Documenting, studying, and celebrating the diverse food cultures of the changing American South.
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INTERVIEWS
Marliou Awiaka
Ben Barker
Karen Barker
Leah Chase
Norma Jean Darden
John Egerton
Jessica B. Harris
Ronni Lundy
Louis & Marlene Osteen
Marie Rudisill
Dori Sanders
Frank & Pardis Stitt
SFA Founding Members
Ann Abadie
Kaye Adams
Jim Auchmutey
Marilou Awiakta
Ben Barker
Karen Barker
Ella Brennan
Ann Brewer
Karen Cathey
Leah Chase
Al Clayton
Mary Ann Clayton
Shirley Corriher
Norma Jean Darden
Crescent Dragonwagon
Nathalie Dupree
John T. Edge
John Egerton
Lolis Eric Elie
John Folse
Terry Ford
Psyche Williams-Forson
Damon Lee Fowler
Vertamae Grosvenor
Jessica B. Harris
Cynthia Hizer
Portia James
Martha Johnston
Sally Belk King
Sarah Labensky
Edna Lewis
Rudy Lombard
Ronni Lundy
Louis Osteen
Marlene Osteen
Timothy W. Patridge
Paul Prudhomme
Joe Randall
Marie Rudisill
Dori Sanders
Richard Schweid
Ned Shank
Kathy Starr
Frank Stitt
Pardis Stitt
Marion Sullivan
Van Sykes
John Martin Taylor
Toni Tipton-Martin
Jeanne Voltz
Charles Reagan Wilson
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Interviews by SFA Members and Friends.
Project sponsored by Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q.
Louis
& Marlene Osteen
I think a lot of people have dismissed the South as a wasteland and you know, it’s always been rural, it’s always been poor – still poor. It’s still rural. But it’s really significant. I think people are finally understanding that the South has given—I think the South has given this country its best regional food. – Louis Osteen
[Food is] culture. I mean the South, what you ate, where you ate, when you ate all was a reflection of your cultural background of whether you were raised on the farm or raised in the city, whether your family were sharecroppers or cotton pickers or they were, you know, plantation owners or industrialists or textiles. All of these people from all these different cultures within the great Southern culture all had different food habits, different food on the tables. – Marlene Osteen
"Good Lord, the man can cook!” said the late
R.W. Apple Jr., chief correspondent for the New York Times, of
Louis Osteen. His prowess in the kitchen – preserved duck with red
eye gravy, brown oyster stew with benne seeds, whole flounder with sweet
onion jam, toasted corn cake with brandied figs – is of long note.
A native of Anderson, in the upstate of South Carolina, Louis Osteen is
one of the leading champions of Lowcountry cuisine. He and his wife Marlene
first claimed Pawley’s Island as home in 1980. They have lived either
in Charleston or on Pawley’s ever since.
Since 2001, Louis Osteen has been the chef and co-owner of Louis’s
at Pawley’s. Along the way, he’s found time to write a book,
Louis Osteen's Charleston Cuisine: Recipes from a Lowcountry Chef. Thumb
the pages. It reads like a celebration of Lowcountry traditions, of Lowcountry
people, filtered through the lens of a generous and intelligent cook,
fully in the thrall of his native region.
Listen to this 2-minute audio clip of Louis & Marlene Osteen talking about what they think is the quintessential Southern meal. [Windows Media Player required. Go here to download the player for free.] What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
SUBJECT: Louis & Marlene Osteen
DATE: October 10, 2004
LOCATION: University of Mississippi – Oxford, MS
INTERVIEWER: April Grayson, friend of the SFA
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April Grayson: Okay, this is April Grayson, interviewing
Louis and Marlene Osteen, on October 10, 2004 in Oxford, Mississippi,
at the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. And I was wondering if you
could each quickly tell me your name, date of birth, and where you were
born?
Marlene Osteen: Marlene Osteen, May 6, 1948—Boston, Massachusetts.
Louis Osteen: Louis Osteen—William Louis Osteen, September 17, 1941,
and I was born in Anderson, South Carolina.
Can you tell me how you became involved with the Southern Foodways
Alliance?
LO: I can tell you. We got a letter from John Edgerton, saying you should
come do this and we read the letter and it sounded like something we wanted
to do, and we especially believed he would be involved in something worthy,
so we said okay, we’re there and we were there.
MO: Actually, it was a little more detailed than that. There were two
former tries at starting a Southern Foodways Alliance. A woman whose name
escapes me from Big Canoe outside of Atlanta and I had been involved with
those two efforts that had—unfortunately had not succeeded and John
had, as well, and he felt like there was a rightful place for Southern
Foodways Alliance. And he took it under his wing to really find a way
to make that happen.
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Were those organizations American Southern Food Institute and Society
for the Preservation and Revitalization for Southern Food?
LO: Yes.
Having been involved with those, do you have any reflections on why
those two organizations didn’t really succeed and this one has?
MO: To me, the biggest single component was the link with the Center for
Southern Culture and Ole Miss. It gave the organization a number of things.
