Cornbread Nation 7
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Cornbread Nation 7

The Best of Southern Food Writing

Edited by Francis Lam

Title Details

Pages: 288

Trim size: 6.000in x 9.000in

Formats

Paperback

Pub Date: 05/15/2014

ISBN: 9-780-8203-4666-3

List Price: $27.95

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eBook

Pub Date: 05/15/2014

ISBN: 9-780-8203-4695-3

List Price: $27.95

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Series

Cornbread Nation Ser.

Subsidies and Partnerships

Published in association with Southern Foodways Alliance

Published with the generous support of Friends Fund

Related Subjects

COOKING / Essays & Narratives

COOKING / Regional & Ethnic / American / Southern States

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Cornbread Nation 7

The Best of Southern Food Writing

Edited by Francis Lam

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  • Description
  • Reviews
  • Contributors

How does Southern food look from the outside? The form is caught in constantly dueling stereotypes: It’s so often imagined as either the touchingly down-home feast or the heartstopping health scourge of a nation. But as any Southern transplant will tell you once they’ve spent time in the region, Southerners share their lives in food, with a complex mix of stories of belonging and not belonging and of traditions that form identities of many kinds.


Cornbread Nation 7, edited by Francis Lam, brings together the best Southern food writing from recent years, including well-known food writers such as Sara Roahen and Brett Anderson, a couple of classic writers such as Langston Hughes, and some newcomers. The collection, divided into five sections (“Come In and Stay Awhile,” “Provisions and Providers,” “Five Ways of Looking at Southern Food,” “The South, Stepping Out,” and “Southerners Going Home”), tells the stories both of Southerners as they move through the world and of those who ended up in the South. It explores from where and from whom food comes, and it looks at what food means to culture and how it relates to home.

Cornbread Nation 7 is American regionalism at its finest. It’s a splendid collection of tales of Southerners traveling abroad, immigrants journeying to the South, and children of immigrants living in the South and then reflecting on their heritage. Through the meticulous efforts of guest editor Francis Lam, on behalf of the Southern Foodways Alliance and general editor John T. Edge, we have been bestowed with this gem.

—Shyam K. Sriram, PopMatters

'Love' and 'home' (including homes far from the South) show up more than once in this book, but please don't fear Crock-Pots of sentimentality. The subject—this great complicated subject of Southern food, Southern food history and chefs, the habits and humor and rules that go in and around and behind our food—is here described and analyzed and eulogized by some of the South's finest writers.

—Clyde Edgerton, Garden & Gun

The writings in Cornbread Nation 7 are as varied as the South itself. Some of the authors were born Southern, some come from away, but their love for and connection with the South and its food bring them all together. . . . Their works show how the South is changing with outside influences, while keeping its own identity. Even if you’re not a die-hard ‘foodie’, anyone with an interest in food or Southern culture can enjoy this book.

—Zinia Randles, Tennessee Libraries

Daniel Patterson

Susan Orlean

Sara Roahen

Edward Lee

Eddie Huang

Sara Wood

Ida MaMusu

Kathleen Purvis

Argentina Ortega

Nikki Metzgar

Todd Kliman

John T. Edge

Sara Camp Milam

Francis Lam

Robert F. Moss

Rayna Green

Lolis Eric Elie

Burkhard Bilger

Barry Estabrook

Gabriel Thompson

Besha Rodell

Jane Black

Bill Heavey

Dan Baum

Jonathan Miles

Sue Nguyen

Julia Reed

Seán McKeithan

Sarah Hepola

Patricia Smith

John Sullivan

Amy Evans

Ann Taylor Pittman

Jack Pendarvis

Jeffrey Steingarten

Mary Louise Nosser

Langston Hughes

Jessica B. Harris

Stephen A. Crockett

Monique Truong

Brett Anderson

Courtney Balestier

Joe St. Columbia

Estate of Lucille Clifton

Joe York

Jake Adam York

Robb Walsh

Kevin Young

About the Author/Editor

FRANCIS LAM is editor-at-large at Clarkson Potter. He appears at the Critics’ Table in the fifth season of Top Chef Masters (Bravo). He was features editor at Gilt Taste, which was awarded six IACP awards and four James Beard award nominations in its first two years. His own writing has been nominated for a James Beard award and three IACP awards, winning one. He has served as senior writer at Salon.com and a contributing editor at Gourmet, and his work has appeared in the 2006–13 editions of Best Food Writing.

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