraditionVarietyRise AboveSoutherner Author:Marcie Cohen Ferris
“When I'm asked to define "Southern food," I usually turn that question back to my audience and ask them what they think. I hear responses like fried chicken, catfish, barbecue, collard greens, and sweet potatoes. These are excellent examples, because they are historically grounded. You can trace each dish back to the people who brought these food traditions to the South. Today, these foods are central to the core culinary grammar of the American South.” PeopleThinkingTodayAudienceSweetTraditionResponseExcellentCulinarySouthernCatfish Author:Marcie Cohen Ferris
“The study of foodways - the intersection of food and culture - addresses a central issue in the humanities: how we connect the great dramas of history with the lives of ordinary people.” PeopleHumanityCultureStudyDramaOrdinary People Author:Marcie Cohen Ferris
“The core cuisine of Southern food is established in the plantation South, within the world of slavery. To understand the plantation table, we must understand the relationship of enslaved people to Africa, to historical trauma, and their central role in food production. Their voice is the most poignant, expressive voice in Southern cuisine.” PeopleWorldSlaveryHistoricalTraumaSouthernPoignant Author:Marcie Cohen Ferris
“I think about what I eat every day. I try to eat as locally as I can and as healthily as I can. When you prepare a historic recipe that could as easily been eaten in the 1800s as in 2014, it is a powerful act. When you take that food and its associated memory and put it in your body, it becomes part of who you are. While most people do not think about it consciously, there is an honoring of history that happens during that meal.” PeopleThinkingTryingMemoriesPowerfulWho You AreHistoric Author:Marcie Cohen Ferris
“The working poor in the South are often blamed for their reliance on "traditional" Southern food, while in reality, most are eating the same heavily processed, cheap, convenience foods that the majority of working people eat across the United States.” PeopleRealityPoorEatingSouthernReliance Author:Marcie Cohen Ferris