First of all, great credibility because of the esteem that people hold
the Center in, number one. Secondly, it gave it a place, a locale, a location.
Thirdly, because of John T. Edge and the Center’s willingness to—for
John T. to become the executive administrator it gave it a full-time administrator.
And then last, it had allowed an expanded base for membership, a foundation.
It’s been incredibly important.
LO: It also gave a sense of discipline to a band of people who probably
aren't known for discipline.
Well did either of you have a specific vision for SFA when it first
came about and if so, how has that evolved?
MO: My initial vision was just that it would dispel the myths about Southern
food and the South, in general, that a lot of the nation holds about it
being a backwater place, the food culture not being a serious one, not
being a refined one, etcetera; that was my initial hope for that organization.
I felt like, if they could do that, it would be a wonderful thing. But
I think it’s done that and done far more than that. It’s given
Southern food a position that—in the culinary heritage, I mean I
look at the kind of people who come to these meetings now and they’re
intellectuals and they’re professionals and they’re just food
enthusiasts and people from all over America. And—and what it has
brought together has been of immense—I mean the synergy—
LO: I think one of the things—I think it’s also given—given
the South sort of a little dose of self-confidence that it probably needs.
Being Marlene is from Boston, so you know, she’s from the other
side sometimes, and I’m from South Carolina so while we have pretty
much the same viewpoints, we have different backgrounds, so it’s
pretty interesting. And I think a lot of people have dismissed the South
as a wasteland and you know, it’s always been rural, it’s
always been poor—still poor. It’s—it’s still rural.
But it’s really significant. I think people are trying to—finally
understanding that the South has given—I think the South has given
this country its best regional food, certainly as good or maybe its best
writers and as—all of its original music, which would be Blues and
Jazz and Bluegrass, and it all came from the South. And so I think the
South is pretty important, and it’s more important than most people
understand, and this is going to be one voice of that so the people can—can
know about that.
Are there any projects or topics that you’d like to see SFA pursue
in the future?
LO: Well I think that you know—I think that to me the important
part of this is to record these things that are disappearing and Southern
foodways are disappearing every day. And I think the history and some
visual—you know, some audio—some visual stuff would be real
good, and I think that would be important, as far as I’m concerned.
That would be the direction I think would be most important.
MO: I’d also like to see SFA publish a definitive cookbook with
stories from the voices that are passing or have passed.
So you come from the chef’s perspective and the restaurateur’s
perspective. Do you have any specific things that you’d like to
share from that perspective, as opposed to the food writers or publicists
or academics’ perspectives?
MO: Well I love getting the other people’s perspective. I mean that’s
what’s enlightening for me is that there are people from, you know,
all different trainings and backgrounds and—
LO: It’s just all about communication. It’s good for us to
get together and talk and see how he makes his biscuits and how I make
my biscuits, and so there are things to be gleaned here for me that translate
directly to our business and probably more so to my kitchen part of the
restaurant than Marlene’s dining room part of the restaurant and
others too. Although these things can help you in terms of publicity and
promotion and public relations of things that you do in the restaurant.
So we see it as important professionally, as well as being important socially.
Did you attend the first symposium?
MO: Yes, we did.
Do you have any memories of those or things that you’d like to
share? You were an original board member?
MO: Yes, I was a board member for the first, I guess, three or four years.
And I’ve heard that the Board had some fractious moments, and
you were kind of a bedrock and could you share some—some—?
MO: Well I think that, as the organization of the Board got started, it—we—we
were all—we’re all from very different backgrounds and we
were all in the process of having to define what the organization was
going to become number one and to make that we were faithful to the vision
that everybody had and to legitimize it. And a lot of people had a different
way of coming about those concerns. I think one thing is certain that
everybody took it very seriously, and I feel like if we had some fractious
moments and we had some lively conversations, certainly—that it
was because of that because it was, you know, of a sincerity to make it
a reality—to not fall back into the missteps of the two former organizations.
And I guess maybe because I wasn’t from the South, or maybe just
because I’m the most outspoken, you know, I got to say—to
look at the opposing point of views and say you know, “How can we
come together on this?” But thinking you know, the Board today is
really a terrific Board today in—. They’ve done a great job.
They’ve done an amazing job.
What about the first symposium; do you have some memories from that
event?
MO: Well you know, the interesting thing about the earlier symposiums
seemed to illicit more passion. The discussions were more passionate,
which surprised me, because I remember when John Edgerton—I believe
it was John Edgerton—first proposed that we do a symposium on race
at a board meeting, and we all said, “Oh, that’s a hot subject;
we need to wait several years until we do that,” And so other things
were done in advance of that, and we expected that when that symposium
really occurred—this one today—that it would be pretty inflamed.
