Food For Thought; #101; John T. Edge

we're sorry reasons for the bodies and monthly programme exploring thought provoking topics like speakers civic presentations and enlightening advanced about northwest florida writes program features excerpts from a lecture sponsored by the institute for human and machine cognition now joy nationally known columnist john t edge as he presents let us now praise famous cookies rethinking white trash can i write about food and culture about people in place at it is there is an entree thinking about race class and gender those things mr faulkner paul weiss verities against is an incubator of community was deeply influenced by rail than birds book when i read it a few years back the great good place and infuse that in much of my writing and i think it it bears out in bears out as i ate my way through your community over the past past few days that was too

long coffee cup blue dot and murmurs of recognition jerry's and it sets this afternoon where i ate tonight i will laugh we make you hungry but for me and some of the amenities and that state's you for awhile at chances afternoon ahead cornmeal crust of mullet know marinated mullet mullet backbones monday hazards that resentment has risen right i haven't tasted like i told him of the biggies like fervent amari that big and what's it i also had yellow robe and a white alike at all and i believe after spending this time that

you could make a study of this community by way of mali can see this community through moment although i know it's kind of difficult to say but i was let us now praise famous cookbooks rethinking the white trash cook book and i began this way twenty years have passed since our as mattie makers white trash cookbook baby are re examine the intent and impact of this florida city work taking into account the influence of gay camp culture as well as a similar depression era portrait let us now praise famous men and that's some pretty fair approximation of what i'll talk about tonight after spending the past few days holed up in this and just kind of getting a close reading to the text i am as well as crews in the papers of nickel or that i attained couple years ago members of the universe to florida i've come to see the gay camp issue is probably of the lesser import and the comparison to

lose their praise famous men is is even greater than the suspected there's a piece that will eventually end up as a magazine article for me in the oxford american and come out and they were marching like that so the mints in many ways this is kind of a rumination that's not quite finished so bear with me unhook in georgia are in january of nineteen eighty six jonathan williams of the jargon society a nonprofit literary press based in north carolina received notice from the new yorker magazine that they would not publish the presses advertisement for their latest effort artist matthew makers white trash cookbook jordan's camera ready art and a check for nine dollars return a spokesperson for the new yorker said quote without a title might offend our readers writer roadblock countered with provincial where sadness job or a native georgian in an early proponent of the book that just goes to show you how much the new

york knows about anything involving gravy others took more serious tax in voting barbara kafka observed white trash king is a marvelous in genuine book it's he's clearly without condescension the language sings throughout brian miller of the new york times called mature spiral down opus the most intriguing book of the nineteen eighty six cookbook season where the few unvarnished regional cookbooks around pullman andrews now the interim chief of sever then the theater of metropolitan home called white trash cooking the best american cookbook of the century off or anyone jump in many areas by farmers in nineteen eighty seven he's saying this is the best cookbooks of the century at seven years past closer to whom upon receipt of the galley copy and trying to convince jones the book to

take seriously i can't marry him plus o upon receipt galley copy a spinster from monroeville alabama wrote a letter of congratulations to the jordan society i've never seen a sociological documents such beauty the photographs alone are shattering i shall treasury always now that it's harder than ever to identify the genuine article on site with two generations of prosperity white trash looks like to injury we've long needed something other than the ballot box trim imus of the president's white trash cooking is a beautiful task but a stubborn and proud people spencer of course was harper lee she did endorse many books you know and you never see her name went to projects harper lee said that about

the white dress cookbook it was to be frank a curiosity and we now have a copy of some point but we had somebody at one intern scibelli know mug you had copies and for those of you did not dulled your copy mixing mona lisa sat macaroni salad and go yo yo putting baking resurrection make grand canyon cake in vicky's thickens for those of you have never had the pleasure of pondering a recipe for canned corn beef sandwiches or potential sandwiches or my favorite girl scout one eight well i think the egg sandwiches i would like to introduce you to the book cover here it appears a spiral bound in a manner of our region stable community cookbooks which incidentally were first published in the civil war as a means of raising funds for treatment wounded soldiers and support families who lost sons fathers and

