Southern Provisions: The Creation and Revival of a Cuisine
- ISBN-10
- 022614125X
- ISBN-13
- 9780226141251
- Category
- Cooking
- Pages
- 416
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2015-03-23
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Author
- David S. Shields
Description
Southern food is America’s quintessential cuisine. From creamy grits to simmering pots of beans and greens, we think we know how these classic foods should taste. Yet the southern food we eat today tastes almost nothing like the dishes our ancestors enjoyed, because the varied crops and livestock that originally defined this cuisine have largely disappeared. Now a growing movement of chefs and farmers is seeking to change that by recovering the rich flavor and diversity of southern food. At the center of that movement is historian David S. Shields, who has spent over a decade researching early American agricultural and cooking practices. In Southern Provisions, he reveals how the true ingredients of southern cooking have been all but forgotten and how the lessons of its current restoration and recultivation can be applied to other regional foodways. Shields’s turf is the southern Lowcountry, from the peanut patches of Wilmington, North Carolina to the sugarcane fields of the Georgia Sea Islands and the citrus groves of Amelia Island, Florida. He takes us on a historical excursion to this region, drawing connections among plants, farms, growers, seed brokers, vendors, cooks, and consumers over time. Shields begins by looking at how professional chefs during the nineteenth century set standards of taste that elevated southern cooking to the level of cuisine. He then turns to the role of food markets in creating demand for ingredients and enabling conversation between producers and preparers. Next, his focus shifts to the field, showing how the key ingredients—rice, sugarcane, sorghum, benne, cottonseed, peanuts, and citrus—emerged and went on to play a significant role in commerce and consumption. Shields concludes with a look at the challenges of reclaiming both farming and cooking traditions. From Carolina Gold rice to white flint corn, the ingredients of authentic southern cooking are returning to fields and dinner plates, and with Shields as our guide, we can satisfy our hunger both for the most flavorful regional dishes and their history.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2016-10-18
- 417 pages
- Paperback
- University of Chicago Press
-
- 2015-03-23
- 401 pages
- Paperback
- University of Chicago Press
Similar books
-
The Culinarians: Lives and Careers from the First Age of American Fine Dining
By David S. ShieldsIn early April 1903, financial difficulties caused Beraud to transfer ownership to trustee Michael H. Aaron. By extraordinary exertions, Beraud secured the $7,500 demanded by creditors and the café remained open.
-
The Lost Southern Chefs: A History of Commercial Dining in the Nineteenth-Century South
By Robert F. MossRobert F. Moss, Southern Spirits: Four Hundred Years of Drinking in the American South (Berkeley: Ten Speed, 2016), 82–83; ... “Hewlett's Exchange,” New Orleans Daily Picayune, November 15, 1843, 2; Shields, Southern Provisions, 69. 14.
-
Southern Comforts: Drinking and the U.S. South
By Conor Picken, Matthew DischingerKeywords for Southern Studies, edited by Scott Romine and Jennifer Rae Greeson, U of Georgia P, 2016, pp. 264–75. Laing, Olivia. The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking. Picador, 2013. “Nearest Green: Jack Daniel's First Master ...
-
The Georgia Peach: Culture, Agriculture, and Environment in the American South
By William Thomas OkieThe debate about objectivity and relativism is old and immensely complicated, but two points of departure for my own work are William Cronon, “A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative,” Journal of American History 78, no.
-
American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way
By Paul FreedmanWallach, Jennifer Jensen. Every Nation Has Its Dish: Black Bodies and Black Food in Twentieth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019 Wallach, Jennifer Jensen, ed. Dethroning the Deceitful Pork Chop: ...
-
Real Southern Barbecue: Constructing Authenticity in Southern Food Culture
By Kaitland M. ByrdCooking in Other Women's Kitchens: Domestic Workers in the South, 1965–1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Shields, David. 2015. Southern Provisions: The Creation and Revival of a Cuisine.
-
Ecocriticism and the Future of Southern Studies
By Zackary VernonIn contrast, environmental studies can benefit southern studies in that “current efforts to rehabilitate nostalgia, ... In the introduction to their recent collection Keywords for Southern Studies (2016), Scott Romine and Jennifer Rae ...
-
The Southern Frontiers, 1607-1860: The Agricultural Evolution of the Colonial and Antebellum South
By John Solomon OttoThough Britain forbade American vessels to trade with the British West Indies, British vessels transported Southern provisions to the Indies (Jensen 1969:115-116). In addition to renewing commercial ties with Britain, Southerners also ...
-
Pure Adulteration: Cheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food
By Benjamin R. CohenCheating on Nature in the Age of Manufactured Food Benjamin R. Cohen ... Young, Pure Food; Goodwin, Pure Food, Drink, and Drug Crusaders; Coppin and High, The Politics of Purity; French and Philips, Cheated Not Poisoned?;
-
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
By Tiya MilesIt honors the creativity and resourcefulness of people who preserved family ties when official systems refused to do so, and it serves as a visionary illustration of how to reconstruct and recount their stories today FINALIST: Kirkus Prize, ...