Southern Food: Old Ways, New Ways
January 14, 2018 7:44 AM   Subscribe

Carolina Fish Camps were and are an institution. But new southerners, especially Mexicans, are adapting older recipes to their tastes and old southerners are loving the new foods, too. Here's a video on a new recipe for turnip greens Turnip Greens de Arbol and a new dessert melding old and new: Peach Empanadas. The South has always blended traditions from other cultures and it's still doing so.
posted by MovableBookLady (32 comments total) 36 users marked this as a favorite
 

*shoves people aside while lungeing for an open seat at the breakfast table, panting in excitement while trying to look nonchalant*


“Oh, what did you say these were: peach...empanadas? Well, I guess it would be okay to try one, since I’m here anyway...”
posted by darkstar at 8:22 AM on January 14, 2018 [13 favorites]


I miss fried catfish and hush puppies and sweet tea. So so much.

I gotta say looking at this from a 21st century lens - at least looking at this particular fish camp from the video - is how absolutely white the patrons are. There are a few PoC working the fryers and that's it. Growing up in NC the best BBQ joints and the best hot dog grills were the colour lines fell away and everyone would eat there. If my racist grandfather was willing to take me to a black-owned BBQ joint n the other side of the tracks, you know it was good. And the hot dog place downtown that had suits and construction workers of all colours lined up out the door- you KNOW that's good food.

I dunno. It just gets my hackles up when a southern professor is talking about southern food and repeating the mantra of "working class" but the clientele in question are white as hell.
posted by thecjm at 8:33 AM on January 14, 2018 [16 favorites]


I really recommend the ongoing reported podcast Gravy, also from the Southern Foodways Alliance, which deals with cultural and social issues around food in the South and discusses race very frankly. It also spends a lot of time on the ways immigrant groups in the South adapt to and respond to local customs.
posted by rustcellar at 9:25 AM on January 14, 2018 [12 favorites]


I have to admit that I've read many other things from the Southern Foodways Alliance that do address race and class and history. It's just that this particular fish camp video, in contrast to both the other linked videos and my personal experiences, is white as hell.
posted by thecjm at 9:42 AM on January 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


Peach empanadas? A new way to cook greens? This looks exceedingly relevant to my interests.

(There are not enough peach things. You can't even get peach ice cream anymore.)
posted by Frowner at 9:45 AM on January 14, 2018 [4 favorites]


I grew up in Mecklenburg County, and my dad grew up in Gaston County. Some of my only memories of my grandfather, who died when I was 5, are from the fish camp. I had no idea it was that local of a phenomenon.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:52 AM on January 14, 2018


Restaurant that I want to open: South Indian. The cuisine of southern India made with ingredients from the US South. Come on! Who doesn't want to try a spicy sweet potato based dosa?
posted by NoMich at 9:52 AM on January 14, 2018 [11 favorites]


I would also be in for the cuisine of the US South made with ingredients from Southern India.
posted by box at 10:00 AM on January 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


thecjm, the Still Processing podcast at the NYTimes did a good episode about race and Southern food: "Who Has The Right To Make Barbecue?" (their interviewees include the head of Southern Foodways, the group linked in this FPP).
posted by rogerrogerwhatsyourrvectorvicto at 10:03 AM on January 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


I'm equally happy with the idea of a fusion between North Indian and Northern England. Admittedly my arteries are not.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:04 AM on January 14, 2018


Frowner: I agree about the lack of peach things, which is just baffling (the lack, not my agreement). I used to love Breyer's Peach Ice Cream, which had cream, milk, salt, and peaches as the total ingredients. And there were actual chunks of peaches in it. Then they changed the recipe so much they can't even call it ice cream anymore, just dessert or something. Grrrr.
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:05 AM on January 14, 2018 [4 favorites]


TexMex redux...
posted by jim in austin at 10:19 AM on January 14, 2018


I went to boarding school in Belmont so we often snuck out, met up with boys with cars, and went to a fish camp to eat. This was the late 50s.
posted by MovableBookLady at 10:20 AM on January 14, 2018 [4 favorites]


NoMich, you’re probably already familiar but My Two Souths is excellent.
posted by ftm at 10:23 AM on January 14, 2018 [1 favorite]


Riffing off thecjim, our local seafood restaurant (the one that puts on NO airs whatsoever, where locals go, and only just lately put anything grilled on the menu) used to be nothing but old white people but the last few years I see more and more black folks partaking of what I consider the go-to place for my fried shrimp,etc. The day I saw an older interracial couple dining -with NO sideeye from anyone that I could tell-my heart swelled.

Fried food brings everybody together.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 10:45 AM on January 14, 2018 [7 favorites]


Restaurant that I want to open: South Indian. The cuisine of southern India made with ingredients from the US South. Come on! Who doesn't want to try a spicy sweet potato based dosa?

You're welcome
posted by thivaia at 12:28 PM on January 14, 2018 [4 favorites]


And if you're on the other side of North Carolina.
posted by thivaia at 12:32 PM on January 14, 2018 [5 favorites]


Thank you, thivaia
posted by NoMich at 1:30 PM on January 14, 2018


I'm in Asheville and Chai Pani has a really good reputation.
posted by MovableBookLady at 1:42 PM on January 14, 2018


I have to admit that I've read many other things from the Southern Foodways Alliance that do address race and class and history. It's just that this particular fish camp video, in contrast to both the other linked videos and my personal experiences, is white as hell.

