LOUISIANA - #68 SUMMER 2018 A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION FROM THE SOUTHERN FOODWAYS ALLIANCE $7
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#68 SUMMER 2018 • A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION FROM THE SOUTHERN FOODWAYS ALLIANCE • $7 LOUISIANA ADAPTS
career as a cookbook collaborator. In the Louisiana with Marcelle as a guide, they
late 1960s, Sarah Brash, a researcher for knew the subject was worthy of its own
Time-Life’s Foods of the World series called book. After Time-Life published Amer-
the Picayune. She needed help researching ican Cooking: Creole and Acadian in 1971,
Acadian foodways for a cookbook. Marcelle left journalism for Command-
“I didn’t even know I lived in Cajun er’s Palace. She learned the intricacies
Country,” Marcelle told me, laughing at of the restaurant industry, working in
her twenty-five-year-old self. ‘That was the front of the house, keeping invento-
before Paul Prudhomme said there was ry, and catering. In 1984, she began a
such a thing as Cajun Country. And I told column, Cooking Creole, for the
them I knew everything there was to Times-Picayune.
know about it, and they could hire me, In the months since I traveled to Thi-
and they did.” bodaux, nine other female food journal-
Marcelle, a native of St. Martinville in ists have opened their homes and offices
the Bayou Teche region, proved the to me. They have given me time, spare
perfect choice. With a photographer, she batteries, cookbooks, and brownie
traveled through New Orleans, eating mixes. They have cooked for me. And
oysters at Acme and visiting Ella Brennan they have shared stories of their lives
at Commander’s Palace. In Cajun country, and extraordinary careers. As a young
she procured pigs for boucheries and woman documenting Southern food-
crawfish for boils. When Marcelle joined ways, I am grateful for the paths they
the project, the Time-Life editors carved, and for the opportunity to follow
thought of Cajun and Creole food as a their leads.
chapter in a larger book about Southern
food. After seeing and tasting south Annemarie Anderson is SFA’s oral historian.
Gravy is a publication of the Southern JOHN T. EDGE, Editor-in-Chief
Foodways Alliance, a donor supported info@southernfoodways.org
FE AT UR E S 02 First
institute of theHelpings
Center for the Study 62 The Queer Pleasures
MARY BETH LASSETER, Publisher
of Southern Culture at the University of Tammy Wynette’s
marybeth@southernfoodways.org
28 of Mississippi.
08 Mixed History
The SFA documents,
Osayi studies, and
Endolyn
Cooking
SARA CAMP MILAM, Editor
Mayukh Sen
Italian Heaven
saracamp@southernfoodways.org
explores the diverse food cultures of
OSAYI ENDOLYN, Deputy Editor
Justin Nystrom the changing American South. We
14 The
reframe Riseabout
dialogues andtheFall ofand
region 65 Barbekue
osayi@southernfoodways.org
catalyze
theconversations
South’s aboutACPracism,
Kings DANIELLEDaniel Vaughn
A. SCRUGGS, Image Editor
42 gender inequity, class discrimination,
Gustavo Arellano
and other challenges. We curate a
danielle@southernfoodways.org
The Taking of beloved community that gains strength 72 Marcelle
RICHIE Bienvenu’s
SWANN, Designer
richieswann@gmail.com
Freret Street 22 voice
and Dare to Look
at a well-set table. Cajun Chronicles
KATHERINE
Maurice Carlos Ruffin W. Ralph
Your donation makesEubanks
our work possible. SFAW.Oral
STEWART,
History
Fact Checker
Visit southernfoodways.org to make a
Annemarie Anderson
donation or become a member. MONIQUE LABORDE, Intern
52 ABOVE: Sandy Ha Nguyen, executive director of Coastal
Communities Consulting, Inc. (CCC) speaks to a group of
An Industry’s fisherfolk in Buras, Louisiana. Photo by Claire Bangser.
SFA MEMBERSHIP IS OPEN TO ALL. NOT A MEMBER?
Heartbeat
Join us at southernfoodways.org • info@southernfoodways.org • 662-915-3368
Simi Kang Cover photo by CLAIRE BANGSER
Summer 2018 | 73
First Helpings
FEATURED CONTRIBUTOR
MAURICE
CARLOS RUFFIN
Lucky Ryan, a
Vietnamese restaurant
in Buras, Louisiana
EAST NEW ORLEANS NATIVE of its kind. Some churches someone on the street. It’s
GO AHEAD, SURPRISE ME
Maurice Carlos Ruffin is a would regularly serve ‘dinner important, so be aware of the
graduate of the University of plates,’ a plate piled high little things like that. Listen
New Orleans MFA program with fried fish, peas, mac more than you talk. And if
W
in creative writing. Ruffin is and cheese, cornbread, for you want a good meal, make
ords brought me to I always urge them to put people and a nonfiction columnist at the five or seven bucks. Since a good friend. Hang around
food, not the other way places ahead of flavors. Virginia Quarterly Review Katrina, most of those church their cousin’s house or aunt’s
and a contributing editor to congregations have gotten house. That’ll be where you
around. I’m a reader before Of course, there are readers and editors
Know Louisiana magazine. smaller, and others have can get a good meal.
I’m an eater. (And I’m definitely a reader whose tastes run counter to mine. And His writing has also appeared disappeared altogether.
before I’m a cook. Ask my husband.) So I there are writers, from critics to poets in the LA Times, The Bitter Was there a specific event or
take extra pleasure in this year’s SFA pro- to novelists, who deliver those gustatory Southerner, Kenyon Review, What would you say to news item that motivated you
gramming theme, Food and Literature. descriptions with precision and beauty. and Massachusetts Review. someone who is not from to write about gentrification
I care how food tastes. But when I’m They’re not the primary focus of these One World Random House New Orleans and thinking in New Orleans?
reading, that’s not usually what I’m pages. And that’s intentional. will publish Ruffin’s first about moving to the city? It wasn’t one moment, but
reading for. Delicious means something The features in this issue conjure South novel, We Cast a Shadow, in New Orleans is as welcoming I’ve been noticing how rapidly
different to everyone, and so it effec- Louisiana, past, present, and future. They January 2019. as it is complex. It’s such a the change is happening.
