Southern Foodways Alliance

09/01/2026

Happy 901 Day, Memphis! To celebrate, meet the faces of the Memphis chefs, bakers, and roasters feeding attendees at the 2026 Southern Foodways Symposium, October 10–11.

Bartholomew Jones and Renata Henderson founded Cxffeeblack (cxffeeblack) in 2019 as a community-oriented, education-based coffee company, building an entirely all-Black coffee supply chain, from Ethiopia to Memphis. (Photo Credit: Cxffeeblack)

Chefs Andy Ticer and Michael Hudman (Andrew Michael Italian Kitchen) are the award-winning culinary force behind Enjoy A|M Restaurant Group. Born and bred Memphians, the duo introduced Memphis to innovative Italian cooking rooted in Southern tradition. (Photo Credit: Enjoy A|M Hospitality Group)

Josh Steiner is chef-owner of Hive Bagel & Deli (Hive | Memphis Bagel Coffee Pastry Shop). Raised in Memphis, he worked his way up from dishwasher to restaurant chef before enrolling at L’ecole Culinaire and following his passions to Italy to learn from the Sicilian masters. (Photo Credit: Hive Bagel & Deli)

Jonathan Magallanes is the force behind Las Tortugas Deli Mexicana, where Mexican tradition meets the Mid-South. (Photo Credit: Houston Cofield)

Patrice Bates Thompson continues The Four Way’s legacy of serving love on a plate to people from all walks of life.

See the full schedule and register at the link in our bio, and check out our stories to learn even more about our food providers.

08/31/2026

Peach cobbler, with a little something unexpected.

Featured in Gravy 100 as part of our Ultimate Summer Vegetable Plate, Sheri Castle’s Peach Cobbler with Gruyère Biscuit Topping and Blackberry-Buttermilk Sherbet is a recipe rooted in family, place, and a bit of Southern ingenuity.

Sheri developed the recipe from her grandmother’s peach cobbler. Her grandmother used cheddar or hoop cheese; Sheri prefers Gruyère for its savory balance against the sweet, fragrant peaches. The biscuit topping is tender and dumpling-like where it meets the fruit, while the blackberry-buttermilk sherbet brings a puckery finish.

Sheri first made the cobbler for an SFA field trip to Eastern North Carolina in 2012, where she prepared nine iconic North Carolina desserts for a hungry crowd arriving by bus at a historic church in downtown New Bern.

Now, it’s part of our celebration of 100 issues of . Order it now via Hub City Press (Hub City Press) at the link in our bio.

08/29/2026

What does an SFA summer taste like? For our 100th issue of , longtime SFA member Sheri Castle (Sheri Castle) set out to answer that question with The Ultimate Southern Summer Vegetable Plate, inspired by meals shared at SFA Symposia, field trips, Potlikker Film Festivals, and beyond.

The result is an all-star lineup of recipes that tastes like summer, sings with nostalgia, and beckons you to the table.
First up: Savory Tomato Pie with Ranch Whipped Cream. 🍅

Video by: Forrest Mason (Forrest Mason)

08/28/2026

Registration is officially open for the 2026 Southern Foodways Symposium! Join us in Memphis October 10-11 to explore food and movement across space and time in one of the South’s most influential cities.

Get to know some of the presenters ahead of time:

Jared “Jay B.” Boyd (), multimedia journalist, on-air personality, and co-founder of WYXR 91.7 FM, will explore Memphis’ rich musical legacy and the role of music in shaping the city’s identity. (Photo Credit: Jared “Jay B.” Boyd)

LaTricea Adams, founder, CEO, and president of Young, Gifted & Green (), will examine the intersection of environmental justice, civil rights, and community advocacy in Memphis. (Photo Credit: The Media Prince)

Simone Delerme (), Associate Professor of Anthropology and McMullan Associate Professor of Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, will consider migration to the South, exploring race relations, integration, community development, and social class. (Photo Credit: Ole Miss Graduate Programs in Southern Studies)

See the full schedule and register at the link in our bio.

08/26/2026

Let’s raise a gravy boat to 100 issues. 🥄

What began as little more than an SFA member newsletter has grown into an award-winning publication documenting, studying, and exploring the diverse food cultures of the changing American South.

