“You can smell a civilization by the food that is cooking. That’s how we know one another in the South,” said author Marcie Cohen Ferris in a recent interview. Southern foodways are actually trails that, if taken in reverse, give evidence to the multiple cultures which have settled in the region. Creole Cajun food is a well-documented example of the French settlers incorporating local ingredients to create a new cuisine. The enslaved Africans brought with them the knowledge of foods and dishes originating in Africa. Jewish communities also brought recipes of traditional dishes to the South. These folks, in turn, would integrate indigenous products and multi-cultural cooking techniques.
Ferris explores Jewish Southern foodways in Matzoh Ball Gumbo: Culinary Tales of the Jewish South. She writes, “Regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, or gender, Southerners connect to family and regional history at every meal.” Ferris grew up in a Jewish family in the small town of Blytheville, Ark., eating matzoh ball soup and black-eyed peas. Today, Ferris is the associate director of the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies and assistant professor of American studies at UNC. She’s also the vice president of the Southern Foodways Alliance of Oxford, Miss. Ferris considers herself an academic writer whose expertise is food history and culture, rather than a food writer.
In a recent conversation, Cohen described the love of food that is common to all Southerners: “Food is the language that we share. Food is what ties Southern Jews to the Jewish community, to the South, to their country and to their country of origin. It’s the only tie some have to a family that is gone or perhaps to a way of life that is gone. This is particularly poignant for Jews. Food is part of the heritage they value and one that they cherish.”
Jewish Southerners are a small percentage of the total population: half of 1 percent. Living in the South presented particular challenges to Jews following the Jewish dietary laws, or kashrut, which forbid the consumption of pork and shellfish, including crab, shrimp, and oysters — all hallmarks of regional Southern cuisine. Ferris noted that “keeping kosher” was particularly difficult in rural areas which did not have the benefit of kosher butchers and grocery stores that larger urban areas had. She noted there is a range of compliance to kashrut: many Orthodox and Conservative Jews keep kosher. Meanwhile, Reform Jews “follow a Southernized kashrut that allows them to enjoy forbidden foods with a minimal sense of guilt. They avoid eating pork barbecue or ham at home, but they enjoy it at local restaurants.”
What impact have Jewish Southerners had on regional food? Ferris says Jews were well integrated with their gentile and black neighbors and, in those communities, “everybody started eating krugle (an egg noodle, cream cheese, and fruit dessert).” She notes renowned Raleigh author and restaurateur Mama Dip/Mildred Council included three recipes for krugle in her latest cookbook. Ferris writes that, historically, African American domestic workers learned family recipes by working for Jewish households, and Jewish families enjoyed eating such blended dishes as lox and grits, and “Sabbath fried chicken.” Round Jewish hallah, a bread symbolic of life, is also popular in the South. And why wouldn’t it be? It’s a squishy, sweet, white bread.
Ferris’ research for Matzoh Ball Gumbo was dependent on the classic Southern generosity of strangers, since family recipes were required. Ferris interviewed more than 100 Jewish Southerners about their food traditions and chose 30 recipes that were representative of the Southern Jewish experience. She said that recipes are the “great act of memory” passed on from one generation to the next. And that the recipe card is a dying form. “Today,” she continued, “No one passes out the handwritten recipe card. Now, we go to the Internet or a cookbook.”
The oldest recipe in her book is one for “Lemon Stew Fish,” from Savannah circa 1830 — but it can be traced to that family’s Sephardic connection to Spain.
Ferris concentrated on six Southern cities including Charleston, Savannah and Atlanta, places with historically larger Jewish populations. She noted the Memphis paradox: known for barbecue and home to one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities in the US. In fact, barbecue is enjoyed by Jewish communities throughout the South, including Ferris’ hometown, where folks would go to services and then eat at the Dixie Pig. She wrote, “When a death occurs in Blytheville, friends bring a tray of Dixie Pig’s chopped barbecue, sauce and buns to the home of bereaved relatives and friends.”
Ferris has filled Matzoh with dozens of illustrations and photographs, but perhaps none are as intriguing as the Coca-Cola ad pronouncing that soft drink as “now kosher for Passover.” This meant, of course, that a rabbi had to be privy to the Coca-Cola secret recipe in order to certify the ingredients as kosher.
In choosing the title of her book, Ferris considered that gumbo served as a metaphor for the Jewish Southerner experience: a “complex stew of many ingredients which must simmer” for some time. Of course, that applies to us all down here in the Southland.
Author Marcie Cohen Ferris will be at the Levine-Sklut Judaic Library and Resource Center in Shalom Park for a lecture and book signing at 4pm on Sunday, Oct. 23. For more information: 704-944-6780.
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This article appears in Oct 19-25, 2005.
