Status Updates From A Mess of Greens: Southern ...

“…Let us take seriously the connections between town and country in the recipes and market stands. The mess of greens hiding in plain sight – the connections between people and places that nourish in value both – might then be unearthed.”

Sorry for the three separate posts 😄 for one long quote but this was too good and Goodreads character count is too short!

“Let us instead listen to the messages in the recipes, the signatures, and the organization of cookbooks from women’s groups in places large and small. Let us reconsider the talk, so often dismissed as foolish gossip beside the tables of the Saturday, curb markets as potentially transformative political debate…”

“We cannot speak, if we only use scholarly caution, about Granny Starkweather’s recipe collection or the Junior League cookbooks. We notice them, but we cannot take them seriously or without irony. The friendship and self education of White and Black women in curb markets, selling vegetables, talking with each other, and forging connections across town and country would be dismissed as impossibly naïve…”

“Because food both intimately connects and divides genders, classes, races, and regions, food makes history and culture palpable and palatable. People talk about food even when they are not intending to… and they talk about themselves when they intend to talk about food.”