farms to the ravages of battle the back of the cover image was a client of commercial products you can say to a certain extent here and you can see more easily in with a copy of the book itself your hand and tabasco ritz crackers velveeta cheese not to mention those icons uncle ben in to mama and martha white there were overlaid on a base of most turnip tops and rectangular cutlets and you can see a little bit of those here and there's another sort of vegetables support recognizing jerusalem as well do not come fresh from the farm but straight from the cayenne and as a regularity to those included sen mcconnell rectangles and you know he was arrested and say that's like a stretch it's white trash this last part is important this was not been arrested from the lonely soul of north florida this was supper the primary ingredients for which came wrapped in cellophane and were available for purchase of the local piggly wiggly on the inside cover

jonathan williams of the jargon society had this to say if you were trying to explain these recipes and snap shots although some groundwater like horrible could say there's nobody to sneeze the rituals of white southern world hasn't really when suggest that the reader imagine paul booth who's swooning over such delicacies as big readers rainbow icebox cake today's for the poor cats and the cold colored sandwich as the turkeys drips on his provide but williams also underestimates the guys are laughing but williams also had a deeper meaning after coming makers way with words his snap bean protein style the chemical for pulling publisher who in private correspondence referred to himself as an a risk though dixie queer and chemical or the carmen miranda of moccasin creek is it that a forty six foot restful good at

the center of the book fill out a piece of southern living and that southern living lower case not the medicine suggested by the photographs of william christenberry know i'm sure many don't know the work of christian very different view of you do not it is among our regions greatest native photographers born in hale county alabama same blackmail county that writer james agee and photographer walker evans chronicled in their depression era masterpiece let us now praise famous men came in the same way that when they study that place christenberry made his life's work to make part of the mundane of our eyes the vernacular and early in his career christenbury claim the work of a gene evans is lodestar on a close reading of the photographs in the text white trash i've come to believe that the citation of christenbury was not incidental that mcclure with either influenced by the us now praise famous

men or more likely influenced by the unflinching unsympathetic style of documentation their work and gendered we rolled through the photographs that are at the center of the book now and i'm not a common element is what job to think about them and think about them in a way dr and it just the humor that is obvious into these food import gets think about this as a document of a place and time by a photographer and i can prove that makes a rare even knew of the book let us now praise famous men which included many of those same photograph the board full dress uniforms carry destruction but he didn't know and read zora neale hurston other words he was not an eighth he was aware of the canon chow that just blew me away nicking set of his first encounter with lines of person a barge trained anthropologist protege the great academic friends well as queen of the harlem renaissance author of their odds are watching god and also a

native of florida she worked in the same show around our walked on played out the same wood saw the same rivers that's what mayor a fighter every day for writing like kirsten who documented the lives and working class blacks middle of focus his limbs and cocked his ear an attempt to capture the patterns of everyday whites first then concentrate on details and so nicol chose recipes to spend she was eating which i hasten to remind you is the second most in which we engage with others most intimate course being sexy after that my reference to her skin of straying too far from what us now praise famous men and i don't need to do that meant the point but the worst person that of a gene evans or late and the parallels between let us now praise famous men and a white trash cookbook extend beyond the complement of text and photographs we just saw the photographs the tax or the recipes in and the tvs for the poor cats like watches cooking let us now praise famous men was controversy a way

of getting poor folks in rural south the author's ran the risk of pandering those who saw no nobility and the lives of their subjects as such both books were deeply concerned with their audience with explaining the authors in tibet in mediating how the book might be perceived by detractors in the preface to let us now praise famous men james agee confessed that he believed in the book was better read aloud was a performance to be lived this is a book only by necessity he wrote more seriously it is an effort in him in actuality in which the reader is no less centrally involved in the offers in the preamble to book to ag's how are you to read these words and study these photographs and through what caused by what shapes and for what purpose and by what right do you qualify to a gene evans brought to life people unsuspected so that hearst said a nickel or so for that matter did the rising waters in the wake of hurricane katrina according to ag what

