If you’re fascinated by the history of Southern food, get a copy of The Potlikker Papers by John T. Edge. The Southern Foodways Alliance director and New York Times contributor’s book landed on store shelves May 16, and Edge will bring conversation and answer your questions at 7 pm this Wednesday, June 7, at Brazos Bookstore. Joining him is another face familiar to the Southern Foodways Alliance, Houston’s own Alba Huerta of Julep.
Subtitled “A Food History of the Modern South,” the book is the culmination of years of work at the Southern Foodways Alliance, as well as Edge’s personal passion. So what is The Potlikker Papers about? Here is the synopsis from publishing company Penguin Press:
Like great provincial dishes around the world, potlikker is a salvage food. During the antebellum era, slave owners ate the greens from the pot and set aside the leftover “potlikker” broth for the enslaved, unaware that the broth, not the greens, was nutrient rich. After slavery, potlikker sustained the working poor, both black and white. In the South of today, potlikker has taken on new meanings as chefs have reclaimed it. Potlikker is a quintessential Southern dish, and The Potlikker Papers is a people’s history of the modern South, told through its food. Beginning with the pivotal role cooks and waiters played in the civil rights movement, noted authority John T. Edge narrates the South’s fitful journey from a hive of racism to a hotbed of American immigration. He shows why working-class Southern food has become a vital driver of contemporary American cuisine.
… Along the way, Edge profiles extraordinary figures in Southern food, including Fannie Lou Hamer, Colonel Sanders, Mahalia Jackson, Edna Lewis, Paul Prudhomme, Craig Claiborne, and Sean Brock.
Over the last three generations, wrenching changes have transformed the South. The Potlikker Papers tells the story of that dynamism—and reveals how Southern food has become a shared culinary language for the nation.
It’s serious and compelling and relevant work. If you’d prefer to download the audiobook for your summer roadtrip or buy your copy online, you can do so here.