tively means nothing. Your savory, your remind us that the region is constantly unique place, and it can give I thought I’d see a new
delectable, even your crispy—they might evolving and adapting—demographically What’s a dish, from a you so much. Be prepared restaurant once a month. It’s
particular restaurant or to give back. Have a plan more like once a week. Every
be different from mine. So I’d rather and even topographically. The ground
kitchen, that you can’t get for how you can contribute week, one place is opening
a writer take me to a place I haven’t shifts beneath the feet of those who make anymore in New Orleans? to the community and to and another is closing. They
been, or help me see a familiar place in it their home. This shifting is sometimes I’m going across the city disadvantaged people. One open with a big fanfare and
a new light. Or introduce me to a person tragic, sometimes triumphant, and it all
credit
Gutter credit
in my head thinking about of the worst things I see is close with a whimper. I hardly
Bangser
whose story will surprise, or delight, or but ensures that rich and complex stories places I used to go all the when people come down have time in my schedule
Tad Bartlett
ClaireGutter
inspire me. When I get the chance to will never stop tumbling to the surface. time. Barrow’s catfish was here and don’t know that to go to some places before
offer advice to writers of food or drink, —Sara Camp Milam really one of a kind, the best we say hello when we pass they close.
2 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 3
First Helpings
their freedom and go on to
open shops of their own.
FROM BLACK HANDS TO CP: Another interesting
component of your work is the
WHITE MOUTHS: CHARLESTON’S use of sales ads for enslaved
cooks. Can you tell me about
these ads, how you found
ENSLAVED COOKS them, and what you learned?
KM: The ads were given
to me by David Shields [of
Kevin Mitchell, a chef and culinary instructor from Charleston, professions were closed off to the University of South
South Carolina, earned his MA in Southern Studies from the blacks. And the professions Carolina]. These ads are
University of Mississippi this spring. SFA foodways professor that were seen as more interesting because not only
Catarina Passidomo advised Mitchell’s thesis, “From Black feminine—cooking and are they looking for specific
Hands to White Mouths.” Here, a peek into his research. cleaning and sewing—were levels of skilled cooks, these
the things that were left open skilled cooks were of course
CATARINA PASSIDOMO: professional cooking for to blacks. That particular enslaved. Just the fact of
BUD BREAK
You trace the lineage of enslaved and free people of lineage is important to me an ad being published in a
black chefs and caterers color during the antebellum because it allows me to see newspaper for the sale of a
in Charleston back to the period in Charleston. where I came from. human body.... I was able to
early nineteenth century.
Discuss the importance of KEVIN MITCHELL: A lot of CP: You highlight the ways
in which some black cooks
used cooking as an avenue
go through the ads and see
those levels of cooks and
understand the amount of
skill that each one of them
IN VIRGINIA
to their freedom. But there had. There was a French
are complexities, too. Can cook, a complete cook, and a k i r s ty h a r m o n, t h e w i n e m a k e r f o r
you talk about Sally Seymour, pastry cook. So I was trying Blenheim Vineyards who studied microbiology
a free woman of color who to decipher which were in college, pours rkatsiteli, her pineapple-scent-
ran a catering business and the most valuable to their
ed white wine made with grapes first grown in
owned slaves? slaveholders and why. Those
three types of cooks were
the Republic of Georgia, and talks about how a
KM: I discovered that because highly sought after by the side gig as a calligrapher led to her vocation. Over
of the labor market in slaveholders. Being able to lunch at Gabriele Rausse Winery, on a creek bank
Charleston at that particular have these particular cooks outside Charlottesville, Virginia, Ian Boden, chef
LEFT: Courtesy of Kevin Mitchell; RIGHT: Marta Locklear/Stocksy
time, those were the only gave the slaveholder a certain and owner of the Shack in nearby Staunton, plates
people available to her. status, especially when they a riff on the Lao dish known as larb. It’s made
Someone like Sally Seymour entertained guests. with Hickory King grits, Allan Benton’s bacon
who would become free and from Tennessee, and dried shrimp from Louisiana.
open up her own restaurant Through my research, it A rhubarb sorbet and a Stinson Vineyards late
or pastry shop, of course, seems like the pastry cook harvest petit manseng, flush with tangerine and
needed laborers. She needed was the most valued and the
honey, follow cold fried chicken and a killed
people to help her run that most skilled, because they
not only dealt with the sweet
lettuce salad tossed with fiddleheads. “French
shop. And so someone like her
was able to, in a sense, reap things, but they had to know winemakers now come here from Burgundy,” says
those economic benefits to the savory side as well. They Peter Rausse, son of pioneering Virginia wine-
having slave labor. Hopefully, also seemed to be the ones maker Gabriele Rausse. “In Burgundy they make
some of those slaves would who trained other cooks Burgundy. Here, we can make anything and ev-
have been able to purchase behind them. erything.” —JTE
4 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 5
First Helpings
SFA EVENTS
For details and ticket information, visit southernfoodways.org
JUL 12
Julian Rankin reads and signs
AUG 12
2018 Egerton
AUG 13
Brown in the South Dinner
Catfish Dreams at Square Books Award Ceremony Volume 2
OX FO R D, M S NASHVILLE, TN NASHVILLE, TN
SMOKE AND MIRRORS AUG 16
Barbecue Digest
SEP 10-11 OCT 11-13
Southern Foodways 2018 Southern Foodways
Volume 2 Graduate Symposium Fall Symposium
M E M P H I S, T N OX FO R D, M S OX FO R D, M S
b a r b e c u e nat i o n , c u r at e d by Condensed Smoke, made in Kansas City
the Atlanta History Center, charts a around 1900, promised: “This bottle will
cultural timeline of this fabled American smoke a barrel of meat, cheaper, safer,
craft. Twenty years in the making, the and quicker than the old way.”
inclusive and expansive exhibit opened
this May and closes next June. Here are Women get the last laugh In 2018, the SFA explores literature and
highlights: Printed in block letters across one wall is
a bold declaration: outdoor cooking is
food, twinned cultural expressions.
The material culture game man’s work. The curators —Jonathan
is strong Scott, Jim Auchmutey, and Craig Pascoe—
Ogle a chopping block, worn concave
from cleaver work, loaned from Skylight
Inn of Ayden, North Carolina; a burn
have subversively positioned that quote,
from a 1941 James Beard book, above a
majestic image of a woman pitmaster, her
BECOME A
barrel, rusted to a beautiful auburn,
signed by Rodney Scott of Charleston,
South Carolina; and a fleet of portable
arms raised high at a 1970s Harlem
community barbecue. MEMBER AT
SOUTHERNFOODWAYS. ORG
patio smokers, including an aluminum As a bonus, the Atlanta History Center
Jason Hales/Atlanta History Center
Char-Broil model from 1948 that has tapped a variety of SFA work for the
resembles a wheeled trash can and exhibit, including a documentary film on SFA members receive a
features a chopping block rear spoiler. Helen’s Bar-B-Que in Brownsville, TN.
