Greens in Black and White - NY Times
The Southern Foodways symposium in Oxford will try to balance serious academic discourse with good eating. The conference will begin with a whole pig roast, and over three days — and meals of fried catfish, Coca-Cola brisket, grillades and deviled eggs — attendees will hear lectures with titles like "Possum 'n' Taters — Where Have You Gone?" and "Methods and Ethnographics of Watermelon Pickles."
In the past talk in these sessions has inevitably turned to race, whether that was the primary aim or not, and frequently the conversations resulted in hurt feelings. A speaker who claimed that fried chicken had European origins, for instance, caused "a collective hissy fit," Mr. Edge said.