The context that the video doesn't touch on is that the North Carolina textile mill workers were white as hell; the mills were essentially white-only employers into the 1970's. Estimates of the mill labor was 2-5% African-American when the Civil Rights Act passed. The mills were a traditional paternalistic employer, "[t]he family nature of labor, where multiple members of the family were employed by the mill, reinforced class, gender, and racial divisions". There's a whole book about the integration of the mills, Hiring the Black Worker: The Racial Integration of the Southern Textile Industry, 1960-1980. From this review:
At the same time, the textile mills helped to shape, and maybe even fashion, the racial ordering of the New South. As a more industrial South emerged after Reconstruction, Jim Crow took over. Not only was access to the ballot restricted along racial lines, but so too was employment. For the most part, mill owners hired only whites to work inside the mills. On the rare occasion that textile managers did try to hire black laborers to run the machines, whites resisted, often by striking in protest. Some African-American men did receive paychecks from the mills, but typically, they worked outside in the yards cleaning up and lifting heavy bales of cotton; if they got a position inside the plant it was almost always as a janitor or sweeper. Black women rarely worked for the mills, although a few got jobs in the villages cooking and cleaning for white textile laborers and other company officials. The dividends of the region's post-Civil War industrial expansion, therefore, went to whites because they were white and because whites told each other African Americans were unable to run the machines. Whiteness determined opportunity in the New South made by the textile mills--that was a given for nearly seventy years.
So when they're talking about the connection between the mill workers, their community, and the foods they ate, they are essentially talking about white people only. But, yeah, it's a little galling that a white guy with a PhD will talk about a history of "warm memories" of "family-friendly" places without the caveat that they were only warm and friendly to certain families.
posted by peeedro at 2:50 PM on January 14, 2018 [8 favorites]


Have you peach-loving folks tried peach Fanta? Sounds questionable, but actually tastes like real peach and not syrupy canned peach.
posted by msbubbaclees at 3:01 PM on January 14, 2018


I'm equally happy with the idea of a fusion between North Indian and Northern England
Mate, you don't need to content yourself with the mere idea, >90% of British curry house fare is this.
posted by Acheman at 4:02 PM on January 14, 2018


One of the foods my grandmother used to make when I was a kid was homemade peach ice cream. I liked her strawberry ice cream better, I have to say! (Not a peach fan, despite being very Southern.)
posted by Kitteh at 4:25 PM on January 14, 2018


Restaurant that I want to open: South Indian. The cuisine of southern India made with ingredients from the US South. Come on! Who doesn't want to try a spicy sweet potato based dosa?

Chicago's own Rajun Cajun may be relevant to your interests:
This vegetarian-friendly place has burgers-and-dawgs decor, fast-food prices, and a menu that combines Indian and soul food (inexplicably, the only Cajun item on the menu is dirty rice). Fried chicken, collard greens, and macaroni and cheese sit in the steam tray right alongside chicken curry, chana masala, and samosas.
(Admittedly, the soul food and the Indian food are pretty discrete in terms of menu items, but you can get a plate that combines whatever you want.)
posted by kenko at 4:40 PM on January 14, 2018


The reason why there aren‘t more peach flavored things is that a ripe peach fresh off the tree is already the universe’s perfect food. No need, or room, for improvement.
posted by The Toad at 5:45 PM on January 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


homemade peach ice cream

First non-store ice cream I ever tasted -- hand-cranked, in Virginia summertime.
posted by Rash at 6:16 PM on January 14, 2018 [4 favorites]


I have two forks and a plate, and they are all empty.

I'm waaaiting here, people!!
posted by BlueHorse at 6:17 PM on January 14, 2018 [2 favorites]



homemade peach ice cream

First non-store ice cream I ever tasted -- hand-cranked, in Virginia summertime.


My grandmother's favorite flavors of ice cream are peach and peppermint. They are both so good and I can never find them anymore.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:59 PM on January 14, 2018 [2 favorites]


This Kentuckian was delighted to see Mexington represented in the Southern Foodways Alliance videos. I'm so proud of diversity in the Bluegrass! (Fun fact: the amazing taquerias in Lexington are clustered on the road to Versailles, which, in true melting pot style, is pronounced to rhyme with "emails.")

Thanks for the delicious post!
posted by reseeded at 7:52 AM on January 15, 2018


Fried food brings everybody together T-shirt. Right. There.
posted by milnews.ca at 12:44 PM on January 15, 2018


All you peach ice cream lovers: come to Cincinnati in the summer! Graeter's Ice Cream does an AMAZING peach ice cream, limited time only. I'd offer to ship it to you but it's hella expensive to do that.
posted by cooker girl at 2:51 PM on January 15, 2018 [2 favorites]


I remember the fish camps, as I grew up in Charlotte with a father who hailed from Gastonia. I may have gone to at least one of those places when I was a wee lad.

I never realized how they were such a uniquely local phenomenon, now how they were associated with the textile mills around the area.
posted by snortasprocket at 8:07 PM on January 15, 2018 [1 favorite]


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