Southern Foodways Alliance

Southern Foodways Alliance (SFA) is an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. Member funded, it stages events, recognizes culinary contributions with awards and a hall of fame, produces documentary films, publishes writing, and maps the region’s culinary institutions recording oral history interviews. The group has about 800 members, a mixture of chefs, academics, writers, and eaters. In the Atlantic Monthly, Corby Kummer described the SFA as: “this country’s most intellectually engaged (and probably most engaging) food society."

The annual Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award is made jointly by the Southern Foodways Alliance and the Fertel Foundation, and honors an unsung hero or heroine who has made a great contribution to food.[1] The award was first made in 2000. The honoree receives a monetary award and a documentary film is made about them.[2]

Foodways are the cultural, social and economic practices relating to the production and consumption of food. Foodways are at the intersection of food in culture, traditions, and history.[3]

John T. Edge, a writer and commentator, is the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance. John Egerton (journalist) was one of the group's founders. In 2007, the SFA established the John Egerton Prize [4] to recognize annually selected "artists, writers, scholars, and others—including artisans and farmers—whose work in the American South addresses issues of race, class, gender, and social and environmental justice, through the lens of food." John Martin Taylor was also a founding member.

Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award recipients

Founders

References

  1. ↑ "The Ruth U. Fertel Foundation". Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  2. ↑ "Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award". Retrieved 4 February 2013.
  3. ↑ Darnton, Julia. "Foodways: When food meets culture and history". Michigan State University Extension. Retrieved 5 March 2013.
  4. ↑ http://www.southernfoodways.com/hall_of_fame/john_egerton/index.html

External links