seems most important of all is that these i will write of our human beings living in this world in some such twisting says these which are taking place over their heads and day and that day what the wealth among these people investigated spied on revered and loved i can do it i do it all here it would be photographs rest would be fragments of cloth bits of cotton lots of earth records of speech pieces of wood and iron files of odor plates of fu anyways at home away the ones in this paragraph a piece of body torn up on the roots might be more to the point it's heady stuff at indian rosewood talking about putting the white church cookbook in context in a conflicted rage and torn by reverence for tradition and an assassin no future few would embrace this book half dozen new york publishers turned it

down for one of the time when that would not offend but the jargon society the person of jonathan williams samir what others saw nothing more than a goof williams was a veteran of black mountain college in north carolina an early important locus of freefall and southern the city john cage the composer buckminster fuller the architect merce cunningham dancer choreographer willem de kooning the painter all through town called black mountain college college campus fuller built the first few days ago in nineteen forty eight caves days the first multi media happening at black mountain college in nineteen fifty two and the black member of doing business from fifty four to fifty seven publishing flow into all firms including the generation writer allen ginsberg when black mountain closed that's where jonathan williams came the picture for jargon he resurrected reviewed by way of this thing called the jargon

society is self proclaimed mission was to keep afloat the arc of culture in these dark and tacky times it was born in nineteen forty in paul vallely foreigners and honesty to a father who worked as a shrimper and a mother who have varying times worked as a cook and a filling station attendant makers family lived without electricity until he was seventeen rating in the middle of a swap he told reporter for the new york daily news where bridge crossing inland waterway five or six families are no fish camp run by a woman named papa george the building is as clean cut cypress wooden shutters that was father died when the boy was six record called him and i mean some of the indignant and is a complement on the other hand that were once called his mother an arraignment or low down this white trash that ever walked the face of the earth in a minute is a complement mama was a great fisherman he said read

this past trout drum all of vocal on while in the neck and she shouts a cult of the fish neighbors at a neighbor's adolescence was not wholly provincial when he was fifteen and keep a cat daughter of the woman he called mama to a woman who contributed to these fried pork gets to the book when she was twelve meckler and the cat scored a regional country music hit i went on tour and depending upon the story believe either open for signed back up for or merely converse in a hotel lobby with patsy klein and roy orders that the song is treated in the story just becomes quite fast one mimic or selling arms that we said we were not big time we opened with them alike that eventually went to college year in a master's degree a bachelor's degree in jacksonville state and r and the suggestion of his teacher memphis would

he moved on to mills college in berkeley where your master's in fine arts while in berkeley he concocted the idea for the white trash cookbook the first to get his friend sol is going up a campy queens television show in the book later developed into the idea later developed into a book as nickel ore as a gay man the south in a win on this big a vagabond circuits in california to new orleans to key west and when he was in key west he got the call from jonathan williams saying we want to publish a book this is after trying to sell for five or six years and the books served as a manifesto of sorts from a killer and i think the format for the use of the term white trash whiskey he talked often of the difference between the lower case y trash and upper case catalyze white trash they gutted it legal robot mentors and pride separate the

two common white trash is very little in the way of pride no manners to speak of and hardly any respect for anything really body kapur white trash on the other hand never fail to say yes ma'am and no sir never sarah made up dead never open someone else's icebox ever left and on your plate never left the table without permission and never forgot to say thank you from kenya's favor the implication was that printing the epithet in capital letters was can this act of transcendence i think a marker of moving from plantation cropper to more than a stereotype by using white trash by using that epithet he claimed it first people become a badge of honor that there was work on a second book sink and spells hot flashes fits in craven's it was no matter what the time i conjure a more mature effort one that still the law's recipes and photographs but concentrate upon

