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2013 Southern Foodways Symposium: Women at Work

16th Southern Foodways Symposium
October 4-6, 2013
Women at Work

The sixteenth Southern Foodways Symposium will be held October 4-6, 2013, on the campus of the University of Mississippi and in and around the town of Oxford. The Symposium formally convenes at noon on Friday, October 4, and closes at noon on Sunday, October 6. Thursday, October 3, hosts optional activities for early arrivers.

This year we examine the role of women in Southern foodways. Much previous academic and popular attention has focused on women as stewards of home and hearth. Instead, the SFA will ask questions about how women farmers, artisans, and cooks have forged cultural identities, challenged gender conventions, built businesses, and driven economies.

For 2013, we explore female spaces like kitchen libraries and project kitchens. We tell stories of female entrepreneurs who earned their keep selling standards like yeast rolls and mayonnaise. We pay homage to the women who have long worked both the back-of the-house and the front-of the-house. And we celebrate the lives of women of letters like Vertamae Grosvenor, author of Vibration Cooking, and Edna Lewis, author of The Taste of Country Cooking.

With those women in the lead, we will savor breakfasts of fire-toasted cornmeal pound cake, lunches of country captain, and dinners of cayenne-sluiced fried chicken. First time attendees will enjoy Tabasco-spiked bloody Marys. Everyone will enjoy wine from Virginia and beer from Tennessee, both crafted by women.

Look closely at the schedule and you'll note that women will do the talking (and performing, and cooking) this year. Men will not step to the stoves until Sunday, when they pay homage to the women who went before them.

For complete schedule information and more detail, visit www.southernfoodways.org.