To watch Helen Turner work, step to one subscription to Gravy
Honest barbecue has long of the woodsmoke-perfumed viewing
been imperiled theaters, set in a makeshift pit bank (or
and other benefits.
The wrapper on a bottle of Wright’s visit southernfoodways.org). —JTE
6 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 7
Future South
Blood on the Leaves, a Mai Tai twist, the restaurant opened, after he’d honed
featured St. Croix rum and pecan orgeat. skills at the high-volume Proud Larry’s
Bullock & Dabney was a mash-up of the (and geeked out on liqueurs and infusions
Corpse Reviver and Mint Julep, flushed at home).
with bourbon, Bénédictine, rhubarb, and His bar program is one of many bright
citrus. The Clyde began with blanco spots at Saint Leo, named a 2017 Best
tequila, mellowed by pinot noir, and floral New Restaurant semifinalist by the James
rooibos tea. (I’m Not Your) Negroni riffed Beard Foundation. They grew popular
on the classic, boasting gin infused with serving wood-fired pizzas—the burrata
West African grains of paradise. Black and soppressata with chili flakes is my
Wall Street blended the Black Manhattan standing order when I’m in town.
and Whiskey Sour with bourbon, amaro, Early on, I fell for Stinchcomb’s Golden
lemon, and a wine float. Rule, made with blanco tequila, yellow
Eleven days later, after Saint Leo re- Chartreuse and dry Curaçao. The Grown
ceived multiple calls threatening protest, Simba, an early drink, referenced a song
owner Emily Blount and Stinchcomb, the by rapper J. Cole. If you were in on the
restaurant’s beverage director, pulled the head nod, snaps to you. If you liked the
special cocktail menu. A bar guest had flip-style drink—gin, sweet and dry ver-
posted an image of the menu on Snapchat; mouths, orange juice, egg yolk, and
others posted to Facebook. People were grated nutmeg—great. If you inquired
offended. Observers wondered who wrote about the name so Stinchcomb could
the menu and what was meant by it. The nerdily quote lyrics as he’s apt to do, all
comments were swift. How could they? the better.
Whose idea was this? Boycott! Blount and He’s dropped a hip-hop or pop-culture
Stinchcomb surveyed the sudden change drink reference on every seasonal menu
of events. How did this happen? The Black since the first day of service. Almost two
History Month menu had seemed like a years into his tenure, he took the next
The Clyde at Saint Leo good idea. step. Joe Stinchcomb presented a portrait
of America as seen through the eyes of
stinchcomb, twenty-eight years a black man.
old, is a passionate man. His words
MIXED HISTORY
Can cocktails serve up more than booze?
tumble into each other; his bespectacled
eyes brighten when he talks. He grew up
an Air Force brat, and spent time in
stinchcomb had studied Louis-
ville-native Tom Bullock’s The Ideal
Bartender, the first cocktail recipe book
Germany, Croatia, Colorado Springs. For published by an African American. He’d
a time, he lived in Fayetteville, Georgia, read W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1903 classic tome
BY OSAYI ENDOLYN where his father had been born. His The Souls of Black Folk, an underread
O
grandfather, for whom he is named, was masterpiece. Stinchcomb was especially
n february 1 of this year, saint leo, an italian-inspired a Montford Point Marine, one of the all- taken with Du Bois’ term “double con-
restaurant in Oxford, Mississippi, introduced five drinks to its seasonal black recruitment group that integrated sciousness.” He understood the idea of
menu. The heading read black history month cocktails february the Corps in the early 1940s. dividing his identity on the basis of race,
2018 by joe stinchcomb. Informed enthusiasts might have read what followed After Stinchcomb graduated from the as a black man in a service role in a pre-
Osayi Endolyn
as a curious and challenging lineup. But then, generally speaking, most diners University of Mississippi in 2013, he took dominantly white Mississippi restaurant.
aren’t informed enthusiasts. up bartending. Blount hired him when He’d been inspired to think of his role as
8 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 9
Future South
an African American bartender in the Blood on the Leaves. It references Billie was saying, ‘I’m free! I’m my own person!’
South as more than a job. He saw his
work as a continuation of a rich cultural “I wanted people Holiday’s 1939 haunting classic, Strange
Fruit, which confronts the legacy of
The focus was not ‘Negro.’”
Negro can be fraught, despite its
legacy. He’d recently attended BevCon to feel how I feel,” lynching in America. With the new Na- ongoing use in black vernacular among
in Charleston, where he heard historian
David Wondrich and bartender Duane Stinchcomb said. tional Memorial for Peace and Justice in
Montgomery, we have just begun to do
select company. Some of this is cultural,
and some is generational. New Orleans
Sylvestre present on underreported “I didn’t get a the necessary societal work to heal from chef Leah Chase recently told me, unre-
drinks history. Stinchcomb aimed to use
his station at Saint Leo, which borders blueprint on this.” this terrorism. lated to this incident, that she preferred
the term. In her day, she said, they were
the Courthouse Square in Oxford, to Southern trees bear strange fruit just colored. “But anyone could be
acknowledge and celebrate African Blood on the leaves and blood at the root ‘colored,’” she told me. “At least with
American heritage in all its complexities. received more eyes on it than Stinchcomb Black bodies swinging in the southern Negro, it felt like something.”
