You Eat What You Are: Food and Identity in the American South

Abstract

Food is a universal concept that connects numerous people around the world and is often what breaks the cultural barrier, creating a shared space of flavors that represent one’s cultural identity. The American South is known for food that comes with connotations of comfort, spice, warmth, and represents the struggles of various groups of people including Blacks, Whites, and Native Americans. Using an ethnographic approach with a case study focusing on earlier family generations, this thesis seeks to identify and observe food practices that contribute to the overall personalization of the American South. Additionally, this thesis aims to highlight how American southern food contributes to the shaping of the American southern identity. Each chapter of this project will aim to highlight varying aspects that contribute to this topic.

To start, a literature review was conducted to highlight current information and scholarly works contributing to this topic in the anthropological space - presented in Chapter 1. Additionally, Chapter 1 is also an introduction to this project and presents an outline of project research to come. Chapter 2 showcases various foodways of the world and differing cultural relationships with food. Chapter 3 highlights American southern history and how the base of American southern food began. Chapter 4 presents various ways that media influences how we interact with foods and food information. Throughout, various critical analyses were conducted on differing media that highlight the global presentation of the American south and what it represents from both an outside and personal perspective. Furthermore, chapter 5 presents information from a series of observations and interviews that were conducted with great aunts and friends to highlight how people perceive the role of American southern food. Through observations of traditional food practices, inclusion of specific ingredients and interviews discussing topics of American southern tradition, major findings revealed that personalization of the American South is rooted in experience. Results show that themes of environmental exposure, family, and tradition continue to influence and carry the southern dishes that the world knows today