Marcie Cohen Ferris

Examining the expressive power of food throughout southern Jewish history, Ferris demonstrates how southern Jews reinvented traditions as they adjusted to living in a largely Christian world. Features anecdotes, oral histories, and more than 30 recipes. Photos.

Culinary Tales of the Jewish South

Matzoh Ball Gumbo

"The Deepest Reality of Life": Southern Sociology, the WPA, and Food in the New South (an article from Southern Cultures 18:2, Summer 2012: The Special Issue on Food)

An article from Southern Cultures 18:2, Summer 2012: The Special Issue on Food

"The Deepest Reality of Life": Southern Sociology, the WPA, and Food in the New South

Katherine Hysmith

Marcie Cohen Ferris gathers a constellation of leading journalists, farmers, chefs, entrepreneurs, scholars, and food activists—along with photographer Baxter Miller— to offer a deeply immersive portrait of North Carolina's contemporary food landscape. Ranging from manifesto to elegy, Edible North Carolina's essays, photographs, interviews, and recipes combine for a beautifully revealing journey across the lands and waters of a state that exemplifies the complexities of American food and identity. While North Carolina's food heritage is grounded in core ingredients and the proximity of farm to table, this book reveals striking differences among food-centered cultures and businesses across the state. Documenting disparities among people's access to food and farmland—and highlighting community and state efforts toward fundamental solutions—Edible North Carolina shows how culinary excellence, entrepreneurship, and the struggle for racial justice converge in shaping food equity, not only for North Carolinians, but for all Americans. Starting with Vivian Howard, star of PBS's A Chef's Life, who wrote the foreword, the contributors include Shorlette Ammons, Karen Amspacher, Victoria Bouloubasis, Katy Clune, Gabe Cumming, Marcie Cohen Ferris, Sandra Gutierrez, Tom Hanchett, Michelle King, Cheetie Kumar, Courtney Lewis, Malinda Maynor Lowery, Ronni Lundy, Keia Mastrianni, April McGreger, Baxter Miller, Ricky Moore, Carla Norwood, Kathleen Purvis, Andrea Reusing, Bill Smith, Maia Surdam, and Andrea Weigl.

A Journey across a State of Flavor

Edible North Carolina

Since early colonial times in America, Jewish southerners have been tempted by delectable regional foods. Because some of these foods - including pork and shellfish - have been traditionally forbidden to Jews by religious dietary laws, southern Jews face a special predicament. In a culinary journey through the Jewish South, Arkansas native Marcie Cohen Ferris explores how southern Jews embraced, avoided, and adapted southern food and, in the process, have found themselves at home. From colonial Savannah and Charleston to Civil War era New Orleans and Natchez, from New South Atlanta to contemporary Memphis and the Mississippi and Arkansas Deltas, examines the expressive power of food throughout southern Jewish history. Jews in the South reinvented traditions as they adjusted to living in a largely Christian world where they were bound by regional rules of race, class, and gender. In some cases, Jews merely adjusted their eating habits to match those of their new neighbors. In other cases, they created a new cuisine that revealed a merging of the many cultures they encountered in the New World. At the dining table, Jewish southerners created a distinctive religious expression that reflects the evolution of southern Jewish life. Featuring a trove of photographs, Matzoh Ball Gumbo also includes anecdotes, oral histories, and more than thirty recipes to try at home. Ferris's rich tour of southern Jewish foodways helps us answer the question, ''What does it mean to be both southern and Jewish?''

Culinary Tales of the Jewish South: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition

Culinary Tales of the Jewish South: Easyread Edition

Mark I. Greenberg

A lively look at southern Jewish history and culture.

A New History

Jewish Roots in Southern Soil

Harry L. Watson

Nourishment, nostalgia, Native ingredients and global influences. Southern Cultures's debut "best of" collection gets straight to the heart of the matter: food. For those of us who've debated mayonnaise brand, hushpuppy condiment, or barbecue style—including, in some quarters, whether the latter is a noun or a verb (bless your heart)—we present here a collection equal to our passions. Culled from our best food writing, 2008–2014, this special volume serves up tomatoes, turtles, molasses, Mother Corn and the Dixie Pig, bourbon, gravy, cakes, jams, jellies, pickles, and chocolate pie. Dig in! And stay tuned for more "best of" collections to come.

Marcie Cohen Ferris

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