He developed this menu, which he taught had anticipated. Some of the most vocal breeze For others, the most objectionable
to a receptive and curious staff, to high- critics were liberal arts faculty at the Strange fruit hanging from the poplar drink was Black Wall Street, which ref-
light the achievement, struggle, and University of Mississippi. The cocktail trees erences the early-twentieth-century
sacrifice of black people in the United menu had no glossary, summary, or ad- black community in the Greenwood
States. He hoped it would encourage all ditional context, leaving intention open Stinchcomb used rum to evoke the district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. (It was once
people to sit up, sip slowly, and reflect. to interpretation. Online, people couldn’t enslavement of Africans in the Caribbe- called Negro Wall Street.) Black Wall
discern that the menu author was a black an. Blood orange symbolized the exoti- Street was one of the most notable and
through snapshots of the menu man—and when they found out, it just cism of blackness. It is constantly desired, successful examples of African Ameri-
and paraphrased status updates on Face- complicated the narrative. Stinchcomb for example, in sports—but also forbid- can–led business districts in the country,
book, Instagram, and Snapchat, Saint admits a written statement might have den. He chose pecans to make orgeat in replete with physicians, realtors, lawyers,
Leo’s Black History Month cocktail menu been useful, but he had his reasons for place of almonds because pecans are and other fixtures of a vibrant, up-
leaving one out. native to the South. Stinchcomb told me ward-bound economy. But, as the elders
Joe Stinchcomb “I wanted people to feel how I feel as that a university instructor said the drink say, we can’t have nothin’. Between May
a black person in America,” Stinchcomb commodified black pain and suffering. 31 and June 1, 1921, police and Tulsa na-
said. “I didn’t get a blueprint on this. I (I’m Not Your) Negroni rankled, too. tional guardsmen, with help from neigh-
wasn’t told how to navigate these waters.” Stiff and complex, the drink relies on a boring white residents, razed the neigh-
Those waters run deep: White patrons cherry-infused Campari that rounds out borhood. Black businesses and homes
sometimes call him “boy” to get his at- the peppery cardamom of the grains of were looted and burned. Hundreds of
tention. He is a rare black bartender on paradise. Thematically, Stinchcomb was people were killed. Thousands were
the Square in a town where many black referencing the Raoul Peck film I Am Not rendered homeless. It’s still sometimes
laborers work in food service. There’s Your Negro, a 2016 documentary based called a “race riot,” but it was an envy-fu-
the psychic stress of seeing people who on James Baldwin’s unfinished manu- eled massacre. Colson Whitehead’s most
look like you constantly hauled off and script. Some black people were disturbed recent novel, The Underground Railroad,
communally policed for golfing slowly, by the play on “Negro”—some later ad- features a scene that mimics this devas-
for behaving age appropriately in grade mitted they didn’t realize Negroni was tating event.
school, for waiting on friends at Star- also the name of an Italian cocktail, A common complaint about the menu
bucks, or for pushing one’s infant in a which, given the context of the beverage and its uncomfortable references was
stroller in a public park—in daylight. “I menu, might seem obvious. But it under- that people don’t go to bars to learn about
wanted people to think, ‘why do I have scores how quickly emotions around race mass murder. No one wants racial ani-
this awkward feeling, this discomfort?’” can blind us to closer reads. Stinchcomb mosity with their $10 cocktail, some
Timothy Ivy
For some black people, their shock was says they missed the point. “I was hoping argued. But Stinchcomb hoped the drink
formed by the first drink on the menu, people would focus on ‘your.’ Baldwin would spark awareness in the pride and
Summer 2018 | 11
Future South
Blood on the Leaves
ingenuity that preceded the bitter end friend in the whole world. history of genocide and enslavement.
to Black Wall Street. Why does black Damn, I love Clyde! So does The piece earned him a Pulitzer Prize.
achievement vex so many white people? everybody else, coloreds and In 2014, contemporary artist Kara Walker
Stinchcomb leaned back in his chair, whites. What would this town was praised for her large-scale installa-
reflecting on the drink and why it con- be without him? If we didn’t like tion at the site of Brooklyn’s old Domino
jured so much anger. “It’s big, it’s black, the ol’ mayor so much, we’d run Sugar factory, A Subtlety, or The Marvel-
and it’s rich.” Clyde. Hell, still may.” ous Sugar Baby. In The New Yorker, Walk-
By way of the Bullock & Dabney drink, er’s seventy-five-foot-wide, nude, sug-
Stinchcomb aimed to introduce guests we’re primed to note matters of race ar-coated sphinx was “triumphant.”
to Tom Bullock and John Dabney. A and privilege like these. And we should. Stinchcomb was scolded for using the
veteran of the St. Louis Country Club in In 2015 at a Berkeley, California café, bar as a tableau to discuss difficult sub-
Missouri, Bullock published his drinks wait staff “shooed” comedian W. Kamau jects in black history. But the works by
manual in 1917. Dabney, born enslaved Bell from talking to a white woman Marsalis and Walker, and countless
in Richmond, Virginia, was a celebrated holding a baby, and her friends. He wrote others, also interpret historical pain.
caterer and social figure. A master bar- about it, the post went viral, and the That pain, while not wholly defining, is
tender known for his Mint Juleps, he business was soundly critcized. Bell is a integral to the multigenerational black
used his bartending tips, which his owner black man who had just dined at the experience in America. We grapple with
allowed him to keep, to secure his wife’s restaurant; the white woman was his it because it’s alive, right now.
freedom, his mother’s, and finally his wife, the baby their child. Citing a failure
own. That’s a hell of a lot of drinks. And to rebound from the bad press, the café w e e k s a f t e r t h e buzz quieted,
it’s a nod to the double-edged role that closed this past April. Bell had initially Stinchcomb was in the alley behind Saint
tipped wages played during slavery—and received widespread support, but he says Leo when a thirtysomething black man
still play now. some of those supporters, many of them rolled up on his bicycle. He wanted to
The Clyde is named for Clyde Goolsby, white, now blame him for the closure. bum a cigarette; Stinchcomb found him
who owned the Prince Albert Lounge at From my computer screen, Saint Leo’s one. The man asked if he was that bar-
the Oxford Holiday Inn. In the 1980s, harshest critics seemed to be people who knowing of the limits between black and tender. He’d never been to the restaurant,
Goolsby was famous for his Singapore had never been to the restaurant; a white people. Blackness in America has but had heard of the ordeal. He asked
Slings and margaritas. “I had to pay number of them appeared never to have always been judged by degrees, but I’ve Stinchcomb why he’d write a “fucked-up-
homage to the trendsetter in this town visited Oxford. Stinchcomb said black never considered regionalism as a mitigat- ass menu” and said that he was boycotting
for me,” Stinchcomb says. The pinot noir people told him that his menu couldn’t ing factor of black identity. A few days after the restaurant because of their insensi-
in the Bullock & Dabney pairs beautiful- have any positive impact in a town like pulling the menu, Stinchcomb reinstated tivity. Stinchcomb retrieved the old cock-
ly with the rooibos, lime, and bitters. this. “Maybe Memphis or Jackson. Maybe Bullock & Dabney and The Clyde. The tail menu and walked the man through it.
