Today, Americans across the country associate the South with classic dishes such as fried chicken, greens, and macaroni and cheese. Edna Lewis, granddaughter of an escaped slave, was one of the first chefs to help establish this vision of Southern food with her now-classic cookbook, The Taste of Country Cooking (1976). At this event, we will discuss a few famous recipes from this book. We will explore how Lewis used stories about her childhood in the South to bring these recipes to life and to help people appreciate food as a source of care and community. We'll think about the role cooking plays in our own lives and how the cookbook might just be one of the most underappreciated forms of creative writing.
To access the excerpts we will discuss, click here or visit any branch for a physical copy.
This program is part of FCPL's Celebrating Black Heritage series and is the eighteenth in our ongoing "Race and American Culture" series.
About Dr. Ian Afflerbach
Dr. Ian Afflerbach is an Associate Professor of American Literature at the University of North Georgia, where he teaches courses in African-American literature, modern American fiction, and the history of ideas. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and has lived in Montreal, Vermont, North Carolina, and Germany. His first book, Making Liberalism New, was published in 2021, and he's currently working on a second, Sellouts! The Story of an American Insult, which examines the history of "selling out" in American culture.
Event image credit: LightFieldStudios from Getty Images Pro via Canva.com
Celebrating Black Heritage logo credit: Forsyth County Public Library using a border by sparklestroke via Canva.com
UNG logo and headshot provided by the University of North Georgia
TAGS: | Literature | Culture |
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