Behold! A pixie prances in the Bacon Forest!
(Photo: Pableaux "Paul" Johnson)
I just spent half a week in a bizarre alternate universe. There, a ham maker can be accorded the respect due a head of state. There, the parsing of barbecue's savage and cannibalistic undertones is an intriguing line of conversation. There, "frying chicken" can be presented as a slang term for sex…and it somehow makes sense.
If you think you're ready to be in such a world, then I welcome you to the annual Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium. (A little bit of background, because he's a little too modest to write about it himself, but the SFA is where our very own John T. Edge is Director.) And while for 361.5 days out of the year it's a collection of Southern food lovers, scholars, writers, anthropologists, cooks, farmers, artists, artisans, and philosophers, during the half-week that is the Symposium, it's more like a roving gang of whiskey-fueled catfish eaters terrorizing the poor town of Oxford, Mississippi. For the second year in a row, I counted myself proudly among that godforsaken group. If you dare, click through for some of the highlights.
I arrived a little late, at the end of the first panel discussion, but just in time to greet Allan Benton on his way out the door. Allan's been curing hams and smoking bacon in total obscurity for decades, until all of a sudden he became a pork star and now he gets mobbed by adoring chefs everywhere he goes. I introduced myself to him, but he remembered me from our first meeting—two years ago, at his smokehouse, when I was one of 20 folks on a field trip. He smiled warmly, and I couldn't help but think of the cliché of him being all "aw shucks," but it's for real. All the hero worship hasn't gone to his head.
Jessica Harris, as part of an illuminating talk on race and food, told a story of Hercules, perhaps the first American celebrity chef. Commander of George Washington's kitchens, a fashionable dandy in Philadelphia, Hercules garnered so much fame there is a painting of him in Madrid. He was also a slave. One day, as Washington was out chopping cherry trees or something, the superstar slipped into ether and was never heard from again. Turns out freedom smells better than fame.
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