A mess of greens : Southern gender and Southern food / Elizabeth S.D. Engelhardt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Engelhardt, Elizabeth S. D. (Elizabeth Sanders Delwiche), 1969-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Food habits--Southern States--History.

Food habits.

Food--Social aspects--Southern States--History.

Food.

Cooking, American--Southern style--History.

Cooking, American.

Women--Southern States--Social life and customs.

Women.

Manners and customs.

Cooking, American--Southern style.

History.

Food--Social aspects.

Southern States--Social life and customs.

Southern States.

Southern States--Social conditions.

Social conditions.

Women--Social life and customs.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 265 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Athens : University of Georgia Press, [2011]

Summary:

Shaken by the legacies of Reconstruction and the turmoil of the Jim Crow era, different faces and classes came together in the kitchen, often as servants and mistresses but also as people with shared tastes and traditions. Generally focused on elite whites or poor blacks, southern foodways are often portrayed as stable and unchanging-even as an untroubled source of nostalgia. A Mess of Greens offers a different perspective, taking into account industrialization, environmental degradation, and women's increased role in the work force, all of which caused massive economic and social changes. Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt reveals a broad middle ground of southerners that included poor whites, farm families, and middle- and working-class African Americans, for whom the stakes of what counted as southern food were very high.

Five "moments" in the story of southern food-moonshine, biscuits versus cornbread, girls' tomato clubs, pellagra as depicted in mill literature, and cookbooks as means of communication-have been chosen to illuminate the connectedness of food, gender, and place. Incorpo-rating community cookbooks, letters, diaries, and other archival materials, A Mess of Greens shows that choosing to serve cold biscuits instead of hot corn-bread could affect a family's reputation for being hygienic, moral, educated, and even godly. Book jacket.

Contents:

Whose food, when, and why?: longing for corn and beans

Moonshine: drawing a bead on Southern food and gender

Biscuits and cornbread: race, class, and gender politics of women baking bread

Canning tomatoes: growing "better and more perfect women"

Will work for food: mill work, pellagra, and gendered consumption

Cookbooks and curb markets: wild messes of Southern food and gender

Market bulletins: writing the mess of greens together.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-257) and index.

ISBN:

9780820334714

0820334715

9780820340371

0820340375

OCLC:

720898922

Online:

Book review (H-Net)

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