Stinchcomb identifies with Goolsby and Brooklyn. Not in Oxford,” he recounted. drinks were celebratory and broadly per- The man was attentive. “Is this a fucked-
what he must have overcome to own a bar People said he should have hosted a ceived as noncontroversial. And, he felt, up-ass menu?” Stinchcomb asked.
in town. In Willie Morris’ essay collection dinner, a pop-up, maybe off-site and away they were damn good recipes. “I don’t know. It’s still kind of fucked
Shifting Interludes, an unnamed custom- from Saint Leo and the Square, where he up though,” the man replied.
er describes his relationship to Goolsby could present his themed menu. if food and beverage is the cul- “Our history always has been,” Stinch-
in a piece called “Coming on Back.” Others questioned his background. In the tural laboratory we’re saying it can be, comb said.
hubbub, a black writer friend from this then why do we struggle with the idea Stinchcomb invited the bicyclist to
“I don’t quite know how to say region argued that Stinchcomb’s menu and that drinks can serve as a text for complex come see him sometime—at the bar. He
this,” a white merchant tells me, my openness to it were a result of our not ideas? We give music, art, and television said to him, “You can’t boycott a place
“because I’m an old country boy being born and raised in the South (I’m from plenty of leeway. Trumpeter and com- you’ve never been.”
Timothy Ivy
and I grew up the way it was California). She felt that being black and poser Wynton Marsalis’ 1997 epic, Blood
down here, but Clyde’s my best from the South afforded her an inherent on the Fields, dealt with America's Osayi Endolyn is deputy editor for Gravy.
12 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 13
Good Ol' Chico
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE
SOUTH’S ACP KINGS
How one town’s restauranteros built an empire
BY GUSTAVO ARELLANO
O
f f t h e i n t e r s t at e 2 8 5 Over the past forty years, men and
Buford Highway exit in Dora- women from the pueblo have opened hun-
ville, Georgia, stands Monterrey dreds of Mexican restaurants across the
Mexican Restaurant. Business is brisk South and beyond. The names of the
on a Saturday evening as waiters deliver chains change across the country, but the
steaming platters of enchiladas, burritos, menus remain nearly the same, with
and fajitas to mostly non-Latino diners. entrées like the Speedy Gonzales (a taco,
This type of sit-down Mexican spot, an enchilada, and either beans or rice) and
with its bingo-card menu of combo plat- ACP (arroz con pollo, made with grilled
ters swimming in cheese sauce, is déclassé chicken and rice, drowned in a cheese
among Mexicans but still popular in small- sauce somewhere between paste and
town America. A bartender pours frozen pudding.) The latter is a uniquely Sur-Mex
margaritas into giant glasses. Televisions dish rarely found outside the region.
broadcast soccer matches. Christmas Back in San José, as the exodus began,
lights hang across the ceiling. The rest of a pattern emerged: A man moved to el
the decor is similarly “Mexican”—maps Norte for a guaranteed job at a restaurant
of states, sombreros, neon beer signs. owned by a fellow townsman. He worked
A framed painting depicts a tree-filled for a couple of years, learned the business
plaza and a looming Catholic church. from sink to safe, and saved his money.
Customers may not think much of it. But He opened a Monterrey Mexican Restau-
this art is a hieroglyph; to the trained eye, rant in a Southern town where Mexican
it reveals the history of the Mexican restaurants were rare, and called his
restaurant industry in the South, and the family to come and help. One restaurant
saga of the two men who started it. often led to more. The owner joined the
The painting depicts San José de la American middle class and gave jobs to
Paz, a town of just over one thousand in new arrivals. Repeat.
the state of Jalisco. To make their for- San José became so well known in
Illustrations by Ran Zheng
tunes in the United States, natives have Jalisco that the demonym for its towns-
left it nearly empty. Instead of working people became restauranteros. Today, as
stereotypical immigrant jobs in factories newer arrivals spread their cuisines
or fields, San José de la Paz residents across the South, the San José de la Paz
build American dining empires. model slowly fades. Forty-five years ago,
14 | southernfoodways.org
Good Ol' Chico
two former friends went to war to rule brawny; the photo that accompanies workers to open restaurants in partner-
Atlanta’s Mexican food industry. Their Macias’ naturalization petition shows ship with him. In the deals, Raúl retained
tortillas-and-tacos race would transform him in a sporty V-neck T-shirt, a slight the rights to the name “Monterrey,” sold
their hometown—and el Sur. smile hinting at his confidence. them ingredients from his wholesale food
According to family members, Macias company, made all the collective business
san josé de la paz is in Los Altos, and a friend drove down to Atlanta to decisions, and reaped much of the profits.
the highlands of Jalisco. The state is the accompany a coworker who transferred with his first Monterrey Mexican restau- He soon claimed interest in at least six-
birthplace of tequila and mariachi. Los within the company. Macias, who loved rant. It opened just off Buford Highway in ty-five Monterrey companies in North
Altos occupies the same space in the to cook, asked for a transfer as well. He the city of Chamblee. He followed two Carolina and Tennessee.
Mexican imagination that Appalachia does saw an opportunity. Mexican food options years later with a Monterrey in Doraville, “He didn’t care much about the quality
in the American mind. In Los Altos, the in the city were nearly nonexistent then. a two-minute drive from El Toro #2. By of the food,” says Martin. “He opened
people connect their identity to the region’s José Macias opened Acapulco in 1973 then, Macias had three. Atlanta’s Mexican and opened places. He was like, ‘Give me
mountains and agave fields. Native hooch near downtown Atlanta with Raúl León. restaurant war was on. my profit.’ But a lot of people made it
flows freely, and soaring music tells tales The two knew each other from San José. The El Toro and Monterrey chains big,” Martin adds. “They did it with ease.”
of love, adventure, and pride. Back home, León had become a delegado competed for workers, suppliers, loca-
municipal—the Mexican equivalent of a tions, and especially for customers. They by the late 1980s, Atlanta journalists
mayoral appointee—in charge of infra- poached family members from each began to note the transnational entre-
structure projects. He knew how to build other. Martin Macias, José’s youngest preneurial spirit of San José de la Paz
things. Macias invited León to go into brother, first worked for León because natives. Mexican restaurant listings in
business with him. The cantina tried to he paid more. “I stayed until José com- the Atlanta Yellow Pages, once sparse,
cater to the few Mexicans who lived in plained to our mom, ‘Make him work for numbered over a hundred, many founded
Atlanta at the time, but it closed within us!’” says Martin, now owner of El Rey by El Toro or Monterrey alumni.
