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SFA Past Events
2009 – Food & Music
Music and Food: Exploring Independent Cultural Expressions
October 30-November 1, 2009
The twelfth Southern Foodways Symposium was held October 30—November 1, 2009, in and around the town of Oxford and on the campus of the University of Mississippi. The Delta Divertissement, now in its seventh year, was October 29—30 in nearby Greenwood and Indianola. Both events explored music and food as intertwined evocations of Southern peoples and places.
Over the course of four days of lectures and performances, as well as breakfasts, dinners, and suppers, we unlocked the key to what Memphis Minnie really meant when she sang, “I’m selling my pork chops/But I’m giving my gravy away.” New Orleans got its due, by way of red beans and rice and jazz. So did Texas blues. And Tennessee country. And hip hop from the ATL. We staged a ballet and a goat roast. We fed on deep-fried catish and slow-simmered greens. We travelled down to the crossroads where food and music meet, and we sketched the ways in which these cultural expressions are complementary.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
6-9 p.m. @ Cine Athens
234 West Hancock Avenue
Athens, GA
Eats
Enjoy potlikker shots, both old school and nueva escuela. Expect culinary riffs and bites and feints and jabs. Expect pasture-raised beef from Georgia's White Oak Farms to get good play.
- Hugh Acheson of Five & Ten
- Peter Dale of The National
- Eddie Hernandez of Taqueria del Sol
- Louis Osteen of the Lake Rabun Hotel
- Olivia Sargeant and Jason Mann of Farm 255
- Dexter Weaver of Weaver D's
- Angelish Wilson of Wilson's Soul Food
Music and Poetry
With harmonica accompaniment from Coleman Barks. And late night musical guest stars.
Films
Travel the South through SFA produced and directed short films that document and celebrate regional food culture.
Beverages
Athens’ own Terrapin Beer Company
The Mountain Empire: Fast Cars in Bristol and Cornbread at the Carter Fold
June 25-27, 2009
In June 2009, the SFA explored the foodways of the northeastern reaches of Tennessee and the southwestern reaches of Virginia. Bristol, which straddles the two states and is known as the birthplace of country music, was our headquarters.
We took fast laps around the track at the Bristol Motor Speedway, and feasted on Ridgewood Barbecue in the infield. We had lunch at the Burger Barn, where Hank Williams enjoyed his last meal, and learned about everything from pickled beans to Bristol's music history at SFA workshops. As for food, there was a trout dinner at the Bristol Train Station and a fresh vegetable lunch at the Flaccavento Farm outside Abingdon, Virginia. An evening at the Carter Fold, complete with old time music, homemade cakes, and soup beans and cornbread wrapped up the weekend.
Friday, June 12, 2009
6:00 p.m. at Astor Center NYC
In New York City, the Southern Foodways Alliance and the State of Mississippi hosted a discussion and celebration of the life and work of Craig Claiborne, the Sunflower, Mississippi, native who, over the course of a twenty-five plus year career at the New York Times, catalyzed and catalogued an American culinary renaissance.
Discussants: DAVID KAMP, contributing editor, Vanity Fair, author, The United States of Arugula. JACQUES PÉPIN, author of more than twenty cookbooks, star of more than a dozen PBS programs, and author of a memoir, The Apprentice.
Moderator: PETE WELLS, dining editor, The New York Times, columnist, New York Times Magazine.
To drink: Champagne
To eat: Tastes of Claiborne’s Mississippi: ANN CASHION, native of Jackson, Mississippi, chef, Johnny’s Half Shell, Washington, D.C.; JOHN CURRENCE, chef, City Grocery, Oxford, Mississippi; TAYLOR BOWEN RICKETTS, chef, Delta Bistro, Greenwood, Mississippi.
The Southern Foodways Alliance, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi will, in October 2009, award its first Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award. This event serves as the formal announcement of that initiative.
To view a recording of the panel discussion, click here.
April 18, 2008
6-9 p.m. @ Johnny's Half Shell
400 North Capitol Street NW
Washington, D.C.
Eats
- Potlikker Shots -- Mark Furstenberg, Remarkable Breads
- Woodfired Florida Hoecakes – Terrell Danley, Crème
- Delta Catfish Tamales – Ann Cashion, Johnny’s Half Shell
- Buttermilk Brined Fried Chicken – Gillian Clark, Georgia Avenue Meeting House
- Heirloom Pigs in Handstitched Blankets – Jeff Buben, Vidalia
- Jack and Sweets Pie – David Guas, Damgoodsweet
Films
Travel the South, state by state, dish by dish, with SFA produced and directed short films:
- “Eat or We Both Starve,” Taylor Grocery, Taylor, Mississippi
- “Feeding the Soul at Jones Valley Urban Farm,” Birmingham, Alabama
- “Hot Chicken,” Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, Nashville, Tennessee
And take a look at D.C. foodways, courtesy of Nina Gilden Seavey’s, “A Short History of Sweet Potato Pie And How it Became a Flying Saucer”
Drinks
Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey and beer by Flying Dog Brewery
Music
Jazz from the Jimmy Burrell Band
Blackberry Farm
January 8-10, 2009
At the 2009 Blackberry Farm Taste of the South Gala, we delighted in crispy pork rilletes and peanut pie, strafed with cayenne. Guest chefs included Hilary White, The Hil, Palmetto, GA; Donald Link, Herbsaint Restaurant, New Orleans, LA; Barry Maiden, Hungry Mother, Cambridge, MA; and Mike Davis, Terra Restaurant, Columbia, SC. Wine selections by Vision Cellars.
- Click here for the menu.