from the vets for its ceremonies like a dinner after a cemetery cleaning or casserole luncheon of a quilting circle and most affecting and that this is by this book it's worth reading it just for this one case the wake of making his own dear mother told by way of a one sided phone conversation this woman's talking on the phone or yours so you should sing that it ends in a fight but awake arm it's it's a stunning piece of writing it really and it does show this kind of comic tension that is building is learning to tell stories in humans beyond just the recipes is taxed but truly is is building a narrative from the the longest piece in there's probably a fifteen word si and it's really well done a lot of live the maker didn't really anyone filled hubris by successive when he was a solid as principal of the book he said

the second book he said ah casserole them to death in writing this book in fits and starts much of that when he was on tour for the white church cookbook and i found one this is some this episode i like so much of the white his mother's why i found in his papers the beginnings of that story and written it on the backend air sickness bags on the plane and read the beginnings of it now as the second book came out and so did midler on the back cover of the book somebody out yes on that watches the last of the reason i'm staying on the back cover of the book in in the background at the sink you see a man and white briefs in a white t shirt and mentors at the stove to miniscule it rolling with grayson the

scene is is very intimate its own virtual and celebration of hummus actual domesticity it was purposeful nicholas porritt he was he was more sure of himself and more sure of the subject but it came a little light i'm sickened spells was published on the monday on november fourteenth nineteen eighty eight miller died that tuesday the next day and aids there he left behind and publish stories thousands of photographs is this novel or two and a hundred page your history which i drew upon good but this tall record buys friend scallions and i think more important for me at least he taught america how see a world in a people and suspected these recipes and these recipes and photographs and that's what fascinates me about this book is that he is the form the

traditional form a cookbook a cannon exploded he tore apart and put it back together again and he told a story of people in place or way of recipes and photographs thanks and jabs guitars and white trash and that's why i appreciate the book and while since we've been talking now of course is going to come into this market leaving with with them in the car having just passed away that same way and i think his book has reverberations throughout can of the consciousness of the south but not so many people could have got that and in the wake of the follow on his boat was as kind of bastardized white trash culture that came out of it in essence i think it should and admit to his books the two came out that's it vaughan but ten speed press

commissioner remarkable from jordan mr leiter is your book by his cousin tricia mckinney call more white trash talking and then they also came out with swat cooking with the river people also issued by ten speed press with a woman was a no relation a metal but but and also cleaned the same format of recipes and social commentary it was fully loaded with this color photograph for photographs of the fold in the middle but he just didn't have that empathy that that drove this book and i think i hope y'all solace photographs of great empathy for people and does all the things were just paled in comparison many bad and white panels and then there were times and we find that we're sorry and there are opportunistic and that their contemporary books unlike this now because see the boston things like really ends down home trailer park the book and it's a farce that it's not up to me this is a sociological

document that it intended grumpy and an icon and it probably wouldn't almost would see those books and grumpier still researchers insist on all close with this i came upon a white trash at least it's a nightclub kamel hipster haven in summer with julio yellow facade is outfitted with traders service bars and it features the likes of being a really straight for mccain and tater tots mother in velveeta i asked pryor i went to this place i didn't drink a rebel what they offered what was the trigger to his white trash as a provider console if he knew the white trash couple is it yeah we try to get his daughter out here for a grand opening now was getting right this guy had no clue why trust the book was on and had no clue that

but the tribunal rather bizarre out there and i asked him about how business with a name like this is perceived in a symbol of pro of political correctness like cindy cisco and he told me of butter a white trash be straight he said that's the new concept where the white trash the street and talk and to not lifestyle not economics i really don't make of that but i do know that nick was talking mice now he was talking about the facts sixteenth sitting president

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