a year. Not too long after, José Macias del Taco in Doraville. “But Raúl gave us The Atlanta market became so satu-
and Raúl Leon, business partners and a lot of opportunities.” rated that restauranteros staked out their
“I’m alteño, of the good guys/by birth- friends, split. No one knows why. In the late 1970s, most Mexicans in own fiefdoms. In 1986, Jesus Arellano
right,” sang Mexican music legend Jorge In 1974, Macias opened the first El Toro Atlanta lived in one of a dozen or so opened El Rodeo in Roanoke, Virginia,
Negrete in his 1940s hit “Esos Altos de in a former motel diner off Buford apartment complexes in Grant Park, one after a San José de la Paz friend in Atlanta
Jalisco” (“Those Jalisco Highlands”). Highway. He picked the name because of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Every urged him to find an area where there
“And when I talk about my homeland/ it was easy for Americans to pronounce. Sunday, San José de la Paz natives would was no competition. Arellano went on
My heart enlarges.” Despite its beauty, There were several manufacturing plants relax in a nearby park and grill carne to own thirty restaurants. One of his em-
life in San José was tough. Many of its and factories near that stretch of Buford— asada. Mexicans were a rarity. “Back ployees, José Isabel Ayala, broke off to
men began to trek to the United States GM and GE and Frito-Lay. It was a then, people would tell us, ‘You don’t start El Dorado in Raleigh, North Caro-
in the 1950s as part of the bracero perfect place to lure hungry workers who look Mexican,’” Martin Macias says with lina, in 1988; there are seven today.
program, which allowed Mexicans to wanted lunch or an after-shift drink. a laugh. “‘You have no sombrero. You
legally work under contract. One of them Macias explicitly changed recipes to have green eyes. You’re Italian!’”
was Jesús Macias, the father of José appeal to American palates. His menus More El Toros and Monterreys opened.
Macias, a grocer who seasonally picked displayed phonetic pronunciations of José and Raúl brought in more relatives
avocados and grapes in California. now-common dishes like chalupas and and friends to work their outposts. The
The oldest of ten siblings, José Macias quesadillas. Flour tortillas superseded Macias clan opened restaurants in Sa-
joined the wave in 1951 at age fourteen. corn. Tacos came in hard shells. And vannah, Charleston, and Orlando. Former
He bounced between the United States cheese smothered everything. employees opened still more with their
and Mexico before he found a factory job Macias opened a second El Toro a couple blessings, sticking mostly to the ever-ex-
in Chicago in the 1960s, a gig secured by of miles up Buford Highway in Doraville panding Atlanta metro area.
a countryman. At 5'6", he was short but two years later. In 1977, León responded Raúl was ambitious. He convinced
16 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 17Good Ol' Chico
codified the term los hijos ausentes and believe in hard work.” By then, the
featured a list of fifty-four restauranteros Morning News reported, San José de la
who owned a combined one hundred Paz expats ran at least five hundred forty
ninety-seven restaurants in Georgia, restaurants across the South and beyond.
North Carolina, and Tennessee. Thir-
ty-eight of the migrants had at least two
locations; Macias and Leon had twelve
and thirty-three, respectively.
“You forget that legacy
“People from San José de la Paz aren’t until people remind you.
going to beg for a job [in the United
States],” the Mi Pueblo authors bragged,
You stay in awe that people
because “they come with their country- know about your family.”
men…And if they give a helping hand to
any Mexicans, they definitely give it to
those from the pueblo.” today, business is brisk at El Rey retired to their homes north of the city
After building his empire, Leon re- del Taco on Buford Highway in Doraville. in Gwinnett County, which they bought
turned to San José in 1986 to serve, again, On a Sunday afternoon, waiters deliver at the height of El Toro’s success in the
José Ibarra, another El Rodeo alum, as a delegado. Macias, meanwhile, earned steaming platters of alambres, a hot 1980s. The last El Toro closed a couple
born about forty-five minutes to the acclaim in the United States. “José is like skillet of beef, chicken, or chorizo (or all of years ago.
south of San José, opened his own El a donkey that learned to play the flute,” three) with a choice of house-made corn José died in 2006 of diabetes. The
Rodeos in Raleigh, North Carolina, as a cousin joked to Nation’s Restaurant or flour tortillas. The crowd is almost Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not mark
well as a more upscale restaurant, La News in a 1990 article. By 1992, his Chara exclusively Latino. his passing with an obituary. Back in 1992,
Rancherita. “A lot of people saw that a Enterprises (a reference to his nickname, El Rey del Taco occupies the building he had asked the family to split up their
lot of people did good,” says Jesús León. “Charabasco,” a pun on the small fishes where José Macias opened the second twenty-one restaurants among themselves
A second cousin of Raúl’s, he founded he caught as a kid) cracked Hispanic Busi- El Toro. The owner is Martin Macias, and give them new names (Martin
the El Caporal chain in the early 1990s ness Magazine’s Top 500 Latino-owned José’s brother, who helped create a renamed his Los Loros—“Parrots”—so he
in Louisville, Kentucky. His sister’s companies in the United States. Annual soccer culture in the region when he didn’t have to pay too much to change his
husband founded the El Nopal chain, sales hit $5.7 million. He split his time began sponsoring Latino youth and adult marquees). His restaurant in San José de
which now has nearly thirty locations between Mexico and Atlanta, and opened soccer leagues in the early 1990s. He was la Paz closed. “He made bad business
across Kentucky and Indiana. “And it a restaurant in Guadalajara called El Toro one of Atlanta’s first restaurateurs to decisions,” Martin stated plainly.