To celebrate, we’re giving you two generous helpings of quarterly. The summer issue is a greatest hits compilation, bringing together more than two dozen stories and poems from the past decade alongside a few new delights—including a photo essay marking the closure of Athens, Georgia institution Weaver D’s and a mouthwatering collection of vegetable plate recipes from Sheri Castle (Sheri Castle).

And there’s more to come. This fall, we’ll serve up a fresh helping of deeply reported stories about the ever-changing South and how we meet and embrace its challenges.

100 issues is a milestone worth celebrating—and we couldn’t be more excited to share what’s next.

To be sure you don’t miss this issue, subscribe at the link in our profile.

Illustration by Lindsey Bailey (Lindsey Bailey)

08/05/2026

The Southern Foodways Alliance is pleased to announce that tickets are now on sale for our 2026 Fall Symposium, taking place in Memphis on October 10–11. Please join us for a weekend of top-notch food and drink, engaging presentations, and great company (that’s you, our SFA community).

Together, we’ll explore food and movement across space and time in one of the South’s most influential cities. From the Mississippi River to Interstate 40, Stax Records to Beale Street, and the People’s Grocery to the I AM A MAN campaign, we’ll examine the historical, cultural, and physical forces that have shaped the Bluff City and its foodways. Along the way, we’ll consider how generations of Memphians have built—and rebuilt—the city they call home, and the enduring role food plays in that story.

Reserve your tickets through the link in our bio and explore the full symposium schedule. We look forward to welcoming you to Memphis.

07/22/2026

Nearly one in six Louisianans struggles with food insecurity—a reality that plays out not just in the numbers, but at kitchen tables and grocery checkouts across the state.

Today on podcast, New Orleans reporter Katie Jane Fernelius takes listeners to the frontlines of hunger in Louisiana. She starts before dawn on the warehouse floor of Second Harvest Food Bank—200,000 square feet of food moving out to more than 500 pantry partners—and then follows Dafnee Chatman, an advocate and mother of four, down the aisles of her neighborhood grocery store in Evangeline Parish as she does the math of a weekly shop on SNAP benefits.

“Making Groceries” looks at food stamps not as a line item in a budget fight, but as a lifeline—one that’s consistently proven to reduce hunger and poverty, even as it’s chipped away by new restrictions on who qualifies and what they can buy. It’s a story about dignity, choice, and what it really takes to keep a family fed.

Listen at the link in our bio or wherever you get your podcasts, and don’t forget to subscribe.

07/13/2026

SFA is saddened to learn of Thomas Williams’ passing. Thomas was kind and generous. He loved the South, southern food, and his people. When Thomas decided you were his, you stayed in his circle forever. Our world is brighter for having known him.

To learn about arrangements, visit Thomas’s obituary in our bio.

Photo by Pableaux Johnson

07/08/2026

Tea may be a Southern staple, but almost every tea leaf Americans drink is grown somewhere else. In Mississippi’s Pine Belt, however, a handful of farmers are working to change that.

Today on podcast, join reporter Georgia Sparling as she visits two pioneering tea farms that have spent years proving Camellia sinensis can thrive in Mississippi’s tannic soils. From devastating crop losses and years-long growing cycles to cultivating a distinctly Southern tea industry, these growers are redefining what American tea can be—one harvest at a time.

Find Gravy wherever you listen to podcasts.

Gravy explores the tea farms popping up in Mississippi’s Pine Belt, where the tannic soil is perfect for growing tea.

06/30/2026

SFA is so sorry to learn of Larry Proffitt’s passing. Dr. Proffitt was the longtime proprietor of The Original Ridgewood Barbecue in Bluff City, TN. Known for barbecued hams — sliced thin and piled high on a toasted bun and blue cheese dressing — served ice cold in a small bowl with a stack of club crackers for slathering or dipping, Ridgewood remains a must visit on any barbecue pilgrimage.

To learn more about Proffitt’s life and legacy, dig into his 2009 oral history and, take some time to listen to Fred Sauceman’s tribute to Proffitt on his podcast Vital Voices linked in bio.

Photograph by Amy C. Evans.