Hot Tamale

All is well and good here in Oxford. My final days are flying past and it's hard to believe that I have less than two weeks remaining.  Where has the time gone?

The week in a glance: Last Wednesday, we met with Dr. Mullins (above, left) who discussed new target regions for plugging in MTC teachers around the state, specifically the Black Prairie.  Saturday night: BBQ at Dr. Monroes. Sunday night: Barksdale's for a 4th of July dinner party followed by prime firework viewing.  I fit right in with the seven and eight year olds "oh-ing" and "ah-ing" and the explosions of light in the dark Southern sky.  

Monday night: trekked over to a local school board meeting after work to get a better understanding of the complexity of the the administration and politics involved.  Tuesday: speaker series with John T. Edge, more on him in a moment.  Lunch at Honest Abe's for delta tamales.  Thursday: to summer school in Holly Springs with Ben one last time.  Treat: fabulous company (Ben & team teacher Austin Walker) and tremendous food at Abbyville's Yocona in Exile for dinner.  Regular work day Thursday with lots of business items to attend to.  I treated Ben to lunch at Honeybee Bakery as payment for a lost bet.  Lesson learned: don't bet with Ben, he usually wins.  Really though, it was a win-win, I will take any excuse to go to Honeybee. Friday: another interview for the oral history project before I head north to Memphis with the other interns for the weekend.

And now back to a real culinary luminary, Mr. John T. Edge.  Quite concisely, John T. is a professional eater, writer, educator, and a fine Southern gentleman.  His intricate knowledge of food and Southern foodways, in particular, is as rich and insightful as you will find.  He is the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance located here at Ole Miss.  His many accolades, among them the nomination of his second cookbook "A Gracious Plenty: Recipes and Recollections from the American South (2000)" for a prestigious James Beard Foundation Award, have contributed to his recent induction (2009) in to James Beard’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America.   This guy is fascinating, are you with me?

As a voracious reader of food writing and cookbooks aplenty, a full-bellied appreciator of good food and good company, and an adventurous student in the kitchen of one of my talented mentors, Elonide Semmes, I was excited for this speaker series to say the least.  

John T. contributes monthly to the The New York Times in his "United Tastes" column and is a longtime columnist for the Oxford American.   He has also served as a culinary curator for NPR's All Things Considered and was a contributing editor to the former Gourmet magazine.  Now you can find his writing in Garden & Gun - curious title, wonderful publication.

I was immediately lulled in by the easy tempo of his verbal cadence - the occasional long, drawn out vowel combined with smart and eloquent speech.  You may be wondering how this all fits in with the MTC internship - the ideas of race, class, and social justice we have been exploring? Let me explain.  John T.’s sweeping knowledge of Southern food and the interwoven culture that drives it extends well beyond the surface trendiness of food and haute cuisine and into the ever more novel insights about the people, places and history of the South.  I am referring especially to his perceptions and observations in our discussion of the delta tamale and its role in race relations.

Long after the abolition of slavery, race continues to be the great vexing issue of the South, this I most certainly understand.  In our meeting Wednesday morning, John T. noted that it is "my deep and profound respect for the South, as well as my anger and loathing of a history of injustice and violence that has lead me to approach issues of race, class and gender through a less threatening medium: food." 

“You can use many avenues of approach to race relations in the South" he says. "I think that it is all part of a continuum and food is a great method to get at race". 

His creativity and good storytelling are affective as well.  My sincere admiration for John T. extends well beyond anything I can eloquently express.  His writing is like okra from the field, "the gifts of this earth made dear by their brief season" as my godmother Susan Hull Walker put it, rightly layered in both past and present, revert with a sense of place.

In the interest of time and leaving the storytelling to the pros, I will leave you with some of our assigned reading and listening in preparation for meeting with John T. - I hope you enjoy.

"In Through the Back Door"

"The Southern Activist"

"Pig, Smoke, Pit: This Food Is Seriously Slow"

"Hot Tamales & the Mississippi Delta"

"Abe's Bar-B-Q" - this is where we ate lunch Wednesday.

Robert Johnson, blues legend who supposedly sold his soul to the Devil to learn to play the blues - here singing about hot tamales.  We visited one of his four suspected grave sites between Greenwood and Money, Mississippi.

NPR piece here.

You can read more about Robert Johnson here and here.