extended and it extended, and slowly de Don José, with a large outdoor patio, open a true taquería when he debuted El Toro’s legacy lives on. When Martin
almost everyone got into the restaurant traditional Jaliscan food like birria and Los Rayos in 1995. “My brother was the moved two years ago to a new house, “All
industry,” says Jesús. tacos, and an evening mariachi extrava- pioneer of Tex-Mex in Atlanta,” Martin my neighbors were El Toro customers,” he
ganza. When the Georgia Dome stadium says, “and I was a pioneer of taquerías.” says in amazement. “When they found out
sa n j o s é t r a ns f o r m e d. Los hijos debuted in 1992, El Toro opened a stall, He’s one of the last Macias siblings to who I was, they said, ‘Oh, we used to go to
ausentes—“the absent sons”—remitted although the AJC dismissed the skimpy own a restaurant; nearly everyone else El Toro #1.’ You forget that legacy until
money to Mexico to improve infrastruc- chicken fajitas as a “rip-off.” people remind you,” Martin says. “You stay
ture and renovate ancestral homes. When The San José de la Paz dynasty became in awe that people know about your family.”
los Macias returned in the mid-1980s, a so famous that the Dallas Morning News Raúl León spent the last years of his
brass band greeted them at the Guadala- cited the restauranteros as a success story life appealing a $208,324 civil judgment
jara Airport. In San José, extended family in a 1999 multipart series on how against him for breach of fiduciary duty
threw a massive party at the Macias ranch. Mexican migration had changed the and fraud, filed by a distant relative who
In 1994, the town published a book, United States. “Deep down,” Macias told opened a restaurant for him in Wise,
San José de la Paz, Mi Pueblo, which them, “we’re still humble people who Virginia. A 2006 court decision upheld
18 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 19Good Ol' Chico
the initial ruling, and critiqued Leon’s continued opening restaurants creating
business philosophy. The plaintiffs “both what started as a family business into a
regarded Raúl as their ‘patrone,’ or chain. All restaurants are owned and op-
patron, a person who gives instructions
and tells people what to do, a boss to be
erated mostly by family.” None returned
my requests for comment.
SUPPORT SFA
followed without question.” The judge The original Monterrey is now an sfa is at the forefront of the regional foodways field.
included a disturbing footnote: León died abandoned building. A new shopping We lead dialogue about American food culture. Membership
of a methamphetamine overdose in 2001. plaza dominated by Asian businesses dollars account for only 5% of SFA’s annual operating budget.
displaced the first El Toro. The parking Philanthropic gifts fund SFA’s work, including oral history,
many in the second generation of the lot was pink with the labels of burnt fire- film, and publishing.
San José de la Paz diaspora continue in crackers the last time I visited, a day after
their parents’ footsteps. In Louisville, the Chinese New Year. I try to imagine Please make a gift to SFA.
Fabián León, the son of Jesús, runs The the area as it was forty years ago, when Of any amount. It all counts.
Ville Taqueria, where he braises carnitas José Macias and Raúl León were young click the donate button on
in bourbon and mixes margaritas with the and ambitious yet didn’t know that they’d southernfoodways.org to help us
same. He reaps the transformation that change the South’s palate and its restau- tell more true and complicated
his ancestral village wrought in the South. rant landscape forever. stories about the American South.
“Back in the 1990s, my dad told me that Then I recall a stanza to a corrido in-
Preston Highway, where he first opened cluded in San José de la Paz, Mi Pueblo.
[his] restaurant, was gonna be another “To my absent brothers/I recommend
little Mexican village, like in Chicago,” this,” the song goes. “That, although you
Fabián said in a 2015 SFA oral history. “He may be far away/Don’t forget your
said that we’re gonna bring a lot of people pueblo.” At this point in the town’s
here. And I didn’t understand it [then], history, the foods that originated with
but I see [now] what he was talking about.” the men and women of San José de la
Monterrey restaurants and their spinoffs Paz are as signal in the modern-day South
still do business across the country. Each as Nashville hot chicken. Somewhere, I
sports the same simple logo of a sombre- think, as I drive to El Rey del Taco for
ro on top of a serape, with “Monterrey” one more meal before flying home to
above it in red, cursive font. Dozens of California, José and Raúl must be smiling,
websites for different branches describe plotting to open more restaurants.
their history this way: “Monterrey Mexican It’s easy to dismiss San José's restau-
Restaurant was first opened in Doraville ranteros as men and women who
in the 1970s. From there, Mr. Raúl Leon watered down their culture for gringos.
Indeed, Mexicans within and outside
the South dismiss ACP as inauthentic
when I describe the dish. But restau-
ranteros proved a valuable lesson: If
Mexicans could become successful and
integrate themselves into the American
South, then there’s cheese-covered hope Stories about the changing American South through the foods we eat.
for the rest of us. Available on iTunes or at southernfoodways.org.
Gustavo Arellano is Gravy’s columnist.
20 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 21Documentary
DARE TO LOOK
Al Clayton and the
photography of hunger
BY W. RALPH EUBANKS
P
hotographs affect the body as much as they do the mind.
First an image falls within your direct field of vision, providing all the raw
details the brain in turn processes. Then the visual impact of what you see
affects the body on an emotional level, sometimes leading to a descent into per-
sonal experience or memory, making the image either compelling or repellant.
In turn, a wounding or personally touching detail in an image might establish a
strong emotional connection with a photograph. Finally there come the more
Photos © Al Clayton, used with permission of Al Clayton Photography, LLC
cerebral questions of historical context and provenance—when the photograph
was taken, who took the image, how did they know the subject or place. They
allow the viewer to reckon with the image in a more analytical way, thus separat-
ing the visual and aesthetic cues from the emotional ones.
