Authenticating Southernism

Chapter five turns to the side dishes on the Southern food table, exploring the connection between the food and the region. Cornbread, grits, and greens are Southern food staples. Whether Southerners eat these foods out of economic constraints or preference, the seasonal and region-bound foods send a message. Their selection is a rhetorical deference to Southern roots based in humble, fresh, seasonal ingredients. The creation of these dishes is an important tie to family roots, with families or even entire communities claiming to have the most authentic take on the food. The chapter delves into the authenticity thread that is apparent in discussions of Southern food and explains the symbolism bound up in food through this concept. Authenticity is one way that we strive to maintain cultural order and show our allegiances to that order. Based on this desire for order and authenticity, this rhetorical work helps define the region.

Turf Tussle

Chapter four examines how barbecue is a Southern cultural institution that sends rhetorical messages about Southern history, gender, race, class, ritual, and fellowship. Barbecue is a type of cultural synecdoche that continues to bring different types of people together, telling stories that simultaneously shape and express contemporary Southern identity. If Southern food helps shape identity, barbecue provides a perfect example of this process because its rhetoric and ritual incites profound identification with regional styles. Tussling about which barbecue is best engages identity forming behavior that serves a rhetorical purpose in gradually knitting groups of people together over their shared love of a particular food tradition. Barbecue conveys identificatory messages of authenticity, masculinity, and rurality, stretching casuistically to still be descriptive of the South’s character. The chapter explores how (and whether) perceptions of traditional Southern foods like barbecue stretch to broaden and deepen the narrative about Southern food.

A Troubled Region and its Possible Culinary Fix

Chapter two surveys the rhetorical problem that the South faces, a complicated history marred by racial violence, segregation and discrimination, and economic inequality. Whether you are an African American Southerner with a family history haunted by racism and violence, a white Southerner with a family history of discriminating or tolerating discrimination, or a Mexican immigrant facing negative social outcry, feeling pride in the region can be troubling. Despite conflicting identities, Southerners continue to define themselves in relation to the region, and the reality-based and stereotypical images of the Southerner are part of the identity that Southerners must encounter. The Southern food movement serves a constitutive function by helping to craft a Southern identity based on diverse, humble, and hospitable roots that confronts a divided image of the South. This rhetorically constitutive work provides an opportunity for strengthening relations within the South, as well as helping repair the negative Southern image.

The Stories, Subjectivities, and Spaces of Southern Food

The signs that we had hit upon an important cultural and rhetorical subject were all apparent to us as we began our research into Southern food. We found that audiences—whether at a roadside stand or a convention hotel ballroom—would open up, smile, and freely share their memories, opinions, and ideas. After all, most people who are from the South or who identify with the region, despite being “of” another region, have opinions on what makes good Southern food. The topic crosses lines of race, class, gender, region, and so forth, providing an opportunity for a common discussion point....

Redefining the South through Food

Chapter seven provides a reflection on what it means to be constituted in a particular food tradition. Food it is a central part of identity that has not been fully accounted for in communication scholarship. Southern food never has been one thing; in fact, the food works more effectively rhetorically when defined more broadly, pushing against the borders of foods and bringing more people into the conversation. Although there is potential for using Southern food as one of the tools to redefine the South, we must acknowledge there are many wrongs that must be dealt with, not only through studying culture and its history, but also through economic policy, political change, improvements in education, and infrastructure work. The rhetorical potential of Southern food is but one small part of the story of our shared past and future, but it is an important part and it is a story worth telling.

Nostalgia, Ritual, and the Rhetorical Possibility of Southern Baking

Although the South is well known for its desserts, it might not always be clear how Southern dessert traditions developed as they did and how they figure in shaping the identities of the region’s people and practices. Burke (1966) reminds us that terministic screens direct our attention to certain realities and away from others, whereby we forget that baking constituted back breaking, sweaty repression for certain groups of Southerners. This chapter argues that familiar Southern desserts may tie us to our pasts, but through certain types of nostalgia and ritual they also provide space to help change the South’s narratives about race, gender, and community. Southern desserts are suspect in limiting women’s subjectivities, worry modern health sensibilities with their Southern sweetness, and carry the weight of troubling African American history. Our meal ends, however, by investigating how these traditions might offer a taste of connection and resilience along with satisfaction.

Sipping on Southern Hospitality

Chapter three introduces the idea of hospitality in the South through an exploration of drinks. Although the idea of Southern hospitality is emphasized in stereotypes of the region, there is also some basis in truth. The offering of food and drink is a traditional symbolic gesture of Southern hospitality and serves as a rhetorical opening for creating connections. In a region marked by division, however, race, class, and even religious differences have historically complicated Southern hospitality, inviting some in while keeping others out. The hospitality that is symbolic of the region was (and still is) limited to certain recipients. Events and homes remained segregated and hospitality might only be extended to those who shared characteristics with the host. Religion also plays an important role in defining part of the contradictions in Southern hospitality. Thus, the limitations of this part of Southern identity are explored in the chapter.

Consuming Rhetoric

This chapter details the concept of identity and places the book within the tradition of rhetorical scholarship. It argues that Southern food is a constitutive rhetoric, creating a people based on the shared experiences through the food, as well as the narratives surrounding the food. Using food experiences, oral histories, and readings of various alternative texts, it highlights the need to continue to move beyond “texts” to explore the rhetorical implications of “identificatory” experiences, such as food culture. By showing how our identities can be shaped through sensory experiences (taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound) and memory during Southern food experiences, we continue to develop the line of constitutive scholarship that explicates how our identities constitute our practices. Southern food, then, influences how we view ourselves and can therefore influence our practices, which is to say how we perform our Southern influenced identities.