Low Price Guarantee
We Take School POs
A Mess of Greens: Southern Gender and Southern Food
Contributor(s): Engelhardt, Elizabeth S. D. (Author)

View larger image

ISBN: 0820340375     ISBN-13: 9780820340371
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
OUR PRICE: $26.55  

Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: September 2011
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Agriculture & Food
- History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv)
- Cooking | History
Dewey: 394.120
LCCN: 2011012367
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" L (0.85 lbs) 248 pages
Themes:
- Sex & Gender - Feminine
- Cultural Region - South
Features: Bibliography, Illustrated, Index, Table of Contents
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

Combining the study of food culture with gender studies and using per­spectives from historical, literary, environmental, and American studies, Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt examines what southern women's choices about food tell us about race, class, gender, and social power.

Shaken by the legacies of Reconstruction and the turmoil of the Jim Crow era, different races 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. Engelhardt reveals a broad middle 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. Incorporating community cookbooks, letters, diaries, and other archival materials, A Mess of Greens shows that choosing to serve cold biscuits instead of hot cornbread could affect a family's reputation for being hygienic, moral, educated, and even godly.


Contributor Bio(s): Engelhardt, Elizabeth S. D.: - ELIZABETH S. D. ENGELHARDT is a professor of American studies and women's and gender studies at the University of Texas, Austin and is the chair of the Department of American Studies. She is the author of A Mess of Greens: Southern Gender and Southern Food (Georgia) and The Tangled Roots of Feminism, Environmentalism, and Appalachian Literature.
 
Customer ReviewsSubmit your own review
 
To tell a friend about this book, you must Sign In First!