This is a long way of saying that per- The men, women, and children in Clay-
ception is not a passive act. What we see ton’s photographs gaze directly at the
is equally as important as the way we see camera. “It was rare for me to not want
it and the way we feel after seeing it. That to have eye contact with my subject,” the
is why it is difficult to look at Al Clayton’s photographer told NPR’s Michele Norris
images from Still Hungry in America and in 2006. As he took his photographs,
not react emotionally to them. These Clayton asked his subjects what their
images don’t tug at your heartstrings— lives were like, who they were, and who
they hit squarely in the gut. And they elicit they wanted to be. Clayton’s engagement
thought and dialogue about their topic. with those he portrayed gives these
22 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 23Documentary
images their profound intimacy. slowly and cumulatively, to guide the Robert Coles’ text, but also for Clayton’s
Clayton’s photographs deal with a topic viewer through the range of emotional photographs. Yes, the shacks he photo-
that was difficult for viewers to confront and cerebral reactions to the images. The graphs do signal to readers that the topic
in 1968 and is still difficult fifty years later: reason these images remain relevant today of this book is poverty. But it’s not until
the existence of hungry Americans who has everything to do with the intimacy of more than twenty pages into the book
live in poverty and see no way to escape their composition and with his desire to that an image reveals how hunger is en-
from it. Both yesterday and today, the capture visual truth rather than pure, raw tangled with poverty. Clayton captured
hungry seem to live on a hidden plane, emotion or cloying sentimentality. The an open refrigerator perched on a
whether it’s the homeless person we ca- power of Clayton’s photographs derives wooden floor, and its contents include
sually stroll past on a city street or the from his daring. He commands us to look little that looks edible, with the exception
rusting house trailers we ignore that and captures images inside the frame that of a jar of baby food and pieces of what
punctuate the Southern landscape. appeal to both the head and the heart. looks like crookneck squash. A young
Poverty is still invisible, and Clayton Clayton begins Still Hungry in America child stands in front of the door, a spoon
sought to make it visible. with a wide-angle examination of the lying near his bare feet. He looks direct-
Clayton understood this hidden nature landscape. The opening lines make this ly at the camera. The photograph feels
of hunger and poverty. He knew that he clear: organic in its composition rather than
could not convey this world purely by intentional.
evoking an emotional reaction with his The following photographs move from Clayton often photographed what
images, which would be easy to do by neighborhoods to people, from chil- caught his eye when he walked into a Clayton commands
filling them with the standard tropes of room and then what hit his eye next, and
poverty: tattered clothes, dirty faces, dis-
dren to parents to grandparents, from
rural areas to cities, from the past—and kept going in the same manner. On the us to look and
tended bellies. Yes, you will find those still present—realities of farm life to opposite page he captures a few govern- captures images that
well-known signs and symbols of poverty ment-issued commodity items in a still
in the pages of Still Hungry in America,
the new realities that factories and
urban ghettos present. life: flour, perhaps some cornmeal, and appeal to both the
but Clayton does not lead off with them. a few canned items. That follows with head and the heart.
Instead, he builds his visual narrative That statement sets the tone not only for an image of a man standing over a
wood-burning stove, wood stacked pre-
cariously nearby. In just three images, of three friends with third-degree burns
Clayton communicates the daily peril similar to those Clayton documented
these families confront of having enough with his camera.
to eat, the substandard conditions in Photographs provide evidence. Clayton
which they live, and that what little they sought to provide evidence of hunger
own could go up in smoke at any moment. and poverty—as well as the precarious-
For anyone who remembers wood- ness of the circumstances of poverty.
stoves, you probably know they were the These images urge the viewer to ask two
culprit in many a house fire. I know this questions: First, what are the economic
because several classmates in my small mechanisms that led to the circumstanc-
Mississippi town in the 1960s were es depicted here? And second, what are
burned out of their homes by the chance the structures that keep this hunger and
combination of a stray spark from a wood poverty in place?
stove and a highly flammable item Robert Coles’ text provides informa-
nearby. Sometimes it was an item of tion for readers about the cycle of poverty
clothing that went up in flames, which as well as the nutritional and medical
is why my memory surfaces the names issues that afflict the men, women, and
24 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 25Documentary
Contemporary photographs of hunger
would look different: We would see
how the obesity epidemic threatens
the lives of our poorest citizens.
children Clayton photographs. He 1930s, documentary photography has
focuses on the voices of the people on played a role in examining cultural and
the page, which help to shape the way political issues, whether it was Richard
we see and interpret the photographs. Wright’s 12 Million Black Voices (1941)
Coles also realizes the limitations of what on how Jim Crow traveled north with
the written word can do. He writes, “A the Great Migration, Zora Neale Hur-
published photograph, in contrast to a ston’s stories of voodoo in Tell My Horse
documentary—whether written or (1937), or Erskine Caldwell and Margaret
filmed—makes a condition available for Bourke-White’s Depression-era images
permanent inspection. A doctor’s report, in You Have Seen Their Faces (1937). Of
no matter how well written and clinical- course, the most famous of these projects
ly rich, still needs the reader’s imagina- from the 1930s is James Agee and Walker
tion.” In other words, Clayton’s photo- Evans’ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
graphs serve as a means of getting us to This work significantly influenced social wrote about one of the final photo shoots NPR in 2006. His use of intimacy rather
inhabit the world of poverty that we documentation and photography. As with the Hale County tenant farmers: than detachment gives his photographs
might otherwise overlook. A photograph James Agee states flatly in the preface, “Walker setting up the terrible structure their power.
is the ultimate way of showing, not telling “the camera seems to me…the central of the tripod crested by the black square Contemporary photographs of hunger
us, the narrative of poverty in America. instrument of our time.” heavy head, dangerous as that of a and poverty would look different. We
Since it came to prominence in the Al Clayton’s photography relates to hunchback, of the camera; stooping would see how the obesity epidemic—
the work of Walker Evans. Both seek to beneath cloak and cloud of wicked cloth, which is a result of providing inexpensive
create a dialectic of the visual and the and twisting buttons; a witchcraft pre- and marginally nutritious food to the same
verbal to confront a larger social issue. paring, closer than keenest ice, and population that once had a scarcity of
But that is where the similarities end. incalculably cruel.” food—threatens the lives of our poorest
Clayton takes an object lesson from Agee’s observation of Evans stands citizens. But Clayton’s images still connect
Evans’ work: Whereas Evans chose to in contrast to the way Clayton thought with the present. They provide evidence
make detachment part of the composi- of his work. “The face of a hungry child of how we got to where we are today. And
tion of his images—Evans was famous- or their demeanor just really prints on they tell us the dangers of looking away
ly realistic, reserved, and reticent in his me. It’s unforgettable,” Clayton said to rather than daring to look.
approach to photography—Clayton
made a conscious choice to engage with W. Ralph Eubanks is a visiting professor of Southern Studies at the University of
his subjects. Over the course of their Mississippi and author of the memoirs Ever Is a Long Time and The House at the
work together in the Alabama Black End of the Road.
Belt, Walker Evans withdrew as James
Agee engaged. Evans’s stark images were The University of Georgia Press published a new edition of Still Hungry in America
sometimes at odds with Agee’s floral in March 2018, as part of the Southern Foodways Alliance Studies in Culture,
and engaged text. Here is what Agee People, and Place.
26 | southernfoodways.org Summer 2018 | 27You can also read
