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CULTURE
FOUNDERS LETTER June 16, 1999
Dear Friend,
As you know, a new effort is emerging to establish an organization that
would bring together people from all over the region and beyond who grow,
process, prepare, write about, study, or organize around the distinctive foods
of the South. The principal base for this comprehensive and inclusive group
will be in the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of
Mississippi in Oxford.
They are offering us an opportunity to use their tax-exempt, non-profit status
and their support staff like a greenhouse to grow this new organization, which
will have its own officers and board,a self-generated budget,and an independent
mission: to preserve and enhance the great food heritage of the South.
To get the pot boiling, I’ve been asked to send this letter of invitation to 50
people whose interest in such an organization is widely known. We request
the honor of your participation in a “founders’ meeting” at Southern Living
magazine on Thursday, July 22. We will meet all day and then adjourn to
Highlands Bar & Grill, where Chef Frank Stitt and his wife Pardis will be
our hosts for drinks and dinner. From 9 until noon the next morning, we’ll
gather again atSouthern Livingto complete our work.
You will appreciate, I’m sure, the spirit of inclusiveness that is driving this
effort. The time has come for all of us — traditional and nouvelle cooks and
diners, up-scale and down-home devotees, meat-eaters and vegetarians,
drinkers and abstainers, growers and processors, scholars and foodlorists,
gourmands and the health-conscious, women and men, blacks and whites
and other identity groups, one and all — to sit down and break bread together
around one great Southern table.
We all know that this is the finest regional food in America, yesterday and
today and forever. Here is our eep it vibrant and to share it with
one another and the rest of the e sincerely hope you’ll agree to come
to Birmingham and help us.
Most cordially yours,
John Egerton
Music to Your Mouth
November 19-22, 2015
Palmetto Bluff, Bluffton, SC
The SFA has a strong presence
at this annual food and music
festival, particularly in films
shown throughout the weekend.
Taste of the South at
Blackberry Farm
January 7–10, 2016
Walland, TN
The luxury resort hosts a
culinarily inspired weekend
documentary methods. Film is another.The
organization produces a quarterly
journal and a twice-monthly
podcast, both called “Gravy.”
John T Edge, who has been the
SFA’s director since its inception,
clarifies that the SFA’s documentary
philosophy embraces an evolving
American South. “What we realized
is that we want to document the
South, and it’s the South of this
moment, and it’s the South of this
moment with a tether to the past. So
it’s an old guard barbecue pitmaster
who is four generations deep in the
South. You want to tell his story, but
you also want to tell the story of the
new Mexican immigrant who is cooking
barbacoa in southeast Texas,” he says.
As the SFA is part of the University of
Mississippi, academic integrity is at the
heart of everything the organization does,
from staging symposia to raising funds
to hiring the university’s first foodways
professor. And, as the mission statement
dictates, celebration is a requirement. The
SFA’s staff and membership comprise a
work-hard-play-hard bunch. The year I
attended my first Southern Foodways
Symposium in Oxford, I ate so much whole
hog barbecue (and drank so much bourbon)
at the grand finale dinner that I believe I
passed as bona fide southerner for a few
hours.
To watch the Southern Foodways Alliance’s
films, listen to its podcast, browse its oral
history archives, or become a member, visit
to benefit the SFA. Guests
mingle with the Fellowship of
Southern Farmers, Artisans and
Chefs, whose members include
cattleman Will Harris, grain-saver
Glenn Roberts, and Chef Sean
Brock.
Food Media South
February 20, 2016
Birmingham, AL
One jam-packed day of
professional development,
Food Media South aims at
writers, bloggers and other food
storytellers.
New South Family Supper
April 17, 2016
Atlanta, GA
A fundraiser for the SFA hosted
by chefs Anne Quatrano and
Clifford Harrison, New South
Family Supper is a gathering of
the faithful, a time for like-minded
people to break bread and
consider the bounty of the region.
2016 Summer Foodways
Symposium
June 23-25, 2016
Nashville, TN
Like the fall symposium staged
every October in Oxford,
MS, the summer symposium
involves equal parts learning and
feasting. The theme for 2016,
which dictates programming at
the podium and on the plate, is
the Corn-Fed South.
UPCOMING SFA EVENTS