And I don’t know whether we’ve all just become too good of
friends or what or you know maybe over five years we’ve just all
come to see it the same way or—but that’s the biggest change
I see, actually, that there’s more harmony. [Laughs]
LO: Well you can also take the other approach and say that there are less
fireworks. And fireworks are okay. I mean, you know, they’ve got
their place and that’s what this thing is—it’s sort
of you know if we’re here to sort of be the collective voice of
Southern Foodways, then there’s needs to be a lot of discussion
about lots of things, and everybody shouldn’t agree on everything,
and everything shouldn’t be that homogenized…I might also
add that Marlene commented to me that she was sorry to leave the Board
because she felt like it was the most meaningful thing she had done in
a long time.
MO: Well yeah. Yeah, I was always very proud of being associated with
it and still am, obviously.
The idea of food as culture is important to the SFA, and so I was wondering
if you have reflections on that both from sort of an intellectual point
of view or a personal—just a personal point of view?
LO: Again, I’m not intellectual, and I don’t know what is
meant by food as culture. What does that mean—food as culture—food
is food? It represents culture, maybe. It represents people, but I don’t
think—I don’t know how food can be culture.
MO: I think it’s culture. I think it’s so—in
the South it’s truly culture. I mean the South—what you ate,
where you ate, when you ate all—all was a reflection of your cultural
background of whether you were raised on the farm or raised in the city,
whether you were raised—your family were sharecroppers or cotton
pickers or they were, you know, plantation owners or industrialists or
textiles—it’s all—all of these people from all these
different cultures within the great Southern culture all had different
food habits, different food on the tables—.
LO: Food is food; it’s part of the culture, but it’s you know—I
don’t think culture and food are the same. I don’t see how
they can be—how food can be a culture; it’s not a culture.
A culture is people. Well I mean, you know, it’s a culture like
I don’t know—like spaghetti is an Italian—it’s
not culture; it’s an Italian food. It reflects, you know, some part
of Italy, depending on what kind of noodle you eat and—but I don’t
think a food is culture—my opinion.
Could you separate that from your experience as a Southerner, I guess.
Quintessential Southern foods—can you separate those from what you—how
you identify yourself or your culture—your community around you
as Southern?
LO: All right; I don’t think food is culture. I think food is food,
and I think food reflects culture.
MO: We do disagree on this, so we’re not going to settle this.
Okay. What about your restaurant? Could you tell me the name of your
restaurant, the menu, the kind of approach that you take?
LO: Our restaurant is called Louis’s at Pauley’s Island and
the Fish Camp Bar and it sort of represents two restaurants—one
is Louis’s and that is—of the two, it is the least—is
the least casual, but they’re both casual. And the Fish Camp Bar
is the most casual, and it’s a bar and it’s an outdoor seating
area and has different menus. The food is pretty much the same both places,
and it’s pretty much all Southern or tends to be all Southern and—and
we tend to use a lot of fish and shellfish because we are in that area
and we’re on the [Atlantic] Coast, and so those things are prevalent
in the market, and they’re prevalent in people’s appetites
or—even people from Ohio. They come down and say, “What’s
the best place to east seafood?” So you know we have it for—so
that’s kind of how that is. Now my wife will tell you the more meaningful
parts of our restaurant.
MO: We do tend to sell and serve a lot of the quintessential Lowcountry
dishes because that’s where we are in the Lowcountry so it’s
something—grits or she-crab soup, Creoles, you know; the fried chicken
on Sunday is a big part of the tradition at our restaurant. It’s
a big Sunday dinner of fried chicken, squash casserole, green beans, and
rice and gravy and it’s become quite the cultural event on Pauley’s
Island for Sunday. Everybody is there after church—the Preachers
and everything; so it’s very local, it’s very regional.
So you have a mixture of local and tourists?
MO: Oh, obviously we have a lot of visitors because we’re on, you
know, the ocean so the summer volume is twice what the winter volume is
but there’s a pretty decent sized year-round population. People
come up from Charleston sometimes for lunch.
If someone approached you and asked you to serve them what you feel
is the quintessential Southern meal, what would you have on the table?
LO: I don’t know, but probably I would have something on the table
that would be something that we serve in the restaurant—but maybe
not. I mean it would—I think there is no quintessential Southern
meal because there is you know, the South is a part of the country, and
the country is a part of the world. Well then there are lots of regions
that make up the South, so it’s going to be—it would be a
different—it would be a different in Mobile than it would be on
Pauley’s Island, although we’re both on the water and—and
have similar climates and that sort of thing—it would just be different.
In Mobile for instance you might—you know they like to put on there
grillades and grits. See we had them today for lunch and they were good;
but it wouldn’t be that in Pawley’s Island, so there is no
quintessential Southern—Southern meal. I think the South is too
broad and complicated for that, I think.
MO: I would agree with Louis; I think there is a quintessential Lowcountry
meal that we could put on the table but I would agree—just years
ago we used to be involved with something called the Salute to Southern
Chefs and the goal in the whole perspective of that was that chefs from
different states came and served their quintessential food, and if you
came there and had those 11 different dishes, I mean they’re vastly
different, but they were all very Southern.
LO: Yeah, the original thought was we were going—it was Marlene’s
idea—we were going to have a chef from every state of the Confederacy.
MO: The original Confederacy.
LO: It was fun. It was an important cultural event. [Laughs]
To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.
