White Director Of Southern Foodways Alliance Urged To Resign
John T. Edge, co-founder of the influential Southern Foodways Alliance, has been asked to step down by several colleagues and food media professionals. The most recent request was in a public webinar hosted by the James Beard Foundation, in which Nigerian chef Tunde Wey asked Edge to step down and give his position to an African-American woman. “I’ve been in the position 20 years,” Edge responded, “It’s time for me to get out of the way. I recognize and embrace that.” Edge went on to explain that he has been preparing for his successor for several years. According to the organization’s publicist Melany Robinson, Edge has raised more than $13 million, including an endowment to pay his successor’s salary. In response, Wey said that it is taking longer than anticipated to find a replacement.
The Southern Foodways Alliance was formed to preserve and document the food of the Southern United States, and by many accounts, Edge’s work has been carefully addressing issues of food and race for years. “What we have is a middle-aged man who like so many progressive Southerners has wrestled with the demons of his white Southern past and used that to help build a better South,” said Marcie Cohen Ferris, a former board president and professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina.
One of the ongoing issues is that Edge has risen to prominence with several of his own published books, magazine articles, and media appearances that have changed the historical narrative about African-American, immigrant and Indigenous cooks who pioneered what came to be known as Southern food. But he did that while the descendants of those same people struggled to get published themselves. Ferris hasn’t flat-out called for Edge’s resignation but endorses an exhaustive reorganization of the alliance and the hiring of people of color in management positions. .
Bakers Tout The Spicy Flavor Of Mesquite Flour
Mesquite trees have long had a reputation as a pesky weed, but the wood has been put to good use as fuel for barbecue. Bakers also swear by the flavor in mesquite beans. The beans are encased in pods that resemble long string beans. When the beans are milled into flour and baked, their hazelnut, cinnamon, cream, and molasses aromas come alive. Mesquite flour is gluten-free, so it’s frequently mixed with wheat flour to help breads and baked goods hold their shape and rise. Wheat’s mild flavor also moderates mesquite’s more intense taste. Think of it as a Southern heirloom ingredient, one that many bakers are now celebrating for its unique flavors. Austin-based baker Sandeep Gyawali has even started the Texas Mesquite Movement to encourage the culinary use of native mesquite pods.
Kimchi Isn’t Just Pickled Cabbage
Though cabbage is the most widely known base for kimchi, this staple of the Korean table is more of a preservation method than a single food. “I think of kimchi as a verb,” says food writer Eric Kim. “You can kimchi just about anything.” The dish can be made with fennel, tomatoes, radishes, scallions, cucumbers and other vegetables. If you’re in a hurry, Kim suggests a quicker alternative. “I like to combine vegetables with vinegar to achieve kimchi-like results, which I think of as ‘quick kimchi.'” The key is to pre-salt the vegetables for at least 30 minutes to draw out some of their moisture. “In Korea, these technically would be considered muchims,” says Kim, “which can refer to any number of ‘seasoned’ or ‘dressed’ salads or other preparations.”
More Than 115,000 Sign Petition To Rename Columbus Ohio “Flavortown”
Two weeks ago, the mayor of Columbus, Ohio, Andrew J. Ginther, announced that the city would remove the statue dedicated to Christopher Columbus outside of city hall. Soon afterward, a petition on Change.org sought to change the official name of Columbus, Ohio to “Flavortown.” So far, more than 115,000 people have signed on, easily reaching the minimum 50,000 signatures required for the petition to be accepted for consideration at city hall. Why Flavortown? Celebrity chef Guy Fieri is a Columbus native, and his fans call him the “Mayor of Flavortown.” Plus, the city is a well known test market for new food products. “Why not rename the city Flavortown?” said Tyler Woodbridge, the petition organizer. “The new name is twofold. For one, it honors Central Ohio’s proud heritage as a culinary crossroads and one of the nation’s largest test markets for the food industry. Secondly, cheflebrity Guy Fieri was born in Columbus, so naming the city in honor of him (he’s such a good dude, really) would be superior to its current nomenclature.” Fieri himself has yet to publicly comment on the petition.
Cheese Prices Swing From Near 20-Year Low To Record Highs
When restaurants and schools went under lockdown, demand for cheese plummeted and the market price of block cheddar dropped to near 20-year lows. Shortly afterward, consumer demand for cheese skyrocketed, and market prices followed suit. By June 8, cheese prices reached a record high when a 40-pound block of cheddar went for $2.585 a pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a 160% turnaround from mid-April when the same block of cheese sold for just $1 a pound. Block cheddar prices influence the entire wholesale and retail market for all types of cheese, and according to Phil Plourd, president of Wisconsin dairy consulting firm Blimling and Associates, “It’s the most volatility that we’ve seen in the cheese market ever.”
After cheese prices reached their low point in April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced its plan to spend $3 billion to purchase food from farmers, including $100 million a month on various dairy products. Analysts say the decision put a floor under prices, preventing them from dropping precipitously low. Meanwhile, consumer demand has remained relatively high with consumers buying 20 to 30% more cheese at stores compared to last year, according to market research firm IRI. Restaurants reopening around the country has further increased demand, and cheese prices have now begun to climb again, remaining just 3% under the record high levels of early June.
Pitmaster Daniel Castillo Brings Central Texas BBQ To L.A. Communities In Need
While Daniel Castillo was working as a corporate chef for Whole Foods in California, he held weekend barbecue popups in Orange County. Soon, his Heritage Barbecue venture became so popular that Castillo quit his dayjob to pursue his barbecue dreams. The coronavirus threw a wrench in the works, but Castillo still plans to open this July and in the meantime, he developed O.C. Smoke Kitchen to serve hospitality workers who are out of work due to COVID-19. At one event, Castillo and his team prepared 800 smoked pulled pork tortas, smoking 360 pounds of pork butt to get the job done. When Castillo received a full packer’s cut brisket, his team turned it into a brisket roulade stuffed with a mixture of mushrooms, caramelized onions, rosemary, garlic, thyme, parsley, and bourbon. Castillo says, “Being one of the few craft barbecue destinations in southern California, I want to push the boundaries of what American barbecue can be.” Castillo even bakes cheesecake in his smoker, a dish unique to Heritage Barbecue. Bourbon smoked ham is another specialty, featuring ham cured for 14 days in a bourbon barrel from Texas, then smoked and glazed with Texas bourbon.
Banned Since 2005, Beluga Caviar Available Again In America
The roe from beluga sturgeon is the world’s most expensive caviar. Prior to 2005, the U.S. imported 80% of the world’s beluga caviar supply. When the U.S.S.R. eased its strict fishing regulations, beluga sturgeon became overfished quickly and put the endangered species list. A vigorous black market for beluga caviar exacerbated the problem, causing beluga sturgeon to become so endangered that the U.S. banned imports entirely. Prior to the prohibition, Mark Zaslavsky, founder and owner of Marky’s Caviar, harvested some beluga sturgeon from the Caspian Sea and brought them to the U.S. for sustainable reproduction. This species of sturgeon is the biggest freshwater fish in the world, requiring a narrow range of temperature of other environmental conditions and taking 10 to 15 years to produce eggs. Zaslavsky has spent the last 17 years watching over his fish at Sturgeon Aquafarm in Florida. He has now successfully produced homegrown beluga caviar that is available in America for $420 per half ounce. Zaslavsky’s farm has also donated over 160,000 fertilized eggs for sturgeon repopulation efforts.
Families Of Former Aunt Jemima Models Oppose Rebranding
Two families of women who have portrayed Aunt Jemima for the Quaker Oat’s syrup and pancake brand say they disapprove of the company’s plan to retire the racist brand. The original logo depicted Aunt Jemima with a wide smile and a bandana, an image based on Kentucky native and Civil War-era slave Nancy Green. Later, in 1925, Lillian Richard of Hawkins, Texas, became the face of the brand, and Richard’s family recently spoke out against the rebranding decision. “I wish we would take a breath and not just get rid of everything,” said Vera Harris, the Richard family historian, “because good or bad, it is our history. Removing that wipes away a part of me. A part of each of us. We are proud of our cousin.”
In 1989, the Aunt Jemima brand image was redesigned again with a new model wearing pearl earrings and sporting straightened curly hair. Anna Short Harrington is believed to be the model in the 1989 logo, and her family has also spoken out against the rebranding. “This is an injustice for me and my family. This is part of my history,” said Larnell Evans Sr., Harrington’s great-grandson. “The racism they talk about, using images from slavery, that comes from the other side – white people. This company profits off images of our slavery. And their answer is to erase my great-grandmother’s history.”
Food Brands Revise Their Racist Names And Images
As America confronts its racist history, PepsiCo’s packaged foods unit announced that it will retire the Aunt Jemima brand of syrup and pancake products. The Aunt Jemima brand was created in 1889, inspired by a song called “Old Aunt Jemima,” which was often performed by a white man in blackface in minstrel shows. A new product name and packaging are slated to roll out in during the fourth quarter of 2020.
Within hours of the announcement last Wednesday, Mars Inc. also said it will be changing its Uncle Ben’s brand to remove the racist image of a black chef. Several other leading food companies have recently followed suit, vowing to revise the packaging on their products, including B&G Foods Inc.’s Cream of Wheat, ConAgra’s Mrs. Butterworth’s, and Dreyer’s ice cream’s Eskimo Pie. These announcements follow the early lead of Land O’ Lakes, which declared in February that it will remove the kneeling Native American woman from its logo on Land O’ Lakes butter and other products. .
Rocket Scientist Traces History Of Black Barbecue
Dr. Howard Conyers’s day job is designing testing facilities for rocket engines at NASA’s Stennis Space Center outside New Orleans. But Conyers has another vocation: documenting the history of Black barbecue in America, something he’s been working on for the past six years. Conyers grew up in South Carolina, cooked his first whole hog when he was 11 years old, and still considers whole-animal cooking to be the most foundational part of American barbecue. “People talk about ‘no waste’ like it’s something new,” says Conyers, “but that’s what Black pitmasters have been doing for centuries.”
Conyers has visited and interviewed as many Black whole-animal pitmasters as he could find across the South, compiling their oral histories of a traditional method that dates back at least 400 years. From Grady’s Barbecue in North Carolina to Campbell’s Quick Stop in South Carolina to Jones Bar-B-Q Diner in Arkansas, every Black pitmaster he spoke with explained how digging holes or building cinder block pits has always been the standard because that’s what was available to slaves. Even the classic vinegar-pepper barbecue sauce dates back to slaves who mopped the sauce over barbecuing whole hogs because ketchup, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce hadn’t been invented yet.
Conyers says there are less than a dozen Black whole-animal pitmasters left in the country, including a few younger ones like Bryan Furman at B’s Cracklin’ BBQ in Atlanta and Rodney Scott at Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston. Conyers began documenting the oral histories of these traditional pitmasters and telling their stories at universities to help make sure that the story of barbecue includes its roots in African American foodways. Conyers is turning his years of research into a book about Black barbecue and says, “Barbecue is an evolving process, and it’s going to continue to evolve, but you should always keep a road map to the past.”
